Attitude to child-bearing by single Nigerian women

The author examines attitudes toward childbearing by unmarried Nigerian women using data from interviews with a sample of 212 male and female residents of Ibadan, Nigeria, chosen in order to examine the views of educated Nigerians. The respondents were, for the most part, Yorubas, married, and aged 20-40. "In general, the respondents supported the suggestion that women who are unmarried should try and have children of their own, but they are opposed to the suggestion that such women should have as many children as possible, either from the same man or from different men of their choice." The author suggests that "one significant implication of the survey is that the general fertility rate (that is the annual number of births per 1,000 women of reproductive age) may be very high in developing areas not only because married women produce children, but also because women of childbearing ages who are single [are] also encouraged to have children of their own."     

Limit orders,asymmetric information,and the formation of asset prices with a computerized specialist

We analyze the existence of equilibrium in an asset market under asymmetric information. Price formation is modeled as a bilateral sealed bid auction where uninformed and informed traders submit limit orders to a computerized specialist. The computerized specialist is programmed to sell to the highest bidder and buy from the seller asking the lowest price. We show that this mechanism — which is designed to model the Globex and RAES trading institutions used in Chicago, London, New York, Paris, and Germany — yields an equilibrium in which the bid-ask spread is endogenously random and the passive specialist earns nonnegative profits.     

Welfare-improving financial innovation with a single good

Summary. We show that at any equilibrium of almost every single-good incomplete markets economy, it is possible to find an asset which when introduced makes every agent better-off. Diamond (1967) has shown, however, that such economies are constrained suboptimal, so it is of course impossible to find a new asset which makes all agents worse-off. This contrasts with the case of multiple consumption goods, for which Cass and Citanna (1995) and Elul (1995) demonstrate that equilibrium utilities may be arbitrarily perturbed via financial innovation. Proving our result requires us to exploit not changes in equilibrium prices, but rather the gains to trading the new asset. In particular, we find an asset which when introduced does not change the existing asset prices even though it is traded by every agent – by a revealed preference argument it must therefore make everyone better-off. Received: May 28, 1997; revised version: July 1, 1997     

The production of functionality by the elderly: a household production function approach

This paper extends Becker's model of the household production function of human capital to the production of elderly functionality. In this model, elderly functionality is produced with the direct inputs of assistive devices, personal assistance, and nutritional intake. Education, endowment variables (like genetic endowment and sex) and health conditions (like stroke) determine the production function environment. Data from the Survey of Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest-Old (AHEAD) are used to estimate a production function of bathing functionality, using a two-stage estimation procedure. In the first stage, input demands for the endogenous functionality inputs are estimated, recognizing health heterogeneity. The results suggest that reverses in functionality caused by age and health conditions can be partially compensated for by the use of assistive devices (like grab bars and bathing equipment), secure nutritional intake, and moderate alcohol consumption. However, non-inputs like chronic health conditions, age, sex and genetic endowment exert a strong influence on the level of functionality.     

Efficient egalitarian equivalent allocations over a single good

This paper studies efficient and egalitarian allocations over a single heterogeneous and infinitely divisible good. We prove the existence of such allocations using only measure-theoretic arguments. Under the additional assumption of complete information, we identify a sufficient condition on agents’ preferences that makes it possible to apply the Pazner–Schmeidler rule for uniquely selecting an efficient egalitarian equivalent allocation. Finally, we exhibit a simple procedure that implements the Pazner–Schmeidler selection in a subgame-perfect equilibrium. We thank Gabrielle Demange, William Thomson, two referees and seminar audiences at Boston, Palermo and Rochester University for their comments. Financial support from MIUR is acknowledged.     

Markov perfect Nash equilibria in models with a single capital stock

Many economic problems can be formulated as dynamic games in which strategically interacting agents choose actions that determine the current and future levels of a single capital stock. We study necessary as well as sufficient conditions that allow us to characterise Markov perfect Nash equilibria for these games. These conditions can be translated into an auxiliary system of ordinary differential equations that helps us to explore stability, continuity and differentiability of these equilibria. The techniques are used to derive detailed properties of Markov perfect Nash equilibria for several games including voluntary investment in a public capital stock, the inter-temporal consumption of a reproductive asset and the pollution of a shallow lake.     

On the existence of a regulated production function

This paper examines the generalization of the regulated production function. It characterizes the set of admissible regulatory constraints that are compatible with the existence of a regulated production function in a sufficiently weak framework to encompass the usual rate-of-return constraints à la Averch and Johnson and value constraints.     

Market demand is a continuous function of prices

A natural class of probabilities on the space of consumers' preferences is presented for which market (i.e., mean) demand is a (continuous) function of prices although individual preferences may be non-convex.     

