An Integrated Strategy to Reduce Monitoring and Enforcement Costs

A policy of effective environmental protection, inthe present political atmosphere, will requirelow-cost monitoring and enforcement (M&E) strategiesthat do not rely on draconian penalties. Infinite oreven very high penalties for environmental violationsare socially and politically unacceptable.Environmental violations are often classed as civiloffenses, and the occurrence of a violation may bethought insufficient to establish intent. If penaltiesare upper-bounded and each firm is inspected randomly,compliance cannot be maintained with arbitrarily smallinspection probabilities and, hence, small agencycosts. In this paper we examine possibilities forreducing agency M&E costs, including the requirementfor self-reports of effluents and the adjustment ofthe inspection probability to reflect a firm'scompliance or reporting reputation.     

A Hotelling–Downs model of electoral competition with the option to quit

We study a variant of the multi-candidate Hotelling–Downs model that recognizes that politicians, even after declaring candidacy, have the option of withdrawing from the electoral contest before the election date and saving the cost of continuing campaign. We find that this natural variant significantly alters equilibrium predictions. We give conditions for the existence of an equilibrium for an arbitrary finite number of candidates and an arbitrary distribution of single-peaked preferences of voters. We also provide a partial characterization of the equilibrium outcomes that addresses whether policy convergence can be a feature of equilibrium outcomes when more than two candidates enter the electoral contest.     

Costs of bleeds relating to acute coronary syndrome therapies

Objective: To estimate the costs to manage selected types of bleeding complications in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) treated with antithrombotics, including antiplatelet, and fibrinolytic therapies: decrease in haemoglobin >3 g/dL, puncture site, and bleeding requiring transfusion of blood products.

Methods: Retrospective chart reviews of ACS patients experiencing decrease in Hb, puncture site, or bleeding requiring transfusion were conducted in hospitals in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden to determine the total length of stay (LOS), stay post-bleeding, procedures to identify the extent of bleeding, number and types of transfusion products, patient demographics, reason for hospital admission and disposition upon discharge. Country-specific costs were applied to estimate the average cost per patient by type of bleeding event.

Results: Records of 158 ACS patients with the bleeding complications were examined (26.9% decrease in Hb, 35.5% puncture site, and 37.8% transfusion). The average LOS was 10.6 days for decreasing Hb, 7.7 days for puncture site bleeding, and 11.3 days for patients receiving transfusions due to these bleeding events. The average costs per patient ranged between €3,986 and €10,252. The LOS ranged widely both within and across countries.

Limitations: The study has a small sample size and costs are confounded by co-morbidities.

Conclusions: The estimated costs for decreasing Hb, puncture site bleeding and bleeding resulting in transfusions provide a tool for researchers to conduct economic analyses of bleeding events associated with therapies for ACS.     

Input Prices as Signals of Costs to a Downstream Rival and Customer

We consider a dual distribution channel in which a vertically integrated manufacturer competes with a downstream rival in a retail market and also sells an input to the rival. We use a signalling model with a continuum of types to examine a situation in which the manufacturer has private information on the production cost of its retail product. We show that in a separating equilibrium under Cournot (Bertrand) retail competition, the manufacturer signals the uncompetitiveness (competitiveness) of its firm by charging a smaller input price than the optimal price under complete information.     

环境成本的确认和计量

传统会计实务未对环境成本进行单独地确认和计量，这是导致企业只重视经济效益而忽视经济和社会效益的重要原因。应在传统会计及国外、国内学术界对环境成本确认的比较研究基础上，对环境成本进行合理界定，并建立环境成本的计量方法，为企业进行环境治理决策提供理论基础和方法，     

交易成本与区域经济一体化

1．分工与交易成本。分工和专业化是经济增长的主要动力，与分工和专业化紧密相联的是不同经济主体之间的交易行为。交易是不同专业之间联系的纽带，从而使整个社会经济形成一个庞大的经济网络。     

Costs and Use of Medical Services

This article was prepared by Dr Richard Scotton, senior research fellow of the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and Chairman of the Health Insurance Commission from 1973 to 1976.     

