Scale economies with regard to price adjustment costs and the speed of price adjustment in Australian manufacturing

This paper aims to examine the impact of firm size, industry concentration and the length of production on industry speed of price adjustment. To motivate the paper, an industry pricing model in error correction form is derived from firm pricing behaviour. As a new development, firms are assumed to have price adjustment costs that are a function of their size. The empirical model is estimated using two‐digit Australian manufacturing industry data for the period 1994:3 to 2006:1. The results suggest that the industry speed of price adjustment is positively related to firm size and negatively related to industry concentration and the production lag. Implied values for industry speeds of price adjustment are generally small when compared to other country industry studies. However, the industry average median lag of 7.1 quarters indicates a slightly faster speed of price adjustment than the estimate for the Australian consumer price index by Dwyer and Leong (2001 Dwyer, J. and Leong, K. 2001. Changes in the determination of inflation in Australia 1–44. Reserve Bank of Australia Research Discussion Paper 2001‐02 [Google Scholar]).     

A theory of self-selection in a market with matching frictions: An application to delay in refereeing times in economics journals

A matching market with imperfect information is studied. With imperfect information, it is shown that friction in a meeting process can facilitate self-selection and thus may improve the matching outcome. As an application, the effect of delay in refereeing time on publication outcome is analyzed in a publication process in economics journals. Though the delay causes efficiency loss by postponing the dissemination of new research, it will better sort the papers to each journal by their qualities by preventing mediocre papers from being submitted to a prestigious journal and published by luck. If an assortative outcome (good papers in prestigious journals and mediocre papers in less prestigious journals) is efficient, the delay may actually improve the publication outcome. Other matching market examples are also discussed.     

A research on adjustment and optimization of industrial structure in Guizhou

In this paper, the evolvement and the actual state of industrial structure in Guizhou was expounded. And the character and the existent issue of industrial structure in Guizhou were analyzed. The guideline and idea and goal about the adjustment of industrial structure in Guizhou were also put forward.     

论产品结构调整与企业核心竞争力

企业产品结构调整是企业保持创新特征并赢得竞争优势、获得持续发展的关键。本文通过对产品结构调整的基本理论和研究状况以及企业核心竞争力理论的研究,指出在我国社会主义市场经济的不断推进和工业化进程地不断加速的环境中实施基于企业核心竞争力的产品结构调整必要性。     

The contribution of equalization transfers to fiscal adjustment: Empirical results for German municipalities and a US–German comparison

This paper considers the role of fiscal equalization in maintaining fiscal balance. It employs a large panel of German municipalities in order to investigate the dynamic fiscal policy adjustment using a vector-error–correction model that explicitly takes account of the intertemporal budget constraint. The results confirm that a substantial part of fiscal adjustment to revenue shocks takes place by offsetting changes in intergovernmental transfers: in present-value terms about 34 cents of a permanent 1 € decrease in own revenues are compensated by subsequent changes in fiscal-equalization transfers. Hence, the contribution of intergovernmental transfers in maintaining fiscal balance is found to be two to three times larger than in the case of US municipalities investigated by Buettner and Wildasin [Buettner, T., Wildasin, D.E., 2006. The dynamics of municipal fiscal adjustment. Journal of Public Economics 90, 1115–1132]. Despite fiscal equalization, however, expenditures are not found to display smaller fluctuations in the German case.     

Enterprise restructuring and adjustment in the transition to market economy: lessons from the experience of Central and Eastern Europe

Some aspects of the process of enterprise restructuring and adjustment in the Central and Eastern European countries are analysed on the basis of evideance from recent empirical research on microeconomic performance in these transition economies. The paper outlines a stylized picture of some types of enterprise behaviour which occur in this period and highlights a number of issues related to the process of enterprise restructuring and adjustment such as the problem of micro budget constraints, the motivation for enterprise restructuring, the issues of corporate governance. Some of the current impediments to enterprise restructuring as well as some of the determinants of enterprise performance in the transition periód are also featured in the paper.     

