The Scope of Anonymous Voluntary Bargaining Under Asymmetric Information

We present a model of anonymous collective bargaining where individuals'preferences and information may be significantly interdependent. We showthat the bargaining outcome becomes independent of individuals'preferences and information as the bargaining group increases in size. As acorollary, we show that anonymous voluntary bargaining completely fails inlarge groups. Either the difference between the bargaining outcome and thestatus quo vanishes as the size of the group becomes larger, or, thebargaining becomes coercive and results in a violation of at least someindividuals' rights. The result provides a rationale for the inherentdifficulty of reform in the presence of asymmetric information.
"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful ofsuccess, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order ofthings."
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)     

Multidimensional Bargaining Under Asymmetric Information

A buyer with private information regarding marginal valuation bargains with a seller to determine price and quantity of trade. Depending on parameter values, a high‐valuation buyer wants either to reveal information to create value or to conceal it to capture value. In the first case, equilibrium trades are efficient. In the second case, the low‐valuation buyer purchases less than her efficient quantity, and there can be a one‐period delay in trade. The quantity distortion is the only inefficiency that persists when time between offers approaches zero. There exist equilibria that are independent of the seller's prior beliefs.     

Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games

Research on ultimatum and dictator games has found that because of "fairness" first movers in such games offer more than noncooperative game theory predicts. We find that if the right to be the first mover is "earned" by scoring high on a general knowledge quiz, then first movers behave in a more self-regarding manner. We also conducted dictator double blind experiments, in which the experimenter could not identify the decision maker. The results yielded by far our largest observed incidence of self-regarding offers, suggesting that offers are due to strategic and expectation considerations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, C91.     

不对称信息条件下政府效率的提高与公众参与

本文从信息经济学的视角出发，分别对政治领域和经济领域的公众参与对政府效率的提高进行了分析，得出以下结论，组成各种团体的公众参与到地方政府决策过程中可以使处于不完全信息状态下的中央和地方博弈的风险损失减少；公众参与到地方政府垄断的公用事业部门，可以减少公用事业局和公用事业企业的合谋机率，提高公用产品供给的效率。     

分配承诺、产权与经济效率

在政府分配的承诺可置信时,地方政府分权竞争的结果是资方获得了最大利益,而劳方的利益被忽视了。而当政府分配的承诺不可置信时,资方的投资生产激励会受到较大的削弱,社会福利会受到较大损害。关于中国经济增长奇迹的经济解释,文章认为:在改革开放初期,中性政府对经济增长起到了很重要的作用;而随着改革开放的深入,地方政府分权的竞争激励机制可能起到了更为重要的作用。产业结构与产权保护有着密切的关系,要使产业结构完成升级,拥有良好的产权保护制度是一个重要条件。针对地方政府分权竞争带来的问题以及承诺可置信性缺失,文章引入第三方规制和以权力配置作为一种可信承诺等两种解决途径,并指出了其不足之处。     

Asymmetric Information in Simple Bargaining Games: An Experimental Study

Bilateral bargaining situations are often characterized by informational asymmetries concerning the size of what is at stake: in some cases, the proposer is better informed, in others, it is the responder. We analyze the effects of both types of asymmetric information on proposer behavior in two different situations which allow for a variation of responder veto power: the ultimatum and the dictator game. We find that the extent to which proposers demand less in the ultimatum as compared to the dictator game is (marginally) smaller when the proposer is in the superior information position. Further we find informed proposers to exploit their informational advantage by offering an amount that does not reveal the true size of the pie, with proposers in the ultimatum game exhibiting this behavioral pattern to a larger extent than those in the dictator game. Uninformed proposers risk imposed rejection when they ask for more than potentially is at stake, and ask for a risk premium in dictator games. We concentrate on proposers, but also explore responder behavior: We find uninformed responders to enable proposers’ hiding behavior, and we find proposer intentionality not to play an important role for informed responders when they decide whether to accept or reject an offer by an (uninformed) proposer.     