Costs of change and political polarization

We study a two-period model of policy-making where (i) changes of current policies impose costs on all individuals that increase linearly with the magnitude of the policy shift and (ii) political power changes over time. We show that policy polarization is minimal for intermediate marginal costs. In turn, welfare is a single-peaked function of the marginal cost. One interpretation is that societies with political institutions that impose positive but moderate costs on political reforms simultaneously achieve the highest welfare and the lowest policy polarization.     

股权激励与代理成本

传统以管理费用率作为代理成本的替代不能恰当地反映管理者在职消费和职务侵占的真实水平,本文用经过Jones模型纠正的费用率作为代理成本的替代,考察了所有权性质、总经理持股与否及持股比例对代理成本的影响。本文提供了私有制下总经理适当持股有利于降低代理成本的可靠证据,为中国上市公司即将展开的股权激励计划提供证据的支持。     

Fixed and Sunk Costs Revisited

The authors attempt to clarify the concepts of, and the link between, fixed costs and sunk costs. They argue that the root for possible confusion between fixed costs and sunk costs is the inconsistency in defining the term fixed costs. They define fixed costs uniformly as the costs that are independent of the level of output and suggest that instructors refer to the part of fixed costs that are irrevocably committed as sunk costs. Under these definitions, the statement “there are no long-run fixed costs” is incorrect. Instructors should teach students that in the long run there are no sunk costs, although there may easily be fixed costs.     

The Costs of Cooperation

Public goods production is not necessarily desirable and involves higher costs than is often recognized. Specifically, public goods production may require that a small minority of individuals can collude at the expense of others or impose strategic sanctions on non-contributors. These facilities may have negative as well as positive effects. The same conditions that support public goods production also support business cartels and racial discrimination, for instance. We examine the implications of this perspective for modern debates on economic policy, civic virtue, communitarianism, and libertarianism.     

Technology Adoption Costs and Productivity Growth: The Transition to Information Technology

Using two panels of U.S. manufacturing industries, this paper estimates capital adjustment costs from 1961 to 1996. I find that from 1974–1983 adjustment costs rose sharply—they more than doubled from about 3% of output to around 7%. Moreover, this increase is specifically associated with a shift to investment in information technology. But such large adoption costs imply that the Solow residual mismeasures productivity growth: Adoption costs are resource costs representing an unmeasured investment. I find that when this investment is included, productivity grew about 0.4% per annum faster than official measures during the 1970's and early 1980's, reducing the size of the productivity “slowdown.” Indeed, estimated productivity growth rates were roughly the same from 1974–1988 as from 1949–1973. Thus technology transitions critically affect productivity growth measurement. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: O30, O47, E22.     

The formation of wage expectations in the effort and quit decisions of workers

This study develops models in which workers form expectations of average wages in choosing levels of effort and on-the-job search. It is assumed that information on lagged average wages is available at a low fixed cost, whilst acquiring other information requires an additional variable cost. Under reasonable conditions, workers' expectations are at least partly adaptive, and may be a mixture of rational and adaptive expectations. Microeconomic parameters determine the degree to which expectations are adaptive and the weights placed on various lags of wages. As a result of partly adaptive expectations, nominal demand shocks may have real effects.     

Social Costs and the Automobile Industry: A Challenge to National Planning

Neoinstitutional thought is based on an integration of Thorstein Veblen's evolutionary theory of institutional change and John Dewey's theory of instrumental valuation. It offers a coherent methodology that guides both economic analysis and policy formation. Neoinstitutionalist methodology differs from mainstream economic methodology in its rejection of the normative-positive dualism. It denies that "objectivity" requires that science be wertfrie, arguing instead that normative propositions based on instrumental valuation are the foundation of scientific objectivity. The analytical focus of neoinstitutional economics is the process of institutional change which it treats as a change in the value structure of the institution.