Use of a diagnosis-based risk adjustment model to estimate costs of indigent care in a community at Medicaid reimbursement rates

Objectives: This study used a diagnosis-based risk adjustment model to estimate the annual costs of uninsured patients in Austin, Texas, and describe the prevalence and costs of their chronic conditions. The data were supplied by the Indigent Care Collaboration, a partnership of local safety-net hospitals and clinics.

Methods: This study used the Diagnostic Cost Groups prospective Medicaid All-Encounters model, which uses diagnoses, age and gender to assign relative risk scores to patients. The relative risk scores were multiplied by the per capita Texas Medicaid expenditure to obtain estimated annual costs. Chronic diseases were described in terms of prevalence and total estimated annual cost.

Results: A total of 471,194 encounters were recorded for 163,729 patients meeting the study inclusion criteria between the 1st March 2004 and the 28th February 2005. The mean estimated patient yearly cost was US $1,307, and the total estimated yearly population cost was $228,909,529. The most common chronic conditions included hypertension, diabetes, depression, substance abuse, pregnancy, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates how the unknown costs associated with caring for indigent uninsured patients in a community can be estimated at Medicaid reimbursement rates using the Diagnostic Cost Group model on aggregated patient encounter data.     

Socialism after Hayek: A Post Keynesian Contribution to Burczak's Theory of Social Justice

The paper presents a brief overview of the basic premise of the Burczak's Socialism after Hayek, and shows that Burczak's “applied epistemological postmodernism” presents a unique unifying ground for heterodox economics, breaking down traditional barriers between right and left. This new approach allows us to revisit the Marx-Keynes-Hayek debates in a more constructive way for a unified theory of social justice. However, we argue that Burczak's system does not automatically guarantee full employment, so it cannot be considered an ideal theory of social justice. A Post Keynesian contribution is presented in the form of the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) program which we argue is compatible and complementary to Burczak's theory of social justice. Finally, we argue that an adequate system design of the magnitude proposed here must be infomed by the principles of institutional adjustment as outlined by J. Fagg Foster.     

Radical innovations as drivers of breakthroughs: characteristics and properties of the management of technology leading to superior organisational performance in the discovery process of R&D labs

An interesting problem in management of technology and economics of innovation is how to explain the sources of some breakthroughs in research organisations. The present study confronts this problem by analysing the main determinant of the discovery of quasi-periodic materials that has generated a scientific paradigm shift in crystallography. The inductive study shows that radical innovations adopted in research labs, used by high-skilled adopters (called lab-oriented radical innovations; e.g. the Transmission Electron Microscopy), support breakthroughs and enhance discovery processes. This evidence substantiates a theoretical framework, which explains the main relations, characteristics, and properties of lab-oriented radical innovations that improve discovery processes and induce the superior organisational performance in advanced scientific fields. R&D management implications are discussed.     

拨开农业创业失败复兴迷雾：失败学习与创业能力的共演过程

农业创业赋予我国乡村振兴和农业高质量发展以无穷活力,但在实践中农业创业失败率却一直居高不下,创业者遭遇失败后究竟该如何复兴值得探索。选取央视《致富经》栏目中14个典型败后复兴的农业创业案例,运用扎根理论分析法,探究败后复兴过程中失败学习和创业能力演化规律。研究发现：①失败学习主要表现为归因学习、经验学习和迭代学习3种学习方式,能够作用于败后复兴过程中的创业能力形成;②创业能力主要包括机会能力、技术能力、市场能力及运营能力,对败后复兴起推动作用;③在败后复兴的3个具体阶段,失败学习通过填补知识空白、经验知识内化和知识体系革新3个关键机制与创业能力互动,能够有效促进创业能力演化,在败后复兴过程中起决定性作用。     

