Efficiency,access, and the mixed delivery of health care services

Universal health systems often rely on both pubic provision and contracting arrangements with private hospitals. This paper studies the optimal mix of public and private provision of health care services. We propose a model in which the regulator acts as athird-party payer, and aims to ensure universal access to treatment at minimal cost. Patients need one unit of medical services and differ in the severity of illness. A private and a public hospital are available. Under incomplete contracts, ownership affects the regulatory constraints and the power of managerial incentives. Only the private manager internalizes profits, and has incentives to reject costly patients and to exert effort in cost reduction. Contracting with the private hospital is optimal when managerial effort is relatively effective in reducing costs. By using the public hospital as a last resort provider, the regulator can ensure access, provide incentives to the private manager, and internalize part of the resulting cost savings. Imposing a no-dumping constraint on the private hospital reduces the power of incentives and is not always optimal.     

An optimization framework for addressing aquatic invasive species

This study develops a bio-economic model framework to optimize the management of aquatic invasive species. Stochastic dynamic programming is applied to investigate when and to what extent a society should engage in efforts to reduce the likelihood of an invasion, to control and eradicate a newly established population, and to adapt to damages. The framework is parameterized for a potential Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea) invasion in the warm water discharge area of a nuclear power plant planned on the northern shores of the Baltic Sea. The sensitivity analysis reveals three distinct strategies: an adaptive strategy, which reduces the damage that an existing invasive species population causes to the private sector; a preventive strategy, which delays the invasion and the resulting damage; and a mitigative strategy, which puts effort into timely detection, control and eradication of the newly established population. Choice of the optimal strategy is sensitive to the unit costs and effectiveness of the measures required, to the level of externalities and to the size of the clam population after the invasion has been detected. The results emphasize the need for the energy sector to identify and internalize the external costs of potential invasions when making any large-scale investment plans.     

Incentive contracts in delegated portfolio management under VaR constraint

This paper studies the incentive effect of linear performance-adjusted contracts in delegated portfolio management under a value-at-risk (VaR) constraint. It is shown that a linear performance-based contract can provide incentives for the portfolio manager to work at acquiring private information under a VaR risk constraint. The expected utility and optimal effort of a risk-averse manager are increasing functions of the return sharing ratio in the contract. However, a risk constraint causes the portfolio manager to reduce effort in gathering private information, suggesting that the VaR constraint increases the moral hazard between the investor and the manager.     

COSTS OF CALIFORNIA's CORRELATIVE RIGHTS DOCTRINE AS A SOLUTION TO GROUNDWATER OVERDRAFT

This paper reports the present value of groundwater use under alternative institutional structures for the eastern portion of California's San Joaquin Valley. The Gisser-Sanchez model, with data from the California Department of Water Resources, produced these results. The paper, through the use of an optimal control model, shows that private property rights outperform common property rights as an institutional guide to groundwater use. Furthermore, the paper shows that adjudicating groundwater rights under claim of adverse possession gives rise to a discounted flow of future income which, when compared with that of common property, gives the incentive to adjudicate groundwater rights.     

Strategic incentive in mixed oligopoly

This paper develops a two stage game model with two competing firms in a mixed oligopolistic market, a public firm and a private firm, and only the public firm giving its manager an incentive contract. The paper presents three types of public firm owner’s objective function and each objective function corresponds to three types of delegation, either of a profit-revenue type, or of a relative performance, or, finally, of a market share one. In an equilibrium, the public firm owner has a dominant strategy to reward his manager with an incentive contract combining own profits and competitor’s profits. Different from Manasakis et al. (2007), this paper suggests that the dominant strategy of the public firm owner is to reward his manager with a profit-revenue type of contract or a market-share type of contract, that is to say profit-revenue is identical with market-share. Using relative-performance type of contract will move the manager away from the owner’s true objective function when the public firm owner only pursues maximizing the social welfare. The private firm will be crowded out and the public firm is the only producer of the market. Under profits-revenues type of contract, the owner’s objective of maximizing the summation of the profit and consumer surplus leads the manager more aggressive. Different combinations give us different results. By comparing the results, each type of incentive contract is an owner’s best response to his decision.     

Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis

This paper is concerned with countervailing incentives in the adverse selection problems that typically arise in principal-agent relationships when the agent has private information. These incentives are present when the agent is tempted to either overstate or understate his private information depending upon the specific realization of his type. These problems were first analyzed by Lewis and Sappington (1989) and have been characterized and extended by Maggi and Rodríguez-Clare (1995a) and Jullien (2000). In this paper we propose a simple method of characterizing countervailing incentives in which the key element is the analysis of the properties of the full information problem. Our method for solving the principal problem, once identified the presence of countervailing incentives, follows closely the Baron’s (1989) approach, which does not require using optimal control theory. The methodology we present can be easily applied to many different economic settings. For example, in health economics, an insurer (or a hospital manager) might act as a principal and a physician as an agent. In labor settings, an employer may play the role of principal and a worker may act as the agent. In regulated industries, the regulatory agency might act as a principal designing incentive schemes for firms (the agents). In environmental regulation or resource exploitation, the principal might be an international agency dealing with national governments or firms.     

