DIMENSIONALITY AND DISAGREEMENT: ASYMPTOTIC BELIEF DIVERGENCE IN RESPONSE TO COMMON INFORMATION

We provide a model of boundedly rational, multidimensional learning and characterize when beliefs will converge to the truth. Agents maintain beliefs as marginal probabilities instead of joint probabilities, and agents' information is of lower dimension than the model. As a result, for some observations, agents may face an identification problem affecting the role of data in inference. Beliefs converge to the truth when these observations are rare, but beliefs diverge when observations presenting an identification problem are frequent. Robustly, two agents with differing priors who observe identical, unambiguous information may disagree forever, with stronger disagreement the more information received.     

产权结构与制度环境降低交易成本的机理研究

产权能否降低交易成本与产权可分性下的不同产权结构与制度环境的适应性水平密切相关。以此为基本思路,本文以产权的可分性为切入点,对产权结构和制度环境进行了类型划分,并深入探究了产权结构、制度环境、交易成本间适应性下运行的一般机理。由此说明,产权结构、制度环境的优化均可降低交易成本,产权结构与制度环境的匹配度越高,交易成本降低越多。政府失灵型等六种产权结构类型与负国家环境水平指数型等六种制度环境类型的具体匹配,可以更好地探究出产权结构与制度环境深度匹配降低交易成本的路径。     

A THEORY OF MIGRATION AS A RESPONSE TO OCCUPATIONAL STIGMA*

A theory is developed of labor migration that is prompted by a desire to avoid “social humiliation.” In a general‐equilibrium framework, it is shown that as long as migration can reduce humiliation sufficiently, migration will occur even between two identical economies. Migration increases the number of individuals who choose to perform degrading jobs and consequently, migration lowers the price of the good produced in the sector that is associated with low social status. Moreover, the greater an individual's aversion to performing degrading jobs, the more likely it is that he will experience a welfare gain when the economy opens up.     

以张家界世界遗产地为例看中国的"申遗热"

自第30届世界遗产大会后,中国的世界遗产数已达到了33项,而有申报计划的申遗队伍已经排到了百年之后。文章以张家界世界遗产地为例,对世界遗产地申遗前后的发展变化进行了实证分析,解析了中国各地对申遗高热的情结。     

居民收入倍增：体制约束与制度因应——基于中国式财政分权的思考

中国式财政分权在成为推动经济增长体制性动力的同时,也是中国居民收入倍增的体制性约束,更是改善国民收入分配格局的体制性障碍,使以经济增长为主要目标的发展战略与服务于民生改善收入差距的目标存在体制性的内在冲突,最终形成了收入分配改善游离于经济增长系统之外的发展模式,造成普通民众难以或较少从经济增长中获得更多的福利改善。必须把财政分权作为一项完整的制度体系来看待,在认清中国式财政分权的动力机制和局限性的基础上,正确合理地设计制度方案,以创新的思维彻底系统地改造现有的分权体制,对于调节收入差距、实现居民收入倍增而言是最根本性的举措。     

基于效率的环境产权分配

由于双边道德风险的存在,无论将环境产权分配给排污者还是受害者,一般来说,都难以使双方均作出有效率的预防行动配置决策。因此,在排污者与受害者之间变更环境产权归属,一般并不会导致帕累托最优竞争均衡。本文通过对两种非效率均衡的比较,从确认最低成本预防者角度分析了环境产权的分配。这种规则下的环境产权分配将导致相对更有效率的结果。     

AN ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL POWER DISPERSION: THE CASE OF TURKEY

This study examines the effects of fragmented governments and fiscal authorities on budget deficits in Turkey along with political business cycle effects. For econometric analysis we will use annual data from the period 1960 to 2009. This article sheds light on various dispersion indices and their use in the field of political power and fiscal performance. The results show that the power dispersion indices of governments and fiscal institutions significantly explain the increases in the ratio of budget deficit to gross national product. The article draws attention to the unification and better coordination of fiscal authorities in Turkey. The analysis has important policy implications for Turkey and other developing countries from the viewpoint of fragmented political and administrative dispersion of power and poor budget performances. (JEL P16, H72, C22, C43)     

REGULATION AND JOB CREATION: AN ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The study evaluates the impact of changes in price regulation, an important institutional feature of firms’ environments, on average human resource deployment levels among the United States local exchange telecommunications companies using contemporary historical data between 1988 and 2001. The data permit a natural experiment approach for the evaluation. Firms regulated via rate of return approaches have employed significantly less staff. These employment levels have been 15 percent lower than that of firms regulated via incentive regulation. The study is a direct test of a principal dynamic capabilities idea that firms reconfigure resources in the face of environmental changes to retain their competitive advantages. These results signify the importance of designing regulations possessing requisite incentive properties in enhancing firm level employment and support the key premises of the dynamic capabilities perspective.     