Corruption in a neoclassical growth model with a non-convex production function

In this article, we analyze the bureaucrats’ corruption problem in a simple neoclassical growth model with a non-convex production function. In this model, we consider direct relations between product (income) taxation and corruption, and between corruption and public goods provision. As the main result, we show that the optimal consumption growth path in this economy is higher in a non-corrupt environment than in a corrupt environment and the higher the proportion of corrupt bureaucrats, the higher the cost of corruption to society.     

一次管柱机械找堵水采油技术研究与应用

针对传统机械堵水工艺施工过程复杂、措施成本高和堵水成功率较低的问题,研制了新型的堵水滑套开关,同时对配套的堵水封隔器等工具进行了改进,并优化了管柱结构,改进完成了新式的一次管柱机械找堵水采油工艺技术.该工艺集采油、找水、堵水为一次管柱,在正常的抽油生产中完成对油井各小层含水状况的认识,同时封堵高含水层位,生产含油饱和度较高的油层.该技术的实施有效降低了找水措施的费用,提高了生产时率,取得了较好的经济效益.该项技术在断块复杂、油水分布状况不明确的非均质油藏开发中具有较好的稳油控水作用.     

Outsourcing and firm productivity: a production function approach

This paper is aimed at analyzing the relationship between outsourcing and productivity. Specifically, this paper deals with outsourcing at the firm level and focuses on the role of contracting out of manufacturing activities. I obtain new insights on this topic, mainly using a precise measure for outsourcing and analyzing differences across industries. Using an unbalanced panel of Spanish manufacturing firms, I estimate a production function depending on traditional inputs (labor, capital, and materials) and an index of production subcontracting. I find that for manufacturing as a whole, outsourcing intensity has a positive effect on productivity, showing an elasticity of output with respect to outsourcing around 0.15. When analyzing industry level results, I find that outsourcing intensity has a positive effect on productivity, mainly for firms belonging to light industries.     

Aggregation and the existence of a social utility function

In a well-known paper Gorman (Econometrica21 (1953)) established that the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an aggregate, or social, utility function, independent of the distribution of income, is that all individuals' income consumption paths be parallel straight lines. Recently Chipman (J. Econ. Theory8 (1974)), building on the paper of Hurwicz and Uzawa (in “Preference Utility and Demand”) has shown that if the distribution of income is proportional and individual preferences are homothetic, aggregate consumption behavior obeys the necessary integrability conditions. It is shown here that the consistency of aggregate behavior can be derived from more general conditions than the ones used by Chipman and Gorman. Examples of demand systems from which aggregate behavior implies a social utility function are provided. It is then shown that if individual demand functions are linear in income—a form employed by both Gorman and Chipman—it is not necessary that the distribution of income be fixed.     

Assessing the impact of a wage subsidy for single parents on social assistance

Abstract This paper studies the impact of a wage subsidy program aimed at long‐term social assistance recipients in Quebec. The program closely mimics the Self‐Sufficiency Project and was implemented for a trial period of one year in 2002.We focus on the labour market transitions of the targeted population starting one year before the implementation of the program and until the end of 2005. Our results show that the duration of spells off social assistance increased, while the duration of social assistance spells decreased slightly. The response to the program varies considerably with both observed and unobserved characteristics.     

Corruption in a neoclassical growth model with a non-convex production function: comment

In Pereira and da Cruz Vieira (Int Rev Econ 57:335?C346, 2010), it is claimed that previous studies on corruption using the neoclassical growth model in the Ramsey tradition typically exploited a convex production function with productive government spending. Moreover, a non-convex intensive form technology representation is proposed as derived from the (presumptive) strictly convex function in levels. We show that none of these claims are true, for the general function is neither convex nor concave and fails to be linearly homogeneous. As a consequence, all the findings derived in Pereira and da Cruz Vieira (2010) are not peculiar to non-convex production functions.     

Technical efficiency of European railways: a distance function approach

This study has two principal objectives. The first objective is to measure and compare the performance of European railways. The second objective is to illustrate the usefulness of econometric distance functions in the analysis of production in multioutput industries, where behavioural assumptions such as cost minimization or profit maximization, are unlikely to be applicable. Using annual data on 17 railways companies during 1988–1993, multioutput distance functions are estimated using corrected ordinary least squares (COLS). The resulting technical efficiency estimates range from 0.980 for the Netherlands to 0.784 for Italy, with a mean of 0.863. The distance function results are also compared with those obtained from single-output production functions, where aggregate output measures are formed using either total revenue or a Tornqvist index. The results obtained indicate substantial differences in parameter estimates and technical efficiency rankings, casting significant doubt upon the reliability of these single-output models, particularly when a total revenue measure is used to proxy aggregate output.