The median voter and the median consumer: Local private goods and population composition

When a product's product provision entails fixed costs, it will be made available only if a sufficient number of people want it. Some products are produced and consumed locally, so that provision requires not only a large group favoring the product but a large number nearby. Just as local governments provide public goods appealing to individuals sharing the median voter's preferences for local public goods, product markets may provide an analogous benefit to individuals sharing living communities whose consumers tend to share his preferences in private goods. Using zip code level data on chain restaurants and restaurants overall, this paper documents how the mix of locally available restaurants responds to the local mix of consumers, with three findings. First, based on survey data on chain restaurant patronage, restaurant preferences differ substantially by race and education. Second, there is a strong relationship between restaurants and population at the zip code level, suggesting that restaurants' geographic markets are small. Finally, the mix of locally available chain restaurants is sensitive to the zip code demographic mix by race and by education. Hence, differentiated product markets provide a benefit—proximity to preferred restaurants—to persons in geographic markets whose customers tend to share their preferences.     

我国参与区域经济一体化的利益和策略选择

一、当前区域经济一体化的发展趋势和新特点 当前,区域经济一体化和全球化已成为支配世界经济发展的两大主流趋势.     

Modeling voter choice to predict the final outcome of two-stage elections

Most election forecasting research to date has been conducted in the context of single-round elections. However, more than 40 countries in the world employ a two-stage process, where actual voting data are available between the first and the second rounds to help politicians understand their position in relation to each other and to voter preferences and to help them predict the final outcome of the election. In this study we take advantage of the theoretical foundation on voter behavior from the political science literature and the recent methodological advances in choice modeling to develop a Nested Logit Factor Model of voter choice which we use to predict the final outcome of two stage elections and gain insights about the underlying political landscape. We apply the proposed model to data from the first stage and predict the final outcome of two stage elections based on the inferences made from the first stage results. We demonstrate how our proposed model can help politicians understand their competitive position immediately after the first round of actual voting and test its predictive accuracy in the run-off election across 11 different state governorship elections.     

The demand for judicial sanctions: voter information and the election of judges

We examine 20 partisan judicial elections over an 8-year period to determine whether judge specific information shows in election results. We find demand for judicial sanctions looks much like other voting processes. Among voters, Democratic incumbent judges, who tend to be lenient, are rewarded for being harsh, while Republican incumbent judges, who generally are harsh, are rewarded for being lenient. Voters are not found to be a random sample of the population, and we find that straight ticket votes obscure information from selective voters. This paper benefitted from comments received by participants at the Public Choice Meetings, and from useful comments from Aimee Chin, Janet Kohlhase, an anonymous referee and the editor.     

A positive correlation between turnout and plurality does not refute the rational voter model

Many papers have tested the prediction of the rational voter model that, ceteris paribus, turnout will be low when potential voters expect the winner's plurality to be large. The appropriate null hypothesis, however, is unclear. We show that statistical models of voting in which each voter's decision of whether to vote does not vary with the expected plurality can nonetheless generate data which lead to both positive and negative correlations between turnout and plurality.     

The median of the poisson distribution

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a closed form expression for the median of the Poisson distribution and, second, to improve the known estimates of the difference between the median and the mean of the Poisson distribution. We use elementary techniques based on the monotonicity of certain sequences involving tail probabilities of the Poisson distribution and the Central Limit TheoremReceived November 2002     

Predicting general election outcomes: campaigns and changing voter knowledge at the 2017 general election in England

There is a growing literature suggesting that the result for each constituency at British general elections can be predicted using ‘citizen forecasts’ obtained through voter surveys. This may be true for the majority of constituencies where the result at previous contests was a substantial majority for one party’s candidates: few ‘safe seats’ change hands. But is it true in the marginal constituencies, where elections are won and lost? Analysis of such ‘citizen forecast’ data for the Labour-Conservative marginal constituencies in 2017 indicates not. Although respondents were aware of the seats’ relative marginality and of general trends in party support during the campaign, they could not separate out those that were eventually lost by each party from those that were won again, even in seats where the elected party won comfortably.

     

The influence of financial participation and participation in decision-making on employee job attitudes

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial participation (FP) and participation in decision-making (PDM) on employee job attitudes. The central premise is that both financial participation and participation in decision-making have effects on job attitudes, such as integration, involvement and commitment, perceived pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, satisfaction and motivation. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, developed by Long (1978a) and Florkowski (1989), a new model was constructed to consider a combined effects of both FP and PDM, herein referred to as employee participation (EP). The underpinning of the model is based on the assumption that both (a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision-making (‘employee participation’), and (b) participation in decision-making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes. The test of the new model showed that employee participation does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes, than does participation in decision-making on its own. The data were gathered from a questionnaire study administered in a large British retail organization that operates two types of ownership schemes – profit-sharing and SAYE schemes.     

Bounds for the median of the negative binomial distribution

Summary Bounds are obtained for the median of the negative binomial distribution which are valid for all possible parameter values of the distribution when the median is defined as inf {x: P(X≤x)≥1/2}.     

