Real options and demographic decisions

The theory of real options is used to incorporate the influence of uncertainty on demographic decision-making. The decision to have children is formulated as an investment using portfolio theory. The timing of the decision to have a child is modelled as a real options decision, with uncertainty affecting a woman's ability to exercise the ‘option to wait’ in order to delay or space births. An increase and reduction in uncertainty on this option is explored. Compared to the widely used net present value (NPV) framework, the real options approach (ROA) better explains the process of demographic decision-making in poor countries.     

有机食品购买的主要影响因素分析——基于城市消费者的调查统计

通过梳理有机食品消费研究的相关文献,从而建立影响有机食品购买决策的理论模型,然后运用相关分析和Logit模型对城市消费者有机蔬菜消费的调研数据进行数理统计分析。研究结果显示,消费者受教育程度、消费者收入、消费者对有机食品认知水平、消费者在食品购买中对安全性的要求、消费者对有机食品的感知价值、消费者对有机食品的态度是影响消费者购买有机食品的主要因素。     

Irrational diversification in multiple decision problems

The paper deals with multiple decision problems, which are similar to the task of guessing the color outcomes of five independent spinnings of a roulette wheel, 60% of whose slots are red and 40% white. Each correct guess yields a prize of $1. The guess of 5 Reds clearly first order stochastic dominates any other strategy. In contrast, subjects diversify their choices when facing a multiple decision problem in which the choice is between lotteries with clear objective probabilities. The diversification is stronger when the subjects face uncertainty without objective probabilities and weaker when the choice problem involves real life actions.     

Individual option prices for climate change mitigation

Willingness-to-pay for climate change mitigation depends on people's perceptions about just how bad things will get if nothing is done. Individual subjective distributions for future climate conditions are combined with stated choices over alternative climate policies to estimate individual option prices (the appropriate ex ante welfare measure in the face of uncertainty) for climate change mitigation. We find statistically significant sensitivity of estimated option prices to both expected future conditions and uncertainty about future conditions.     

Fear itself: How risk sensitive firms can give demand shocks bite

Many economists believe that recessions arise when aggregate demand is insufficient to support full employment. However, replicating this intuition within a real business cycle (RBC) model has proven surprisingly challenging. Rather than eliciting a contraction, lower consumer demand leads to greater household savings in many such models, fueling new investment and causing the economy to expand. The present paper proposes a novel way to resolve this apparent paradox: risk-averse firms. In the model to follow, cautious firms reduce their demand for investment prior to a recession. This contraction in the demand for capital overcomes the increased supply arising from consumer savings and restores intuitive business cycle behavior. In particular, the paper demonstrates that the model economy contracts when subjected to an uncertainty shock in consumer demand, mimicking a pre-recessionary environment in which firms, fearing a lack of orders, precipitate the downturn by reducing capital expenditures. These results are consistent with microeconomic evidence that uncertainty, particularly uncertainty about future demand, is the primary reason for firms shedding workers or scaling down operations in advance of an economic downturn. More generally, they imply that firm's attitudes towards risk shouldn't be ignored in modern macroeconomic models.     

Anonymous Games with Binary Actions

In many economic decision problems the preferences of economic agents depend on the numbers or proportions of individuals choosing the same decision or other decisions. Examples include network or congestion externalities, location choices of firms, the tourist's choice of a vacation destination, the visit of public events like concerts, or the purchase of goods that are subject to fashion. In this article the relating equilibrium characterization and selection questions are formulated and solved in terms of anonymous games with a continuum of players facing a binary decision problem. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D62.     

A discrete choice contingent valuation estimate of the value of Kenai King salmon

A new method for estimating the demand curve for publicly supplied goods when quantities are restricted to a few discrete levels is introduced. The method involves fitting a conditional logit model to choices from a set of survey options in which price and quantity are both varied and consumer attitudes are explicitly controlled. The estimated parameters of the valuation function serve to trace the marginal value of the good at each level of hypothetical consumption in survey data. We apply the method to the valuation of salmon on Alaska's Kenai River. We find that there is a distinct kink in the marginal valuation function and that sport fishermen may place a negative marginal value on fish permits exceeding their desired catch levels.     

Liquidity Cost Premia

The purpose of the paper is to find out the borrowing cost premia for those individuals who are liquidity-constrained, or who are first-time buyers of real estate. The analysis uses the similarity of a leveraged purchase with the exercise of a call option to defer the purchase of the asset. Sensible parameters are selected for the option, and simulations are run to identify the cost premia. The main conclusion is that these borrowing costs are prohibitive in central tendency and in dispersion. This means that liquidity-constrained individuals may be given borrowing quotations, but these quoted rates are so high and variable that these individuals are unwilling to borrow.     

