Contests with investment

Perfectly discriminating contests (all pay auctions) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their ability to fight in the contest. This paper studies a two stage game where in the first stage, players can invest to lower their bid cost in a perfectly discriminating contest, which is played in the second stage. Different assumptions on the timing of investment are studied. With simultaneous investments, equilibria in which players play a pure strategy in the investment stage are asymmetric, exhibit incomplete rent dissipation, and expected effort is reduced relative to the game without investment. There also are symmetric mixed strategy equilibria with complete rent dissipation. With sequential investment, the first mover always invests enough to deter the second mover from investing, and enjoys a first mover advantage. I also look at unobservable investments and endogenous timing of investments. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contests with endogenous deadlines

This paper analyzes the problem of a contest designer who chooses a starting time and a deadline of the contest to maximize discounted total effort by the contestants. Each contestant secretly decides how much effort to exert between the starting time and the deadline. At the deadline, the contestant who exerted most effort wins a prize, which consists of the endowment of the designer and collected interest. The contest has a unique Nash equilibrium. In the main model, the designer should announce the contest immediately with a short deadline to promote intense competition. I analyze how the optimal starting time and deadline change for a variable contest prize, different types of asymmetries, a Tullock lottery contest success function, and different goal functions of the designer.     

考虑模糊参与度的供应链利润分配问题研究

针对供应链企业成员参加此供应链的意愿程度不同,引入模糊参与度的概念,修正特征函数,给出考虑模糊参与度的Shapley值;并将新的Shapley值应用到解决供应链合作伙伴间的利润分配问题中去。     

Information Sharing in Contests

We study the incentives to share private information ahead of contests, such as markets with promotional competition, procurement contests, or research and development (R&D). We consider the cases where firms have (i) independent values and (ii) common values of winning the contest. In both cases, when decisions to share information are made independently, sharing information is strictly dominated. With independent values, an industry‐wide agreement to share information can arise in equilibrium. Expected effort is lower with than without information sharing. With common values, an industry‐wide agreement to share information never arises in equilibrium. Expected effort is higher with than without information sharing.     

Time Discounting in Strategic Contests

In many contests, such as political campaigns or R&D expenditures, there is at least some trade‐off between immediate money outlay and potential future benefits. This timing aspect has mostly been ignored by the contest literature. If contestants exhibit a strong present bias, such as that shown by past individual choice experiments, then benefits that are deferred to the future will lead to a significant drop in investment. This paper uses controlled laboratory experiments to explore how the timing of prize payment impacts behavior in a contest with a unique Nash equilibrium strategy. We find no evidence that people significantly discount future prizes in our contests, despite the fact that we do replicate present bias in a separate individual choice experiment.     

约束公务员有利于国家人力资源的优化配置

中国历史上就是官本位思潮盛行,现在很多考虑考公务员的人,也不仅是为工资,更是为权力带来的灰色收入,这与公务员需是公仆的身份定位偏离太远,相信经过一段时间的坚持,将来会出现官本位变成民本位的变化。民本位意识的形成将有利于整个国家的人力资源的优化配置,降低不必要的成本,并极大地提高整个国家的生产效率,最终必将大大提高国家的生产力。     

Heterogeneity of Players and Aggregate Effort in Contests

We explore the systematic effects of variation in players' heterogeneity on aggregate effort in contests. We show that if costs of effort are convex, a mean‐preserving increase in the variation of players' abilities can lead to an increase or decrease in aggregate effort, both in contests of complete and incomplete information, depending on the curvature of the effort cost function. Specifically, if effort costs are not too steep, aggregate effort increases in ability variation, whereas if effort costs are sufficiently steep, aggregate effort decreases in ability variation.     

资本约束对我国上市银行资产配置行为的影响

选取2004～2011年中国上市商业银行财务数据,研究资本约束对我国上市商业银行资产配置行为(主要是信贷资产配置行为)的影响。本文发现,自2004年中国资本监管制度实施以后,上市商业银行的资产规模不断增长,贷款占总资产比率呈下降趋势,资本充足率和所有者权益占比呈上升趋势;但是回归分析发现资本约束对我国上市商业银行资产配置行为的影响有限。     

Contests with multiple alternative prizes: Public-good/bad prizes and externalities

We study contests in which there are multiple alternative public-good/bad prizes, and the players compete, by expending irreversible effort, over which prize to have awarded to them. Each prize may be a public good for some players and a public bad for the others, and the players expend their effort simultaneously and independently. We first prove the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium of the game, then establish when the total effort level expended for each prize is unique across the Nash equilibria, and then summarize and highlight other interesting and important properties of the equilibria. Finally, we discuss the effects of heterogeneity of valuations on the players’ equilibrium effort levels and a possible extension of the model.     

