博弈论与制度创新

用博弈论的眼光看问题，我们就会发现个人的效用函数不仅依赖于他自己的选择，而且依赖于他人的选择；个人的最优选择是其他人选择的函数。因此，制度是N人博弈的均衡解。当一种经济中还存在外部利润时，说明博弈尚未找到最优解，还可以进一步剔除严格劣战略，就是说非均衡的制度结构必然导致制度变迁，从非均衡到均衡的制度结构的演变过程也就是制度变迁的过程。     

汇率制度：从现实选择到最优制度

本文将观点芜杂、流派纷呈的汇率制度选择理论归纳为三种理论范式,即最优货币区理论、不可能三角理论和政治经济学理论。三种理论范式从不同的角度探讨汇率制度选择问题,各有特点,但它们的缺陷就是局限于单一视角,很难全面把握汇率制度选择的本质。所以本文尝试建立一种完整的理论架构,综合现有的理论成果。在这个理论构架中,我们将汇率制度选择分成两个层面的问题：现实选择和最优制度。现实选择的汇率制度和最优制度可能并不同一,因为现实选择是由利益集团之间博弈决定,而最优制度取决于一国的经济因素和经济结构。但是最优制度可以对利益集团之间的博弈和现实选择施加影响。在长期来看,现实选择调整的方向就是最优制度。通过这种理论综合,我们可以对影响汇率制度选择的政治、经济、国际、国内等诸种因素进行逻辑一致地说明。     

我国征地制度与农地制度互动变迁关系研究

土地征用是指“国家为了公共利益的需要,可以依照法律规定对土地实行征用”（《宪法》第10条）,而我国农村土地实行的又是集体所有制,所以在征地博弈中,集体组织（一般是村委会）代表农民与政府进行交易,农户是不直接参与博弈的,农户只能通过一定途径影响博弈过程。在这一博弈过程中,现有制度所构建的博弈规则本身是不公平的,所以在这一博弈中存在很多问题。     

基于收益共享契约与Nash讨价还价公平的供应链碳减排决策

针对现有低碳供应链决策相关研究中忽略了公平偏好的问题,以Nash讨价还价解作为判断收益分配是否公平的参考标准,基于收益共享契约建立Stackelberg博弈模型,求解得到碳减排量和批发价格等供应链决策,并分析公平偏好的影响。研究发现,收益共享契约有利于供应链的碳减排;零售商和供应商的公平偏好都会促进碳减排;而且,公平偏好会影响收益共享契约的批发价格和收益共享比例两个参数的取值。因此,选择公平偏好较强的企业构建供应链,并根据自身和供应链伙伴公平偏好强度确定恰当的收益共享契约参数值,对促进供应链碳减排都具有重要意义。     

社会文化对最优资本结构选择的影响

本文通过研究社会文化如何影响企业家或经理人利益偏好,以及利益偏好如何决定他的行为金融选择,从而分析企业中最优资本结构的形成。     

基于博弈论的企业激励制度分析——从经济学视角看“不能让老实人吃亏”

将制度定义为博弈的规则,应用现代博弈论的方法论证了企业为什么不能让老实人吃亏,并探讨了企业有效激励制度的设计思路。本文引入新制度经济学人的有限理性假设,建立一个有限博弈方的进化博弈模型,证明了如果不能从制度上保证不让老实人吃亏,具有机会主义行为倾向的员工在重复博弈之后最终都将选择偷懒。并分两种情况分析了企业如何设计有效的激励制度,从而从制度上保证不让老实人吃亏。     

自选择问题对审计收费的影响--来自中国上市公司的经验证据

文章运用Chaney、Jeter和Shivakumar(2004)的研究方法,以2002年我国证券市场A股上市公司为研究样本,对自选择问题对我国审计收费的影响进行了经验性探索。研究发现:(1)自选择问题对审计费用存在显著影响,考虑自选择因素后,大所会调低对自己客户的审计收费,小所则反之;(2)不同规模的事务所对审计服务的定价方式存在差异;(3)选择大所的公司如果聘请小所,审计收费将会下降,说明这类客户偏好大所的高质量审计服务,并为此支付了更高的费用;选择小所的公司如果聘请大所,审计收费会显著上升,这部分公司可能出于降低成本才聘请了小所。     