Reinforcement-Based Adaptive Learning in Asymmetric Two-Person Bargaining with Incomplete Information

The sealed bidk-double auction is a mechanism used to structure bilateral bargaining under two-sided incomplete information. This mechanism is tested in two experiments in which subjects are asked to bargain repeatedly for 50 rounds with the same partner under conditions of information disparity favoring either the buyer (Condition BA) or seller (Condition SA). Qualitatively, the observed bid and offer functions are in agreement with the Bayesian linear equilibrium solution (LES) constructed by Chatterjee and Samuelson (1983). A trader favored by the information disparity, whether buyer or seller, receives a larger share of the realized gain from trade than the other trader. Comparison with previous results reported by Daniel, Seale, and Rapoport (1998), who used randomly matched rather than fixed pairs, shows that when reputation effects are present this advantage is significantly enhanced. A reinforcement-based learning model captures the major features of the offer and bid functions, accounting for most of the variability in the round-to-round individual decisions.     

Equilibrium Partner Switching in a Bargaining Model With Asymmetric Information

We study a model in which the seller of an indivisible object faces two potential buyers and makes an offer to either of them in each period. We find that the seller's ability to extract surplus from them depends crucially on the value of the cost of switching from one buyer to the next. If the seller is pessimistic about the buyers' valuations and there is a switching cost, however small, then the market is a natural bilateral monopoly; the second buyer is never called on. If the switching cost is zero, or if the seller is optimistic, then switching, and possibly recall of the original buyer, may occur.     

产权保护、二元准则与适应性效率

会计在准确界定产权和有效保护产权的过程中处于最基础、最重要和最具操作性的地位。为了获取准则变迁收益,降低准则执行成本,提高准则的适应性效率,中国基于"分立法"理念建立了适用于大中型企业的《企业会计准则》和小企业的《小企业会计准则》,形成了"二元"结构会计准则体系。"二元"结构准则之间存在的主要差异决定了各自的适应性效率。本文首次从产权保护视角将《企业会计准则》和《小企业会计准则》结合起来进行考察,提出了准则的适应性效率问题,运用二元结构理念分析了准则的适应性效率。     

知识产权保护的公平与效率研究

知识产权的制度经济学派从不同角度论证了知识产权保护可以提高资源配置效率.知识产权应该保护毋庸置疑,但是知识财产本身的特性决定了知识产权保护具有两面性.知识产权保护必须在效率和公平之间寻求平衡,否则,会在二元经济、阶级差别、技术进步、国际贸易和诉讼、人的自由、大学公司化等方面产生负面效应.     

信息不对称下的几个经济学实验

实验方法受到经济学界的重视,不对称信息条件下的实验方法研究具有重要现实意义。笔者探讨了若干在不对称信息条件下的经济学实验,包括名誉的作用、信号传递等重要实验,认为不对称信息下的实验的方法及其研究思路值得我国经济学者借鉴和深入研究。     

Securities Market Macrostructure: Property Rights and the Efficiency of Securities Trading

This article derives securities market macrostructure from microstructuralfoundations under a variety of assumptions regarding propertyrights. Because liquidity effectively makes securities tradinga network industry, intermediaries can exercise market powerby restricting access to the trading mechanism. Fragmentation,cream skimming, and free riding reduce the inefficiency thatresults from this market power, but welfare would be improvedfurther by requiring open access to all trading venues. Implementingopen access in practice must confront a trade-off between reducingmarket power and potentially impairing the incentives of theoperators of trading systems to reduce cost and improve quality.Other network industries, notably telecoms and electricity transmission,have faced similar dilemmas, and the path to the creation ofa more efficient property rights structure in financial marketscould benefit from the experiences of other network markets.     

