Strategy-proof and individually rational social choice functions for public good economies: A note

Summary. Serizawa [3] characterized the set of strategy-proof, individually rational, no exploitative, and non-bossy social choice functions in economies with pure public goods. He left an open question whether non-bossiness is necessary for his characterization. We will prove that non-bossiness is implied by the other three axioms in his characterization. Received: October 17, 1997; revised version: January 19, 1998     

On the constancy of bribe-proof solutions

Summary. We consider the problem of choosing one point in a set of alternatives when monetary transfers are possible. In this context, Schummer (2000) shows that a social choice function must be a constant function if manipulation through bribes is ruled out. But he requires two kinds of domain-richness conditions. One is either smooth connectedness or the finiteness of the set of alternatives and the other is monotonical closedness. However, dispensing with the former condition, we alternatively prove the same result under a weaker condition than monotonical closedness. Received: April 11, 2000; revised version: February 25, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This paper received the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Moriguchi Prize in January 2001. I am grateful to Prof. Ryoichi Nagahisa, Prof. Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Prof. Ken-ichi Shimomura, Prof. Ken Urai, and especially two anonymous referees for their useful and helpful comments and suggestions. I am a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.     

Testing for rationality: the case of discrete choice data

When working with micro data on consumer demand, there are many different situations where decisions involve only discrete choices. In this context, conditions under which an underlying rational preference structure exists are derived. Moreover, by introducing flexibility into the model, it is possible to identify nonrational behavior in the sample.     

The role of diminishing marginal utility in the ordinal and cardinal utility theories

We illustrate the role of the law of diminishing marginal utility in the two main modern utility theories, the ordinal and cardinal utility theories, using a generalised total utility function. In short, the ordinal utility theory, in which utility is immeasurable, must abandon the law of diminishing marginal utility; the cardinal utility theory, although able to retain this law, suffers from keeping the unrealistic view of utility measurability, which Samuelson criticises as “infinitely improbable.” A new utility theory with the advantages of the two mentioned theories (i.e. the notions of both diminishing marginal utility and utility immeasurability) but without the disadvantages (i.e. the law of diminishing marginal utility is excluded and utility is measurable) therefore still seems to be a Holy Grail deserving search and development by economists.     

农民工、社会网络和劳动合同形式——一个案例研究

当前中国出现了所谓的"民工荒",这意味着劳动力供需状况即将迎来一个转折点,这一转变会带来多重后果。本文通过一个案例研究,提出如下可供实证检验的命题:随着农村剩余劳动力供给的减少,企业会改变其用工制度,原先的激励强度较低的劳动合同形式会让位于激励强度较高的劳动合同形式,这会诱使工人付出更多的努力,在一定程度上还可以缓解企业由于工资上升而带来的成本压力;此外,随着农村经济社会的发展,社会资本的作用不仅在减弱,而且自身内容和作用方式也会发生变化。     

基于契约安排频谱的铁矿石市场价格机制研究

国际铁矿石市场的各种契约安排呈现一条从纵向一体化向现货交易逐渐过渡、连续渐变的契约安排频谱,从频谱的左端到右端,相应价格机制的刚性逐渐增强。由于构成铁矿石市场主体利润函数的各经济变量是外部环境和契约安排的函数,因此针对既定的外部环境,市场主体力求与交易对象达成使自身利润最大化的契约安排进而与交易对象围绕契约安排进行讨价还价。当这种讨价还价达到纳什均衡状态时,均衡价格与交易数量同时被决定,铁矿石市场随即达到均衡状态。自上世纪50年代以来国际铁矿石市场中契约安排重大变化均可被解读为外部环境变化影响了铁矿石进出口国的利润函数变量,进而均衡契约安排在频谱上的落点不断推移的过程。     

Policy Effectiveness and the Slopes of IS and LM Curves: A Graphical Analysis

In contrast to Michael Lovell's argument, this comment argues that the lack of computer-aided instruction (CAI) materials does not result from the public-good nature of educational software but from a lack of demand for CAI materials.     

On the continuous equilibria of affiliated-value,all-pay auctions with private budget constraints

We consider all-pay auctions in the presence of interdependent, affiliated valuations and private budget constraints. For the sealed-bid, all-pay auction we characterize a symmetric equilibrium in continuous strategies for the case of N bidders. Budget constraints encourage more aggressive bidding among participants with large endowments and intermediate valuations. We extend our results to the war of attrition where we show that budget constraints lead to a uniform amplification of equilibrium bids among bidders with sufficient endowments. An example shows that with both interdependent valuations and private budget constraints, a revenue ranking between the two auction formats is generally not possible. Equilibria with discontinuous bidding strategies are discussed.     

Disclosure policies in all-pay auctions with bid caps and stochastic entry: The impact of risk aversion

We investigate how risk aversion affects the organizer's disclosing the actual number of bidders in an all-pay auction with an exogenous bid cap and stochastic entry. With an exogenous probability of participation, the organizer prefers fully concealing the number of participating bidders when bidders are risk neutral. However, this result does not hold with risk aversion. Specifically, whether the organizer prefers fully concealing or fully revealing information depends on the number of potential bidders, the probability of participation, and the size of bid caps. A special case of endogenous entry shows that the organizer's preference is similar to the risk-neutral case.     