国际战略联盟类型选择的演化博弈分析

国际战略联盟类型影响联盟绩效及其稳定发展。以合作偏好度作为选择构建联盟类型的依据,分别考虑无形收益和不考虑无形收益,建立了合作偏好度的演化博弈模型,并由此分析联盟类型的选择:不考虑无形收益,则构建纵向联盟,且演化稳定的合作偏好度随产品互补性增加而增强;考虑无形收益,构建横向或纵向联盟皆可,但需调节自己的合作偏好度,以影响对方的合作偏好度,从而促进联盟的稳定发展。     

论以品牌战略目标替代技术创新目标

中国企业缺乏拥有自主知识产权的核心技术、缺乏技术创新一直以来为人们所病诟。文章运用修改了的“智猪博弈”模型分析表明 ,在现有的资源约束和市场竞争约束条件下 ,理性厂商的最优选择只能是不进行技术创新。那么 ,面对国外实力雄厚的大跨国公司进入中国的压力 ,中国企业应如何应对 ?文章提出了以品牌目标替代技术创新目标 ,先树品牌、占市场、壮实力 ,再进行技术创新 ,并以技术创新强化支撑品牌的战略发展思路。     

强偏好、弱偏好与制度演化

通过区分强偏好与弱偏好,来分析制度的演化轨迹。强、弱偏好对制度的演化有不同的影响。由于与生存竞争关系密切,基于强偏好的制度更容易服从于进化选择,好的制度最终将被普遍接受,从而在一个同一的环境内,基于强偏好的制度将趋同。相反,弱偏好则更容易多样化。在制度形成的过程中,不同的人的影响是不对称的,而且环境是开放性的还是封闭性的,对制度形成也关系重大。在开放的环境中,好制度更容易被选择;而在封闭的环境中,个人有可能将自己不好的偏好强加于社会,形成不好的制度。     

“Timing Is Everything” and Marital Bliss

We first show that in a marriage market, when the stability of a matching is disturbed when a new agent joins the game, natural greedy behavior defines an equilibration procedure that converges to a stable matching for the extended problem. We then consider the iterative procedure under which agents join the game sequentially, and the natural greedy procedure is applied after the entrance of each agent. It is shown that this procedure converges to a stable matching for the original (global) problem and that for each agent, if the order of all other agents is given, he/she weakly improves his/her final outcome by deferring his/her arrival time. The agent that arrives last gets his/her optimal outcome under stable matchings. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, C62.     

Social welfare for an economy of angelic agents

This paper analyzes an economy in which all agents are pursuing the common good (or social welfare) but choices are decentralized, i.e., each agent can choose his/her action in the set of the actions that he/she can perform. One wonders if it is enough the common goal of maximizing social welfare to their will be achieved. The paper examines both the cases in which the choice made by each agent does not directly influence those of other agents, as in the competitive equilibrium analysis, and the case in which there is a direct influence, as in the game theory analyses. In the first case, we get that the common goal of maximizing social welfare is not enough to reach it, but it is necessary to coordinate the actions of individual agents by extending information to redistribute initial endowments and by introducing an appropriate social organization. We get the maximum social welfare without further intervention for the cases describable with the theory of games, but only for games of complete information. If the information is incomplete, some further coordination is generally required.     

Long‐term care and intrafamily moral hazard: Optimal public policy

The paper studies optimal public long‐term care (LTC) policy in the context of intrafamily moral hazard suggested by Pauly. The model considers a representative family consisting of an adult child and her elderly parent who might become dependent, in which case he places a special value on the LTC provided to him by his child. Since the child's caregiving is decreasing in the amount of insurance coverage, the parent prefers to underinsure, which is socially suboptimal. The child's choice of caregiving is also inefficient since she does not internalize its positive effect on the parent. The paper tackles these inefficiencies and shows that intrafamily moral hazard is a sufficient justification for public intervention targeted at insurance. If not necessarily for the introduction of mandatory public insurance, then at least for the taxation or subsidization of private insurance premiums.     