个人禀赋、制度环境与创业决策:一个实证研究

本文研究发现,返乡者的企业家人力资本、可支配财富、教育程度等个人禀赋因素对创业决策有着重大影响;同时,政府的质量对返乡者的创业倾向也有相当大的影响。虽然上述因素的变化可在边际上大幅度影响返乡者选择自雇型创业的倾向,但对于其规模型创业倾向的影响要弱得多。上述实证结果表明,为了激励创业活动,政府应首先减少腐败和提高办事效率,并充分认识到,自雇型创业而非规模型创业才是最有效的帮助对象。     

再评诺斯的制度变迁理论

本文部分选改自笔者为道格拉斯.C.诺斯教授的《制度、制度变迁与经济绩效》一书的新中译本所写的代译序。第一节对诺斯的生平和著作作了简短的介绍。第二节对《制度、制度变迁与经济绩效》的基本思想和理论结构进行了较全面的评述。第三节对20世纪90年代以来诺斯在制度研究和制度变迁理论方面的主要学术贡献作了一些介绍和评论,尤其是对诺斯的最新著作《理解经济变迁过程》和他与一些合作者的新作"解释有记载人类历史的一种概念框架"长文中的一些观点作了一些解读、评论和商榷。从诺斯2000年之后的一些新近文著中,可以清楚地发现,他越来越注重研究经济制度变迁与政治体制变迁的内在关联机制,且越来越重视研究人们的信念、认知、心智构念和意向性在人类社会制度变迁中的作用。     

GRANTING AN EXIT OPTION TO CONDUCT AN AUDIT

We study a principal–agent relationship with auditing in which information from an audit is ‘soft’– by conducting an audit, the principal observes the agent's private information, but cannot obtain verifiable evidence on the information. Moreover, the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable in our model. Therefore, besides the agent's misreporting incentive, there is the principal's incentive to accuse the truthful agent even without auditing. If the principal's auditing effort is verifiable, granting no exit option to the agent is optimal although the principal can still accuse a truthful agent after the audit. We show that when the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable, granting an exit option to the agent and auditing are complementary. Without granting an exit option to the agent, no auditing is optimal, and the principal grants an exit option to conduct a sincere audit, which in turn mitigates the agent's misreporting incentive. Our analysis also reveals that, when the cost of auditing is sufficiently large, the principal conducts more sincere audits with a smaller amount of penalty.     

AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF COOPERATION IN THE DYNAMIC COMMON POOL GAME

This article studies experimentally to what extent subjects can cooperate in a dynamic common pool game, where the stage game changes endogenously. Although efficiency can be supported with strategies that condition on history, the main finding is that it is difficult to cooperate. Even if the incentives to cooperate are large, modal behavior can be rationalized with equilibrium Markov strategies that do not condition on history. The popularity of Markov strategies, however, is decreasing in the incentives to cooperate. The evidence also suggests that strategic uncertainty added by facing stage games that change in time may move play away from efficiency.     

PROPERTY RIGHTS, REGULATORY TAKING, AND COMPENSATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

The 104th Congress considered several proposals requiring compensation for regulatory actions that diminish property values. Aimed primarily at weakening environmental protection, the bills focus on property rights independent of the public benefits from regulation. By significantly broadening the constitutional standard for compensation, the bills generate a government liability well in excess of compliance costs and thus discourage regulatory agencies from carrying out their mandates. The bills would increase transactions costs and undermine the efficient provision of environmental quality, public safety, and other public goods.     

INTERFAMILY TRANSFERS AS ALTERNATIVES TO GOVERNMENT TRANSFERS TO PERSONS*

How have government transfers altered the distribution of income, the level of work effort, and the rate of personal saving? Most scholars approach this question by comparing the current level of government transfers with the unrealistic counterfactual of a zero-transfer situation. This method overlooks the fact that nongovernment transfers existed before government transfers and the possibility that private transfers might have grown more if government transfers had grown less. This paper explores the significance of one private alternative to government transfers-namely, direct interfamily giving of cash, food, and housing. Fragmentary evidence suggests that such interfamily transfer was quantitatively more important than governmental transfer for these purposes thirty years ago, but is now only half as great. If current government transfers are conversions of, or substitutes for, interfamily transfers, then it follows that some of the benefits of government transfer “slide” over to “secondary beneficiaries,” i.e. those who would have made the private transfers. Further, it follows that the effects of government transfers are not much different from those of the private transfers which they replace.