Endogenous Group Formation in Contests: Unobservable Sharing Rules

We study contests in which players compete by expending irreversible effort to win a prize, the prize is awarded to one of the players, the winner shares the prize with other players in his group, if any, and each group's sharing rule is unobservable to the other groups and the singletons, if any, when the players expend their effort. The number of groups, their sizes, and the number of singletons are exogenous in the first model, whereas they are endogenous in the second model. We show that group formation occurs if the number of players is four or smaller, but does not occur otherwise. We examine the effect of endogenous group formation on total effort level and the profitability of endogenous group formation. In each of the two models, comparing the outcomes of the case of unobservable sharing rules with those of the case of observable sharing rules, we show that the two cases yield quite different outcomes.     

具有随机约束的委托-代理模型

委托一代理理论对于建立激励机制，防治机会主义行为具有重要意义。本文讨论具有随机约束的委托一代理模型，提出一种引入风险系数对模型进行求解的方法，并对结果进行了分析。与以往的同类研究主要基于均值化为完全确定情形的处理方法相比，不仅更充分反映了约束的随机性，而且考虑了委托人的风险规避程度和偏好，引入风险系数的方法还避免了以往研究中决策者的效用函数难以确定的问题。     

大学生数学建模竞赛在能力培养中的作用

文章介绍了全国大学生数学建模竞赛,分析了数学建模的一般步骤和讨论了大学生数学建模竞赛在能力培养中的作用.     

大学生数学建模竞赛在能力培养中的作用

文章介绍了全国大学生数学建模竞赛，分析了数学建模的一般步骤和讨论了大学生数学建模竞赛在能力培养中的作用。     

Endowment Origin,Demographic Effects,and Individual Preferences in Contests

In modern firms the use of contests as an incentive device is ubiquitous. Nonetheless, experimental research shows that in the laboratory subjects routinely make suboptimal decisions in contests even to the extent of making negative returns. The purpose of this study is to investigate how earning the endowment, demographic differences, and individual preferences impact behavior in contests. To this end, we conduct a laboratory experiment in which subjects expend costly resources (bids) to attain an award (prize). In line with other laboratory studies of contests, our results show that subjects overbid relative to theoretical predictions and incur substantial losses as a result. Making subjects earn their initial resource endowments mitigates overbidding and thus increases efficiency. Overbidding is linked to gender, with women bidding higher than men and having lower average earnings. Other demographic information, such as religiosity, and individual preferences, such as preferences toward winning and risk, also influence behavior in contests.     

谈多媒体课件竞赛与教师教育技能的提升

在参与多媒体课件竞赛过程中,教师有的放矢的针对评分标准进行课件设计与开发。这在一定程度上提升了教师个人的教学设计与计算机能力等基本技能。本文结合全国多媒体课件竞赛分析竞赛对教师教育技能的促进作用,以期对教师教育技能的提升有所启示。     

一类节点带两重容量限制的LRP问题研究

分析了一类节点带两重容量限制的三层LRP问题:在物流网络受物流中心吞吐能力和物流网络节点最大单批处理能力两重容量限制下,如何进行物流中心选址和运输路线安排,使总的费用最小。建立了混合整数规划模型,提出了一种优化算法,并用优化算法对一个实例进行了求解。     

中国特色的环境管理公众参与研究

环境作为人类公共财产的属性越来越被公众认同。环境污染和破坏直接影响公众的生活和生存,环境决策的正确与否,环境质量的好坏,公众都有最直接的感受,最能提供公正评价,公众对环境保护最有知情权和监督权。然而,环境保护工作任重道远,决非政府或企业力量可以全面解决,一切落实、剖析都需要公众的支持和参与。     

应急资源配置中的逆向资源配置研究

从两个角度对逆向资源的配置进行了研究:对使用后的资源按照合适的流程进行回收、改变状态与无害化处理并利用恰当的路径实现再配置;对未使用的在途资源,依据资源一体化配置系统的构造与运行特点,使其以较低的成本融入到原有的一体化配置体系中.从五个方面分析了逆向资源配置对资源配置系统产生的影响,提出了对存在问题的进一步思考.     

Contests and unethical behavior in organizations: a review and synthesis of the empirical literature

Management Review Quarterly - Contests are widely used in business contexts because they are believed to increase the effort and performance levels of employees. One negative aspect of contests is...     

关于利用民间资本参与集体林权制度改革的初步探讨

本文通过对利用民间资本参与集体林权制度改革经营林业的重要性分析,指出了民间资本参与集体林权制度改革经营林业过程中存在的问题,并通过对比,提出几点建议。