Spring cleaning: rural water impacts, valuation, and property rights institutions

Using a randomized evaluation in Kenya, we measure health impacts of spring protection, an investment that improves source water quality. We also estimate households' valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water, which limits incentives for private investment. Spring infrastructure investments reduce fecal contamination by 66%, but household water quality improves less, due to recontamination. Child diarrhea falls by one quarter. Travel-cost based revealed preference estimates of households' valuations are much smaller than both stated preference valuations and health planners' valuations, and are consistent with models in which the demand for health is highly income elastic. We estimate that private property norms would generate little additional investment while imposing large static costs due to above-marginal-cost pricing, private property would function better at higher income levels or under water scarcity, and alternative institutions could yield Pareto improvements.     

论私有产权的限制

私有产权的限制可从两个层次看:一是立宪层次上的限制,它是私有财产所有者被动接受的限制,包括禁止侵害他物权的限制和保护公共利益与实现政治需求的限制;二是法律上的私有产权界定后,私有产权所有者主动选择的限制,包括行使权利成本的限制和设立他物权的限制.保护公共利益与实现政治需求的限制抑制了私有产权、市场交换作为调节资源稀缺性与人类欲望无限性矛盾手段的力量;其他限制则是发挥市场机制配置资源,实现产值最大化的要求,为不是限制的限制.     

控制权与激励的冲突——兼对股权激励有效性的实证分析

控制权配置与激励安排是组织治理中的两个重要工具,本文首先从组织中委托人私人收益角度分析委托人控制权与代理人激励之间可能的冲突,进而通过上市公司数据对这一冲突关系进行经验检验。我们的研究发现,中国上市公司大股东控制权与管理层股权激励之间存在显著的冲突,而且这种冲突与股权性质、公司成长速度相关。民营控股公司中的冲突程度显著弱于其他类型公司,国资委控股公司中的冲突显著强于其他类型公司;而公司成长速度越快,大股东控制权与管理层激励之间的冲突越强。本文的研究结果能够很好地解释中国上市国有企业中股权激励效果不显著、甚至出现负效应的经验现象,并由此提出相应的政策建议。     

Property and contract rights in autocracies and democracies

We present and test empirically a new theory of property and contract rights. Any incentive an autocrat has to respect such rights comes from his interest in future tax collections and national income and increases with his planning horizon. We find a compelling empirical relationship between property and contract rights and an autocrat's time in power. In lasting—but not in new—democracies, the same rule of law and individual rights that ensure continued free elections entail extensive property and contract rights. We show that the age of a democratic system is strongly correlated with property and contract rights.     

Business incentives for sustainability: a property rights approach

Public and private demands for sustainable development put pressure on firms to develop strategies that include environmental concerns. Environmental effects from products often appear as externalities, outside the legal boundary of the producing company. These companies often possess the best competence to optimise the total life cycle environmental performance of its products. They are, however, neither obliged nor stimulated enough by policy incentives to do so from a sustainable development perspective. The policy instruments used today are mostly of a control-and-demand type, i.e. they do not create sufficient incentives to go further than hedging over set requirements. Environmental concerns and tightened environmental policy parameters have mostly been associated with the notion of additional costs and thus a restriction on economic performance. However, since the mid 1990s, several papers have called for corporate win–win situations as well as instruments giving up-stream incentives for change, but not enough abatement of environmental impacts has emerged in reality. Perhaps this is due to the lack of proper connection between economic theory on the one hand, and incentive advocating articles and instruments on the other. We propose a concept for trading of product life cycle (PLC) emission rights, based on property rights and transaction cost theories considering the problem with asymmetric information over the value chain. The initial financial impacts from such PLC instruments are shown to be significant for the system provider, since emissions—and resource use—become production costs. This provides economic incentives to take an increased responsibility for information flow as well as initiatives for product innovations.     

Endogenous strength of intellectual property rights: Implications for economic development and growth

The key institution that determines sustained growth in R&D-based growth models is the strength of intellectual property rights, which are usually assumed to be exogenous. In this paper we endogenize the strength of the intellectual property rights and show how private incentives to protect these rights affect economic development and growth. Our model explains endogenous differences in intellectual property rights across countries as private incentives to invest in property rights generate multiple equilibria. We show that the resulting institutional threshold offers an explanation for why the effect of a transfer of institutions from one country to another depends on the quality of the institutions that were imported.     