On the characterization of excess demand functions

Summary. In this paper, we give the necessary and sufficient conditions that characterize the individual excess demand function when it depends smoothly on prices and endowments. A given function is an excess demand function if and only if it satisfies, in addition to Walras law and zero homogeneity in prices, a set of first order partial differential equations, its substitution matrix is symmetric and negative semidefinite. Moreover, we show that these conditions are equivalent to the symmetry and negative semidefiniteness of Slutsky matrix, Walras law and zero homogeneity of Marshallian demand functions.Received: 25 November 2002, Revised: 11 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D11.Marwan Aloqeili: I would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

Toward a naturalistic foundation of the social contract

This paper delivers a step toward a naturalistic foundation of the social contract. While mainstream social contract theory is based on an original position model that is defined in an aprioristic way, we endogenize its key elements, i.e., develop them out of the individuals’ moral common sense. Therefore, the biological and social bases of moral intuitions are explored. In this context, a key adaptation during evolution was the one that enabled humans to understand conspecifics as intentional agents. Since these behavioral aspects are considered to be an exaptation, they are not amenable to direct genetic explanations or to rationality-based approaches.

Utilitarianism and the role of utility in Adam Smith

Abstract

In this paper we confront attempts to bring Smith closer to utilitarianism. We show that Smith's conception of utility is not utilitarian. While the pursuit of ‘pleasure’ could lie behind human behaviour, it is not the pleasure referred to by utilitarianism. Instead, utility, in its colloquial sense, plays a greater role that suggests a type of consideration which is foreign to utilitarianism and which also introduces a rationalist element to Smith's moral analysis. Thus, utility, in the utilitarian sense, is neither a guide to action nor a means for moral evaluation.     

Family ties and employment behavior: The role of financial intermediaries

We study the interaction effect of financial intermediaries and family ties on labor participation and employment type in China. Although existing studies examine these effects separately, we investigate the effects of both factors in one model. We give empirical evidence to support earlier arguments that family ties negatively affect labor force participation and positively affect self‐/family‐employment behavior and that financial development positively affects labor force participation. Departing from the extant literature, our results overall indicate a compensating effect of financial intermediaries for family ties in labor participation and employment type. We further argue that there are gender, urban/rural, and age differences in the role of financial intermediaries. The effect of financial intermediaries on the strength of family ties is more relevant for female, rural, and younger people compared to male, urban, and older people.     

The role of trust and contract in the supply of business advice

The use of legal contract and personal trust are compared inthis paper for the relationships between clients and their differentadvisers who supply business advice. Personal trust betweenclient and adviser is found to operate as an exclusive meansto manage relational exchange only for social and family relationships.Using a sample survey of small and medium sized enterprises,results demonstrate that trust and legal contract are most commonlyoverlapping categories. Comparing different types of adviser,the level of trust, extent of legal contract, service intensity,service costs and client impact and satisfaction are each foundto interact. There are major differences between suppliers,but except in the case of social and family relationships toadvisers, higher reliance on trust alone is generally associatedwith lower levels of client impact and satisfaction received.The combination of trust with contract tends to be the routewhich is most associated with higher levels of client impactand satisfaction.     

The Value of Changes in Deer Season Length: An Application of the Nested Multinomial Logit Model

Increasing deer populations can be controlled through manipulatingharvest limits or season length. While such actions often result in benefitsto hunters, both motorists and the agricultural sector also benefit as alower deer population leads to fewer incidences of harmful human-deerencounters. Traditional recreation demand models are often employed toexamine the welfare implications of changes in daily hunting bag limits.Studies measuring the effects of changes in season length, however, arenoticeably absent from the literature. This study uses a nested randomutility model to examine hunter choice over site and season selection toderive the values of changes in season length.     

我国居民家庭子女教育投资动机的经济学分析

我国城市居民家庭在子女教育投资方面,一般会受到流动性约束的影响,并且父母的当期收入会影响到对子女当期教育的投资;父母对于子女教育投资的动机主要符合贷款合同模型,即父母对于子女的教育投资是暗含后期回报的合同,这一合同主要通过家庭的某种内在机制和社会道德标准来执行的.基于这样的结论,笔者认为,为扩大父母对子女教育方面的合理投资,国家应该建立健全教育方面的金融渠道,提供符合我国国情的教育贷款或保险,使父母对子女的教育的投资更加平滑.     

Growth and social security: the role of human capital

This paper studies the growth and efficiency effects of pay-as-you-go financed social security when human capital is the engine of growth. Employing a variant of the Lucas model [Lucas, R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22, 3–42.] with overlapping generations, it is shown that a properly designed, unfunded social security system leads to higher output growth than a fully funded one. Furthermore, the economy with an unfunded social security is efficient, while the other one is not. These results stand in sharp contrast to those obtained in models where the reason for economic growth is physical capital accumulation.     

Endogenous private safety investment and the willingness to pay for mortality risk reductions

When individuals cannot undertake safety-improving expenditures, the effect of an increase in the initial risk on the willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reduction is positive because of the dead-anyway effect. When they can undertake safety-improving expenditures, the effect of an increase in the initial risk is governed by two effects: The dead-anyway effect which is positive and the high-payment effect which is negative. We treat the two types of risk-reducing expenditures, endogenous and exogenous, as inputs in a safety-improving technology function and find conditions that guarantee that the high-payment effect dominates.