战略联盟到战略网络的演化分析

随着市场竞争的日趋激烈,战略联盟已经成为企业间合作的主要形式。然而,任何一种组织为了生存和发展必须不断适应环境的改变,因此,战略联盟的演化逐渐成为研究的焦点。文章通过战略联盟与战略网络的比较,基于企业熵理论,分析战略联盟向战略网络演化的途径,找到战略联盟向战略网络演化的关键点——核心企业的形成。     

Measuring housing affordability: Looking beyond the median

We draw a distinction between the concepts of purchase affordability (whether a household is able to borrow enough funds to purchase a house) and repayment affordability (the burden imposed on a household of repaying the mortgage). We operationalize this distinction in the context of a new methodology for constructing affordability measures that draws on the value-at-risk concept and takes account of the whole distribution of household income and house prices rather than just the median. Empirically we find that the distinction between purchase and repayment affordability can be pronounced. In the Sydney prime mortgage market over the period 1996–2006, repayment affordability deteriorated very significantly while purchase affordability remained quite stable. This difference can be attributed to the loosening of credit constraints in the mortgage market which it seems has carried through primarily into higher house prices rather than an improvement in purchase affordability. We also show how median house-price-to-income ratio measures of affordability can be extended to take account of the whole distribution of income and house prices, and how as a result of differential skewness in the house price and income distributions the housing affordability problem may be significantly worse for lower income households than suggested by standard median measures.     

Targeting fertility and female participation through the income tax

We evaluate the effect of a 2003 reform in the Spanish income tax on fertility and the employment of mothers with small children. The reform introduced a tax credit for working mothers with children under the age of three, while also increasing child deductions for all households with children. Theoretically, given the interplay of these two components, the expected effect of the reform is ambiguous on both outcomes. We find that the combined reforms significantly increased both fertility (by almost 5%) and the employment rate of mothers with children under three (by 2%). These effects were more pronounced among less-educated women. In addition, to disentangle the impact of the two reform components, we use an earlier reform that increased child deductions in 1999. We find that the child deductions affect mothers' employment negatively, which implies that the 2003 tax credit would have increased employment even more (up to 5%) in the absence of the change in child deductions.     

城市规划民主与公众参与

在民主政治的基础上,公众参与既是民主政治的通俗化表达、一种权力制度,又是一种具体的社会民主形式.具体到城市规划领域,公众参与既作为一种权力制度,以一种抽象的规划权力运行机制存在,又作为具象的城市规划民主的实现形式而出现;在此意义上,城市规划民主与公众参与是一致的.公众参与只有在城市规划民主的基础上才具有实质意义.     

Endogenous labor force participation and firing costs

I construct a matching model to explain the labor market transition between employment, unemployment and nonparticipation, and evaluate the quantitative effects of firing costs. The model has several features that are distinguished from previous studies: endogenous labor force participation, different job-search decisions and imperfect insurance markets. I find that the model is able to account for the U.S. labor market, especially the gross labor-force transition rates. I also find that firing costs as a type of firing tax have a negative effect on the layoff rate, the job-finding probability and the participation rate. In particular, the effect of a decrease in the job-finding probability is greater than the effect of a decrease in the layoff rate, and this results in an increase in the unemployment-to-population ratio. Finally, firing costs make individuals' job tenures longer and skew the asset distribution to the right.     

浅析A320系列飞机刹车系统工作原理

飞机的刹车系统是飞机起飞和着陆阶段的关键系统之一,它是否正常工作影响着飞机是否能准确及时地减速制动飞机,影响着飞机的正常运营,甚至会直接危及飞行安全。本文简单介绍A320系列飞机刹车系统的工作原理、构成以及常见的故障分析。     

城市化对大众体育参与的影响

基于中国综合社会调查(CGSS2015)数据,采用广义分层线性模型方法,实证分析了我国城市化进程中城市原住民、城市新移民及农民工等三个不同群体的体育参与差异。结果显示:城市化进程与大众体育参与率之间呈U型关系;在城市化初期阶段,因城市人口快速增长引致的体育公共资源挤压对城市原住民体育参与的负向影响相对较小,而对城市新移民和农民工体育参与的负向影响较大;城市化过程中人均体育场馆面积和人均体育经费投入的增加对三个群体的体育参与均有显著的促进作用,但农民工从体育场馆和体育经费投入中获得的体育参与回报最低。     

Venture capitalist participation and the post-issue operating performance of IPO firms

Previous studies have identified the value-added potential of venture capitalist monitoring in the initial public offering (IPO) market. We test this proposition by comparing the post-issue operating performance of venture capitalist-backed IPOs with a matched sample of non-venture capitalist-backed IPOs. We find that venture capitalist-backed IPO firms exhibit relatively superior post-issue operating performance compared to non-venture capital-backed IPO firms. Further, the market appears to recognize the value of monitoring by venture capitalists as reflected in the higher valuations at the time of the IPO. Finally, we find that proxies for the quality of venture capitalist monitoring are positively related to post-issue operating performance.     

Strategic interaction and aggregate incentives

We consider a model of interdependent efforts, with linear interaction and lower bound on effort. Our setting encompasses asymmetric interaction and heterogeneous agents’ characteristics. We examine the impact of a rise of cross-effects on aggregate efforts. We show that the sign of the comparative static effects is related to a condition of balancedness of the interaction. Moreover, we point out that asymmetry and heterogeneous characteristics are sources of non-monotonic variation of aggregate efforts.     

关于城市规划公众参与的反思及机制构建

城市规划作为一项公共政策,公众参与是实现其价值取向的重要方式。在公众参与制度的建设过程中,随着城市化的推进、社会经济体制的转型、市民社会的兴起,公众参与制度也面临着新的挑战和困境。以效率与公平为分析视角,探讨在《城乡规划法》颁布之后,城市规划编制的公众参与制度的建设问题。基于西方公共管理理论,认为提高公众参与的有效性,是平衡与缓解城市规划中的效率与公平矛盾、改善城市规划编制与决策绩效的有效途径,并从工作程序、工作方式、组织保障机制等方面提出了具体策略。