Cycling in a stochastic learning algorithm for normal form games

In this paper we study a stochastic learning model for 2×2 normal form games that are played repeatedly. The main emphasis is put on the emergence of cycles. We assume that the players have neither information about the payoff matrix of their opponent nor about their own. At every round each player can only observe his or her action and the payoff he or she receives. We prove that the learning algorithm, which is modeled by an urn scheme proposed by Arthur (1993), leads with positive probability to a cycling of strategy profiles if the game has a mixed Nash equilibrium. In case there are strict Nash equilibria, the learning process converges a.s. to the set of Nash equilibria.     

Inattentive Producers

I present and solve the problem of a producer who faces costs of acquiring, absorbing, and processing information. I establish a series of theoretical results describing the producer's behaviour. First, I find the conditions under which the producer prefers to set a plan for the price he or she charges, or instead prefers to set a plan for the quantity he or she sells. Second, I show that the agent rationally chooses to be inattentive to news, only sporadically updating his or her information. I solve for the optimal length of inattentiveness and characterize its determinants. Third, I explicitly aggregate the behaviour of many such producers. I apply these results to a model of inflation. I find that the model can fit the quantitative facts on post-war inflation remarkably well, that it is a good forecaster of future inflation, and that it survives the Lucas critique by fitting also the pre-war facts on inflation moderately well.     

A Comment on Müller's “Unveiling of the Veil of Uncertainty”

This comment replies to the assertion by Müller (1998) that a rational and self-interested individual faced with a thick veil of uncertainty may not, as a result, vote for a fair rule. It is argued that if such an individual is reasonably assumed to behave as if he/she were risk-averse then he/she is more likely to vote for such a rule.     

Endogenous institutions and political extremism

The election of extreme political leaders is often associated with changes in political institutions. This paper studies these phenomena through a model in which the median voter elects a leader anticipating that he will impose institutional constraints—such as constitutional amendments, judicial appointments, or the implicit threat of a coup—that influence the behavior of future political challengers. It is typically optimal for the median voter to elect an extreme incumbent when democracy is less fully consolidated, when the costs of imposing institutional constraints are intermediate, and when the distribution of potential challengers is asymmetric. The median voter typically elects a more right-wing incumbent when the distribution of potential challengers shifts to the left. Implications of the model for the consolidation of democracy and institutional constraints are discussed, as are several related mechanisms through which politiciansʼ ability to affect institutions may lead voters to optimally elect extremists.     

From ultimatum to Nash bargaining: Theory and experimental evidence

We consider a sequential two-party bargaining game with uncertain information transmission. When the first mover states her demand she does only know the probability with which the second mover will be informed about it. The informed second mover can either accept or reject the offer and payoffs are determined as in the ultimatum game. Otherwise the uninformed second mover states his own demand and payoffs are determined as in the Nash demand game. In the experiment we vary the commonly known probability of information transmission. Our main finding is that first movers’ and uninformed second movers’ demands adjust to this probability as qualitatively predicted, that is, first movers’ (uninformed second movers’) demands are lower (higher) the lower the probability of information transmission. JEL Classification C72 · C78 · C92     

Ex post vs. ex ante pricing: Optional calling plans and tapered tariffs

We study optimal nonuniform pricing in a setting where a customer's demand at the start of a billing period contains a random variable whose realization becomes known by the end of the billing period. In this context, an optional calling plan is a tariff which the consumer must select based on his/her expectations about the random variable, whereas, under a tapered tariff, the consumer's choice of usage charge is made after he/she knows the realization of the random variable. We show that for low to moderate levels of uncertainty about the random variable entering the demand function, the optional calling plan approach to nonuniform pricing yields higher expected profit than does the tapered tariff approach, given risk-neutral consumers. We illustrate this finding with a case study and argue that it is consistent with the historical evolution of tariffs in the interexchange telecommunications market.     

Gordon Tullock’s implicit analytical history of government

Gordon Tullock wrote widely on the emergence and effects of political and legal institutions. Although he did not provide an analytical narrative, perse, his work provides explanations for the emergence of the state, civil law, constitutional law, and democracy. When his work is organized as a historical narrative, it becomes clear that conflict, rather than trade or cooperation, are at the core of Tullock’s approach to constitutional political economy.