Firm's objective function and product and process R&D

Firms undertake different kinds of R&D activities. They do product R&D (R&D aimed at improving the quality of existing products, and creating new products). They also do process R&D (R&D aimed at lowering the cost of making existing and new products). Moreover, firms often do both product and process R&D simultaneously. As far as the objective of firms is concerned, this need not be limited to profit-maximization only. Rather, firms may have a broader objective, where they care about profits as well as consumer surplus. This paper studies effects of a firm having a general objective function (that takes into consideration both profits and consumer surplus) on its product and process R&D choices, and corresponding implications.I consider product and process R&D choices of firms in an infinite horizon set-up with discrete time. Firms in my framework can simultaneously do both product and process R&D in every period, face a discrete-choice model of consumer demand with vertical product differentiation, and maximize a discounted, weighted sum of their profits and consumer surplus over the infinite time horizon.I show how process and product R&D differ from each other in my framework, and the role of a firm's objective function in this regard. I compare process and product R&D choices across firms that differ in their objective function, and illustrate effects of providing general R&D subsidies (subsidies given for any R&D, regardless of whether it is product or process R&D) to firms. I also characterize how in my framework, the choice of process R&D in total R&D — R&D composition — by an individual firm varies over time, and how process and product R&D choices, process and product R&D productivity, and the choice of R&D composition vary across firms that differ in size but are otherwise similar.     

The choice between an annuity and a lump sum: Results from Swiss pension funds

This paper uses unique micro data from Swiss employer-based pension plans to study the annuitization decision at retirement. The administrative nature of our data, though limited with respect to individual background characteristics, allows us to analyze real choices over large retirement balances, rather than subjectively reported intentions to annuitize. We find a strong and robust impact of a utility-based measure of the annuity's value (computed within a life-cycle framework) on individual annuitization rates. Low accumulation of retirement assets is strongly associated with the choice of the lump sum, presumably due to the availability of means-tested social assistance. The sponsor's default option, in most cases the annuity, is also found to be highly influential in the decision to annuitize.     

My money or yours: house money payment effects

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to study how subjects’ decision making may be affected by the timing of participation payments (or show-up fees). The experiment follows Davis et al. (J. Econ. 30:69–95, 2004) where subjects were asked to make a sequential purchase decision and were given the opportunity to purchase information about the value of a good prior to a decision to purchase the good itself. There, subjects purchased information less often than expected which was interpreted as risk-seeking behavior. Here, we test a payment hypothesis by varying the timing of the participation payment. Payment of a show-up fee before the decision-making stages of the experiment increases information purchase, which we interpret as an increase in risk-averse behavior.     

虚拟灰色市场中消费者购物意愿影响因素实证研究

随着电子商务的发展,因特网上涌现出很多出售水货商品的店铺,虚拟水货市场规模在不断扩大,究竟哪些因素促使消费者愿意选择在虚拟灰色市场选购商品值得深入探讨。通过分析虚拟灰色市场中消费者购物意愿的影响因素,提出了一个结构方程模型,并对模型进行了实证检验,研究发现,在虚拟灰色市场中,感知有用性和商品价值正向影响消费者购买意愿,风险则负向影响购买意愿,消费者的价值质量推论会正向影响消费者感知商品价值。     

The strategy of manipulating joint decision-making

We study a model of strategic persuasion based on the theory of cheap talk, in which a better-informed agent manipulates two decision-makers’ joint decision on alternative proposals. With the heterogeneity of two decision-makers’ value of the outside option, only the decision-maker with the better outside option is critical in determining whether communication is truthful, overselling, or ineffective.     

Dynamic stability and reform of political institutions

This paper examines endogenous institutional change in a class of dynamic political games. The political aggregation rules used at date t+1 are instrumental choices under rules at date t. Effectively, rules are “players” who can strategically delegate future policy-making authority to different rules. A political rule is stable if it selects itself. A reform occurs when an alternative rule is selected. The stability of a political rule is shown to depend on whether its choices are dynamically consistent. For instance, simple majority rules can be shown to be dynamically consistent in many common environments where wealth-weighted voting rules are not. The result extends to political rules that incorporate private activities such as extra-legal protests, threats, or private investment. The approach is one way of understanding various explanations of institutional change proposed in the literature. A parametric model of public goods provision gives an illustration.     

