Order isomorphisms for preferences with intransitive indifference

An order isomorphism from one preference relation to another is a function between their underlying sets that preserves both preference and indifference. A utility function is an order isomorphism, as is a well-known two-function representation for preference relations with intransitive indifference. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of an order isomorphism from a given preference relation to the set of sequences of zeros and ones ordered by Pareto dominance. This means of preference representation is shown via examples to be quite general.     

Efficiency and truthfulness with Leontief preferences. A note on two-agent,two-good economies

In exchange economies where agents have private information about their preferences, strategy-proof and individually rational social choice functions are in general not efficient. We provide a restricted domain, namely the set of preferences representable by Leontief utility functions, where there exist mechanisms which are strategy-proof, efficient and individually rational. In two-agent, two-good economies we are able to provide an even stronger result. We characterize the class of efficient and individually rational social choice functions, which are fully implementable in truthful strategies.Received: 28 April 2003, Accepted: 23 June 2003, JEL Classification: D51, D71The author thanks Matthew Jackson, Jordi Massó and James Schummer for fruitful discussions, William Thomson for many valuable comments on an earlier version. A particular thank to Salvador Barberá for his fundamental help.     

提升新建本科院校社会服务能力的路径选择

地方新建本科院校的大量出现顺应了我国高等教育的发展趋势,同时新建本科院校在服务地方社会经济发展方面有着不可小觑的作用,突出了新建本科院校的特殊性,即地方性。新建本科院校必须牢固确立为地方社会进步、经济发展服务的理念。如何正确地选择能够提升新建本科院校社会服务能力的路径是本文的研究重点,而研究其社会服务能力的路径选择对新建本科院校在地方的生存发展具有现实意义。     

义务教育阶段择校制度优化:基于教育需求视角的分析

家庭对教育的需求是择校行为的根本原因,从外在表现看主要是超额需求和差异化需求。择校是一个双向选择行为,即生择校和校择生。适度允许择校有利于增进社会福利,但要合理设计制度,避免优质教育资源主要被社会少数群体占有。     

Optimal Social Design: Estimating a Social Welfare Function from Questionnaire Data

A social design x evokes a response y from a set of individuals. The value of the design is expressed in terms of a social welfare function which is derived from Arrow’s formulation of social choice. Making certain simplifying assumptions the social welfare function can be expressed in terms of individuals’ ideal designs. A method for estimating the social welfare function from quite limited empirical evidence is developed. The method is applied to an educational case study. There was considerable variation in individuals’ ideal designs. The components of the social welfare were estimated: the welfare ideal, the population sensitivity, the population variation, the deviation from the ideal and the welfare ceiling. Methodological problems are discussed.     

The Pazner-Schmeidler social ordering: A defense

It is shown that the Pazner-Schmeidler social ordering appears as a very natural solution to the problem of defining social preferences over distributions of divisible goods. The paper analyses various ways of deriving this social ordering from minimally egalitarian conditions and informational parsimony requirements.Received: 10 October 2003, Accepted: 4 April 2005, JEL Classification: D63, D71This paper was written while I was a research fellow at the ZiF (Bielefeld), for the project “Procedural Approaches to Conflict Resolution”, and the last version was prepared during my sabbatical year at Nuffield College, Oxford. I thank my hosts for their hospitality. D. Dimitrov and F. Maniquet have provided valuable comments on an earlier draft. I also thank the audience of a seminar at the U. of Montreal. Finally, the comments of three anonymous referees and the Associate Editor have been very helpful.     

南京保障性住房空间选址实证分析1

现在,中国政府已经启动了大规模的保障性住房建设,但我国的保障性住房在空间布局方面普遍存在选址偏远、集群式建设的问题。因此科学进行保障性住房的空间选址,以更好地实现住房保障目标并促进社会融合是很有必要的。我们依据低收入住房空间布局的理论,在目前我国城市保障性住房空间选址所存在的问题分析的基础上,对南京市四大保障房片区的选址情况进行了实地调查与分析。分析得出,南京四片区保障房选址基本合理,但仍有较大差异,需进一步完善。     

A study of employee affective organizational commitment and retention in Pakistan: the roles of psychological contract breach and norms of reciprocity

Abstract

Social exchange theory and notions of reciprocity have long been assumed to explain the relationship between psychological contract breach and important employee outcomes. To date, however, there has been no explicit testing of these assumptions. This research, therefore, explores the mediating role of negative, generalized, and balanced reciprocity, in the relationships between psychological contract breach and employees’ affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions. A survey of 247 Pakistani employees of a large public university was analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques, and provided excellent support for our model. As predicted, psychological contract breach was positively related to negative reciprocity norms and negatively related to generalized and balanced reciprocity norms. Negative and generalized (but not balanced) reciprocity were negatively and positively (respectively) related to employees’ affective organizational commitment and fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and affective organizational commitment. Moreover, affective organizational commitment fully mediated the relationship between generalized and negative reciprocity and employees’ turnover intentions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

A Note on the Probability of Having a Strong Condorcet Winner

In an election, a strong Condorcet winner is a candidate who is top-ranked by more than 50% of the voters. The purpose of this note is to provide some algebraic representations for the probability of having a strong Condorcet winner in three-candidate elections. Three alternative procedures for generating voting situations are considered: the Impartial Culture condition, the Impartial Anonymous Culture condition and the Maximal Culture condition. It turns out that the conclusions we obtain strongly depend on the way for generating voting situations.     