UK's stock market reaction to Brexit process: A tale of two halves

We examine the UK's stock market reaction to 27 events associated with the likelihood of Brexit. Though the overall market reactions to these events is negative, a dissection of these events into the pre and post Brexit referendum events unearth interesting facts. In particular, we find that the market reaction is negative and significant to the events leading up to and including the announcement of Brexit results. This negative reaction is not confined to the day of announcement of the outcome of Brexit referendum only rather it spans over the events that enhanced the likelihood of the Brexit in the pre-Brexit referendum period. However, our results show a positive market reaction to events that occurred after the Brexit referendum. These findings suggest that initially market reacted negatively to the Brexit; however, as the UK's future economic relations with EU started to take a shape, the market started to see the positive side of Brexit. Consistent with this notion, our cross-sectional analysis shows a positive market reaction for the firms that are engaged in foreign sales and that much of the negative market's reaction relates to the firms that openly stated the negative effect of Brexit on their operations. Finally, we do not find evidence of market reaction to UK firms depending on European labor force; however, we do find significantly positive stock market reaction to the firms involved more in international trade. An important caveat of our study is that our reported results are sensitive to the choice of market index.     

Using Machine Learning for measuring democracy: A practitioners guide and a new updated dataset for 186 countries from 1919 to 2019

We provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on the measurement of democracy and present an extensive update of the Machine Learning indicator of Gründler and Krieger (2016). Four improvements are particularly notable: First, we produce a continuous and a dichotomous version of the Machine Learning democracy indicator. Second, we calculate intervals that reflect the degree of measurement uncertainty. Third, we refine the conceptualization of the Machine Learning Index. Finally, we significantly expand the data coverage by providing democracy indices for 186 countries in the period from 1919 to 2019.     

Full-cost pricing in the classical competitive process: A model of convergence to long-run equilibrium

In the last 10–15 years a lot of attempts has been devoted to study the calssical process of convergence of market prices toward natural prices. The two forces that one has thought could achieve this target were capital mobility, that determines the dynamics of output, and demand-supply forces, that determine the dynamics of prices. In this article a model of classical competition is proposed in which a full-cost pricing mechanism is adopted in the rule of evolution of market prices. An asymptotical stability result of long-run equilibrium is proved for a two-commodity model with and without a final demand.     

Heterogeneous human capital, uncertainty, and the structure of plans: A market process approach to marriage and divorce

The family has not been exempt from the multiple and rapidly occurring changes in the world today, particularly in market economies. The number of marriages has declined, age at first marriage has risen, the number of divorces has risen sharply, the fertility rate has declined, and the division of labor within families has changed, not always in ways that might be expected. This paper subjects these developments to a market process analysis, drawing on the voluminous work occurring in family economics. The Austrian theory of capital, with its emphasis on capital heterogeneity, is relevant. We place particular emphasis on the importance of the structure of human capital within marriage and how investments in such human capital have been affected by the uncertainty that these changes have produced. We also examine investments in marriage-specific human capital and in general human capital (particularly as they relate to childcare). This is then related to the incidence of divorce and the causes and spoils from divorce. The advent of no-fault divorce seems to have been seminal in this regard. We end with a brief glance at the future.

A study of zero-out auctions: testbed experiments of a process of allocating private rights to the use of public property

Summary This paper applies an experimental testbed methodology to the evaluation of a proposed mechanism for allocating the right to land at the New York airports. The mechanism is called a zero-out auction because it is supposed to allocate the rights efficiently like an auction while leaving all of the consumer's surplus with the buyers (as opposed to allocating some to the seller as would be the case with an ordinary auction). A new behavioral hypothesis is introduced to account for limited rationality of individuals and unusual behaviors of the process. The axiom, called theunbiased expectations hypothesis, does a good job of modeling individual behavior in the context of a game model.We acknowledge the financial support of the National Science Foundation and the Caltech Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science. Comments by David Grether, John Ledyard, Michael Levine, Jennifer Reinganum, and Richard Sutch have been very helpful.