市场竞争、经理人激励与上市公司舞弊行为——来自中国证监会处罚公告的经验证据

中国上市公司控制权市场、经理人市场和经理人激励对舞弊行为影响的检验结果表明,在控制权市场竞争中只有第二大股东的制衡力量对舞弊行为起到显著的抑制作用,经理人市场的竞争程度与公司舞弊行为显著负相关,不成熟的经理人市场使得经理人的声誉机制和报酬激励机制都难以发挥抑制舞弊行为的作用。治理上市公司舞弊行为的更好路径是优化经理人的选任机制和竞争机制,而不是仅仅强化其激励。     

考虑控制权转移的科技型小微企业融资机制研究

企业控制权是科技型小微企业风险融资的重要工具。从控制权转移激励与约束角度,构建了科技型小微企业风险融资中控制权转移激励与约束契约设计的两阶段模型,探讨了科技型小微企业投入的自身财富水平、投入风险项目的知识产权价值、努力水平、市场声誉、风险项目成功率、风险项目产出的变现性与可控性、风险项目运行的在职消费水平、风险投资者获取的剩余价值索取权、风险项目投资额度、风险监控成本、风险项目的战略收益、风险项目运行的私人收益与共享收益、科技型小微企业投入人力资本的专有性和专用性、风险投资者的投资专用性以及风险投资者风险规避程度等因素对科技型小微企业融资中控制权转移激励契约设计的影响机制,并通过定量分析得到了一系列科技型小微企业风险融资控制权转移的激励与约束契约设计机制,对科技型小微企业投融资理论进行了完善和发展。     

产权约束、投资低效与通货紧缩

本文从产权逻辑来诠释 2 0 0 3年以来的投资膨胀。文章认为 ,在土地转让权含糊不清和银行产权约束不力的背景下 ,土地和信贷市场的价格机制无法给出市场定价 ,客观造成了巨大套利空间的存在。当经济景气时 ,一些地方政府、企业和银行三方共谋土地和贷款这两种最关键的生产要素 ,从而导致投资的非理性膨胀 ,并通过金融加速器效应带来宏观经济的大幅波动。从根源上讲 ,过度投资和投资低效的本质是产权约束和地方政府政绩观导向的问题。因而 ,本文提出的相应政策含义是 ,在短期内主要以经济杠杆来控制总量 ;在中长期应转变政府职能 ,推进产权改革。     

A reconsideration of the problem of social cost: Free riders and monopolists

Summary. One version of the Coase Theorem is, If property rights are fully allocated, competition leads to efficient allocations. This version implies that the public goods problem can be solved by allocating property rights fully. We show that this mechanism is not likely to work well in economies with global externalities because the privatized economy is highly susceptible to strategic behavior: The free-rider problem manifests itself as a complementary monopoly problem in an associated private goods economy. Thus, our work relates the validity of the Coase Theorem to the literature on the incentives for strategic behavior in economies with complementarities. Received: 12 May 1999; revised version: 9 July 1999     

When is a “wait and see” approach to invasive species justified?

Predictions of damages and damages that might be avoided from invasive species control policies are marred by uncertainty that has both economic and ecological roots. Public policies directed at invasive species typically lag their detection. One possible explanation is the coupling of uncertainty with political and economic commitments creates an incentive to delay a policy response in order to gain more information on how damaging the invasion will be – a “wait and see” approach. We investigate whether this rationale is justified by identifying invasion characteristics that require the wait and see approach often adopted by lawmakers and government agencies. The model shows that the source of uncertainty and degree of policy irreversibility matter and allows the classification of invasive species with a low rate of spread and low levels of uncertainty as those where policies can be optimally timed in the future.     

Government incentive strategies and private capital participation in China’s Shale gas development

Shale gas development investments are uncertain and irreversible in the initial stage in China. Flexible incentive strategy is needed for governments to guide private capital participation at different development stages. This study aims to provide analysis governments can use to encourage private investment in shale gas projects according to its plans in an extended real options framework. A social benefits variable is introduced to determine the threshold of social benefits that determine whether the government will choose a deferred or instant incentives strategy. By considering the efficiency factor, we show the optimal arrangements of two kinds of incentives: tax cuts and production subsidies, to implement incentive targets. The results indicate that current market demand and social benefits are the key factors that affect the government’s choice of incentive strategy. We also find that the optimal level of incentives, either tax cuts or production subsidies, are independent of current market demand and future market uncertainty under the delayed incentive strategy, but which affect the optimal level of incentives under the instant motivation strategy, and ignoring the negative influence of unpredictable random events on future market demand might lead to insufficient government incentives in this case.     

人力资本的产权特征与企业激励机制

企业建立激励机制目的是充分调动企业各个层次主体的积极性和创造力,有效的企业激励机制能够使企业经营及劳动在实现自身利益的前提下推动企业的发展。而建立有效的企业激励机制必须明确人力资本的产权特征,尊重管理和员工作为产权主体的权益,体现“人性化”管理的特点。     

Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue. JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.