Alternative congestion pricing schedules

It is important that alternative congestion pricing schedules are compared with respect to a broad spectrum of their effects. This paper uses an equilibrium simulation model of peak-period commuting along an urban highway to compare quantitatively both positive and normative effects of six congestion pricing schedules. Three of these schedules have been investigated qualitatively in the literature; the others are new. The results indicate that flat tolls are favored over smoothly varying tolls for revenue generation or increase in vehicle occupancy, but are disfavored for efficiency maximization, increase in consumer surplus, or reduction in congestion delays.     

消费者精神偏好视角下消费选择的经济学分析

消费选择问题是企业社会责任是否能够进行价值创造的关键环节。本文在结合弗洛伊德的精神分析理论基础上,将心理因素纳入传统的偏好效用框架,在消费者精神偏好视角下建立了全新的消费选择模型,并进一步分析发现,企业社会责任能够满足消费者精神层面的需求,得出主要结论如下:第一,不同层次的企业社会责任可以使其企业的产品满足消费者精神层面的需求并获得消费者偏好;第二,企业可以通过消费者精神层面需求的特征实现市场细分,并通过企业社会责任战略与项目的设计与实施,实现盈利能力的提升。     

Dictatorial voting operators

Voting operators map n-tuples of subsets of a given set X of candidates (the voters choices) into subsets of X (the social choice). This paper characterizes dictatorial voting operators by means of three conditions (the non-emptiness condition A1, the independence condition A2 and the resoluteness condition A3) motivated by the idea of transferring to the social choice properties common to all the voters choices. The result is used to refine Lahiris (2001) characterization and to derive dictatorial results in other three types of aggregation problems, in which choice functions are transformed into choice functions, binary relations into choices and binary relations into binary relations.Received: 20 May 2002, Accepted: 5 August 2003, JEL Classification: D70, D71Antonio Quesada: Present address: Departament dEconomia, Facultat de Ciéncies Económiques i Empresarials, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Avinguda de la Universitat 1, 43204 Reus (Tarragona), Spain. I would like to express my gratitude to the referees for their contribution to improve this paper.Part of this work was done at the Departament dAnálisi Económica, Facultat dEconomia, Universitat de Valéncia, Avinguda dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valéncia, Spain.     

Effort estimation for enterprise resource planning implementation projects using social choice – a comparative study

ERP implementation projects have received enormous attention in the last years, due to their importance for organisations, as well as the costs and risks involved. The estimation of effort and costs associated with new projects therefore is an important topic. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of models that can cope with the special characteristics of these projects. As the main focus lies in adapting and customising a complex system, and even changing the organisation, traditional models like COCOMO can not easily be applied. In this article, we will apply effort estimation based on social choice in this context. Social choice deals with aggregating the preferences of a number of voters into a collective preference, and we will apply this idea by substituting the voters by project attributes. Therefore, instead of supplying numeric values for various project attributes, a new project only needs to be placed into rankings per attribute, necessitating only ordinal values, and the resulting aggregate ranking can be used to derive an estimation. We will describe the estimation process using a data set of 39 projects, and compare the results to other approaches proposed in the literature.     

美国贫困家庭临时救助:制度变迁、运行特征及启示

贫困家庭临时救助（TANF）是美国一项重要的社会救助制度,建立并运行20余年,为美国贫困家庭提供基本的帮助。该制度具有鲜明的特征,主要表现在:强调救助的\"临时性\"\"工作优先\"以及项目间合作,地方政府具有较大的自主性,提供主体的多元化等。借鉴TANF的经验,我国社会救助制度建设应发挥不同社会主体的作用,实现不同救助项目之间的良好合作,合理划分中央和地方政府的权责。对制度的学习和借鉴,要考虑到跨文化的因素,不能简单复制。     

Interregional Migration and Thresholds: Evidence from Spain

We analyse the effects of labour market factors on interregional migration in Spain for the period 1988–2010. A basic theoretical framework is developed, suggesting that the effect of labour market variables on migration varies, depending on a certain threshold. The model implications are tested using a new approach based on the presence of endogenous thresholds. We show that Spanish interregional migration can be explained by labour market variables when the labour market conditions at the source region are unfavourable relative to those of the host region. We test the results for several migrant characteristics, such as citizenship, the age range, and return migration.

Migration inter-régionale et seuils - résultats de la recherche en Espagne