电商不同类型促销对购买行为的长期影响——以亚马逊电子书为例

促销的长期影响在学术界一直备受争议,并且传统研究更多地关注实体企业的促销效果,而对电商平台的促销活动研究较少。为了厘清电商平台的不同促销方式对消费者购买行为的长期影响,本文基于亚马逊电子书的销售数据,建立固定效应模型考察了降价和优惠券两种价格促销的长期影响。结果表明,降价促销会导致消费者未来购买数量减少、购买金额增加、购买时间间隔缩短;优惠券促销则会使得消费者未来购买数量增加、购买金额减少、购买时间间隔不变。在此基础上,本文进一步分析了消费者购买经验的调节作用。本文不仅丰富了已有促销长期影响的研究成果,而且对电商如何制定促销策略以优化促销长期效果提供了科学可行的建议,具有重要的理论意义和实践价值。     

Taxation of firms with unknown mobility

We analyze optimal business tax policy when some firms are able to escape taxation by moving abroad. In contrast to the existing literature, we assume that the true number of mobile firms is ex ante unknown. While the government may learn from the firms' location responses to past tax rate changes, firms may anticipate this and adjust their choices accordingly. We find that incomplete information on mobility substantially affects the properties and the implications of equilibrium policy choices. First, the government may find it optimal to set a tax rate that triggers partial firm migration but full revelation of the true number of mobile firms. Second, we show that, if the firms' outside option is attractive (i.e., relocation cost and foreign tax rates are low), expected tax rates and expected firm migration are higher if the degree of mobility is unknown. Third, there is a positive value of learning, i.e., commitment on future tax rates cannot increase the government's expected revenue. However, if the government can commit to a rule‐based learning mechanism, i.e., credibly tie its future tax policy to present policy outcomes, it may obtain a Pareto improvement.     

基于复合实物期权的公司流动性定价研究

公司流动性是指公司或企业持有的流动性资产,它除了账面价值外,还含有某种潜在价值。对公司流动性价值进行科学的评估,对于投资者、公司管理者等各方都非常重要。采用实物期权理论对公司流动性进行定价。是目前公司金融理论的前沿课题。这方面的研究不但可以打开对公司流动性认知的新视野,还可以促使我们通过了解公司持有的流动性所蕴含的价值,进而对整个公司价值进行真正正确的评估。本文首次揭示了公司流动性的复合实物期权性质,并用复合实物期权二叉树模型进行了公司流动性定价的尝试,为公司财务管理决策提供了一种量化的工具。通过使用复合实物期权模型,我们得到了公司流动性复合期权的价值,这个价值不但大于流动性持有的机会成本和其最初时刻的静态价值,同样也比常用的NPV法算出的项目价值大。多出来的价值就是考虑了流动性复合期权的结果。     

Leaving EMU: a real options perspective

The real option implicit in a country's decision of whether to leave an existing monetary union when there is uncertainty over the future benefits of this move is examined. The theoretical model used is calibrated for the current Euro-12 area by proxying policymakers’ inflation preferences with unemployment rates and debt-to-GDP ratios. A robust group of countries is observed that would choose to remain within EMU consisting of Belgium, Finland, Greece and Italy; France and Spain loosely also belong to this core. Only Luxembourg would robustly want to leave EMU; Ireland and The Netherlands, however, complement that core closely.     

True indexes and rational habit formation

In this paper we discuss the construction of true indexes when tastes change endogenously. True indexes take the substitution possibilities of the consumer to a changing economic situation into account when equating the utility level of a particular period to the utility level attained in the base period through an appropriate change in income or the wage level. When tastes change endogenously, the current decision depends on the past history of consumption but, by the same token, the future path of consumption will depend on the current choice. In a true index, these intertemporal links of the current decision have to be taken into account. For a particular specification of the habit formation process, this is achieved by an appropriate transformation of prices and expenditures. A true intertemporal wage index is computed for the period 1946–1967 in the U.S. Because of increasing needs and intertemporal rationality, this index is roughly constant and equal to 1: real wages remained constant!     

风险投资决策评价方法的比较分析

风险投资的投资决策方法较多,实践中常用的有贴现现金流量法,但这种方法管理柔性差,战略适应性不强,通常会低估项目的投资价值;而实物期权法,可使决策者在投资决策中有意识地构造实物期权,并利用金融期权理论正确评估项目的价值。所以用实物期权法来评价风险投资决策更优于贴现现金流量法。