Intellectual Property Rights and Crop-Improving R&D under Adaptive Destruction

This paper studies how the strength of intellectual property rights (IPRs) affects investments in biological innovations when the value of an innovation is stochastically reduced to zero because of the evolution of pest resistance. We frame the problem as a research and development (R&D) investment game in a duopoly model of sequential innovation. We characterize the incentives to invest in R&D under two competing IPR regimes, which differ in their treatment of the follow-on innovations that become necessary because of pest adaptation. Depending on the magnitude of the R&D cost, ex ante firms might prefer an intellectual property regime with or without a “research exemption” provision. The study of the welfare function that also accounts for benefit spillovers to consumers—which is possible analytically under some parametric conditions, and numerically otherwise—shows that the ranking of the two IPR regimes depends critically on the extent of the R&D cost.      

非对称性信息激励经济理论

非对称信息现象广泛存在于现实经济生活中,信息经济学研究内容之一是怎样有效制定出能处理非对称信息条件下,不同激励和控制问题的契约和制度.其基本结论是任何一种制度安排或政策,只有满足个人的"激励相容约束"才能行之有效.在非对称性信息条件下的激励理论研究领域,詹姆斯·米尔利斯和威廉·维克里作出了突出贡献.本文概述了两位经济学家的主要研究成果.     

Regulation of Public Utilities under Asymmetric Information

We consider the relationship between a localcommunity and a private operator in charge ofthe water utility. An important feature of themodel is the possibility of water networklosses that are costly to the operator. Wecompute the first-best and asymmetricinformation solutions to the optimal contract,with private information on the operator'stechnology. Based on an econometric estimationof production cost and water demand for a panelof French local communities, we simulate theoptimal contract solutions and show thatasymmetric information has importantconsequences for the regulation of water publicutilities.     

Migration under Asymmetric Information and Human Capital Formation

We study the migration of skilled workers, along with the skill acquisition incentives created by the prospect of migration. We trace out the dynamics of migration as foreign employers accumulate experience in deciphering the skill levels of individual migrants. It is found that migration by the relatively highly skilled is followed by return-migration from both tails of the migrant skill distribution; that the possibility of migration induces skill acquisition at home; that until the probability of discovery reaches its steady state equilibrium, migration consists of a sequence of moves characterized by a rising average skill level; and that migration of skilled workers can entail a home-country welfare gain.     

Costly Coasean Bargaining and Property Right Security

This paper examines how transaction costs affect Coasean bargaining with secure and insecure property rights in the lab. Consistent with the theory that secure property rights lowers the cost of non-cooperation, we find that bargaining efficiency is inversely related to property right security. Less secure property rights increased economic efficiency twofold. Property owners with secure rights are more likely to opt for their riskless outside option rather than pay the costs of bargaining.     

信息不对称下会计信息质量控制的博弈分析

信息不对称会导致逆向选择和道德风险,影响资源配置的效率.本文从博弈论的角度出发,重点对投资者与经营者之间、经营者与监管部门之间这两种博弈进行分析,指出会计信息不对称产生的原因以及采取什么措施来减少会计信息不对称以提高会计信息的质量.     

On Monopolistic Licensing Strategies under Asymmetric Information

Consider a research lab that owns a patent on a new technology but cannot develop a marketable final product based on the new technology. There are two downstream firms that might successfully develop the new product. If the downstream firms' benefits from being the sole supplier of the new product are private information, the research lab will sometimes sell two licenses, even though under complete information it would have sold one exclusive license. This is in contrast to the standard result that a monopolist will sometimes serve fewer, but never more buyers when there is private information. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: L12, D45, D82     

国有银行产权改革与效率:国外经验研究及启示

关于国有银行产权改革与效率的关系,国外进行了大量的实证研究,得出了一些在国外被普遍接受的结论.本文以其中代表性的著作Clarke、Cull和Shirley(2005)为切入点,通过对他们提出的三个命题的辩证分析(包括证真和证伪),得出对我国国有银行产权改革有益的启示.基本观点是:(1)战略投资者不等于外国投资者;(2)"外资换效率"的改革模式需要审慎对待;(3)引进国内资本是国有银行改革的必然方向;(4)完善的资本市场是国有银行改革的必要条件.同时,我们也提出了当前国有银行产权改革应注意的几点问题.