WHEN TO RUN AND WHEN TO HIDE: ELECTORAL COORDINATION AND EXIT

Elections represent a coordination problem for voters and candidates for office. Electoral coordination is also the causal mechanism behind any explanation of the relationship between electoral systems and the number of parties. I present a dynamic model of electoral coordination with candidate exit. The model extends two important results from the literature to a dynamic setting. The extension of Duverger's Law and the median-voter theorem also offers a simultaneous prediction of the number of parties and their ideological positions. Coordination failure is shown to be possible in a mixed-strategy equilibrium.     

POSITIVELY RESPONSIVE COLLECTIVE CHOICE RULES AND MAJORITY RULE: A GENERALIZATION OF MAY'S THEOREM TO MANY ALTERNATIVES

May's theorem shows that if the set of alternatives contains two members, an anonymous and neutral collective choice rule is positively responsive if and only if it is majority rule. We show that if the set of alternatives contains three or more alternatives only the rule that assigns to every problem its strict Condorcet winner satisfies the three conditions plus Nash's version of “independence of irrelevant alternatives” for the domain of problems that have strict Condorcet winners. We show also that no rule satisfies the four conditions for domains that are more than slightly larger.     

PRODUCTS LIABILITY WHEN CONSUMERS VARY IN THEIR SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HARM AND MAY MISPERCEIVE RISK

This article examines products liability when consumers have private information about their susceptibilities to product‐related harm. In this case, it is efficient for consumers to self‐select their purchases, with those especially prone to harm refraining from purchase. Achieving this outcome requires consumers to bear their own harm, given that producers cannot observe consumer types. When consumers also misperceive risk, the problem becomes more complicated because accurate signaling of risk requires that firms bear liability. A trade‐off therefore emerges between imposing liability on firms versus consumers. This article characterizes the choice among liability rules in the presence of this trade‐off. (JEL K13, L15)     

市民化过程中土地退出 问题与制度改革的新思路

本文认为市民化过程是一个综合性的、全局性的系统工程,仅仅依靠户籍制度改革是不能解决问题的,还必须同步推进土地制度改革。本文从农村集体成员定义角度提出了解决土地制度改革和户籍制度改革的新思路。本文的观点是,把静态集体成员变为动态的集体成员,就能同时解决市民化过程中农村的衰落和农民工有偿退出承包地的双重困境。     

西电东送背景下的水电租金分配机制研究

必须建立和完善有利于西部发展的水电租金分配制度和政策,深化电力体制改革,尽快解决阻碍西电东送健康进行的体制性问题,完善相关机制,这样才能理顺水电租金的分配,协调区域利益关系,从而使西电东送战略的实施达到东西部双赢的效果。     

COLLECTIVE REPUTATION AND THE DYNAMICS OF STATISTICAL DISCRIMINATION

Economists have developed theoretical models identifying self‐fulfilling expectations as an important source of statistical discrimination practices. The static models dominating the literature, however, may leave the false impression that a bad equilibrium is as fragile as a “bubble” and can burst at any moment when expectations flip. By developing a dynamic version of the model, we clarify the limits of expectations‐related fragility. Even if group members can coordinate their expectations about future employer behavior, a group with a poor initial collective reputation may still be unable to recover its reputation, implying that the once‐developed discriminatory outcomes can be long‐standing.     

INTERSECTORAL ALLIANCE AND SOCIAL INNOVATION: WHEN CORPORATIONS MEET CIVIL SOCIETY

ABSTRACT: This article analyses an alliance between a public utility company and a consortium of Associations upholding consumer rights. The project consists of developing means in order to help customers with very low income in a collection situation by suggesting payment arrangements that would take account of their financial situation. Inter‐organizational collaboration is a way to increase the capacities of organizations and to apply leverage to existing resources so as to solve social problems more effectively by pooling together resources, skills and knowledge. We examine the making of this social innovation through the arrangements taking in three institutional dimensions: cognitive, normative and regulative. The case study shows that the legitimacy of the agreement was based on recombining the values of fairness and solidarity. The innovation process was rooted in the exchange of knowledge and access to resources based on the expertise of actors. The agreement moved beyond the experimental framework when it was diffused as a newly learned procedure which became an organizational routine.     

江苏省外商直接投资(FDI)时空演变及区位决策因素

1990年代以来,江苏省实际利用FDI增长迅速。随着时间的推移,FDI的利用方式、来源国或地区、行业分布都发生了较大的变化。FDI的利用在苏南、苏中、苏北之间以及县(市)之间存在显著的空间差异,借助经济计量方法,对空间差异形成因素进行了探讨,主要包括区位因素、经济因素、劳动力因素、积聚因素和对外开放程度等。     

WHEN AND HOW THE PUNISHMENT MUST FIT THE CRIME

In repeated normal‐form (simultaneous‐move) games, simple penal codes (Abreu, Journal of Economic Theory 39(1) (1986), 191–225; and Econometrica 56(2) (1988), 383–96) permit an elegant characterization of the set of subgame‐perfect outcomes. We show that in repeated extensive‐form games such a characterization no longer obtains. By means of examples, we identify two types of settings in which a subgame‐perfect outcome may be supported only by a profile with the property that the continuation play after a deviation is tailored not only to the identity of the deviator but also to the nature of the deviation.     

FIRM AND INDUSTRY OUTPUT WHEN PRODUCT DEMAND IS UNCERTAIN

Previous work has established the partial equilibrium response to product demand uncertainty by a single firm in a competitive industry, but for many purposes the aggregate output response of the whole industry is more important. The paper shows that this depends in a simple and intuitive way upon the attitudes to risk of the industry's constituent firms.