Competitive equilibrium with unawareness in economies with production

This paper investigates an extension of the GEI-unawareness framework by Modica et al. (Econ. Theory 12 (1998) 259) to economies with entrepreneurial production. Existence of equilibrium is guaranteed given decreasing returns to scale. Firm's value and investment decision in equilibrium are characterized. An example of commodity innovation shows that the effect of different degrees of awareness on investment decisions depend upon the degree of risk aversion. In the case of log preferences unawareness may not matter for commodity innovation, although this depends on other preference features.     

Committees with supermajority voting yield commitment with flexibility

A fundamental problem for government is how to combine commitment to certain policies with the flexibility required to adjust them when needed. Rogoff (1985) [Rogoff, K., 1985. The optimal degree of commitment to an intermediate monetary target, Q. J. Econ. 100(4) 1169–1189] showed that a way to strike the right balance is to appoint an optimally “conservative” policy-maker. In real life, however, policy-makers also have power over decisions where optimal plans are time-consistent, so delegating to a conservative person could be undesirable. A flexible delegation device can be found in a large committee of randomly appointed members voting over policy after observing a shock. When facing dynamic inconsistency, under a single-crossing property, there exists a supermajority rule that implements the population median's optimally conservative policy-maker with certainty. Another single-crossing property guarantees that if simple majority voting is used to select the voting rule that will govern policy choice, the supermajority preferred by the median is chosen. For problems where dynamic inconsistency vanishes, the committee will choose to make decisions by simple majority, implementing median outcomes. An application to monetary policy is developed. We show that the optimal supermajority is higher when dynamic inconsistency is more severe, when preferences are more homogeneous, and when the economy is less volatile.     

Endogenous Timing with Incomplete Information and with Observable Delay

This paper analyzes endogenous timing in a duopoly model with incomplete information. Firms announce the period in which they will move before choosing an action and are then committed to their choices. Endogenous Stackelberg equilibria, with either the informed or the uninformed firm as the Stackelberg leader, may emerge. For most parameters, the Cournot equilibrium in the first production period results endogenously. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72; C73; D82; L10.     

构建具有民族性与原创性的中国特色政治经济学

改革开放前,中国照搬以“苏联范式” 为代表的传统社会主义政治经济学;近些年来,一些学者单纯地致力于诠释马克思主义政治经济学的经典范式,或者照搬以“美国范式” 为代表的主流经济学与新政治经济学。这些做法都存在教条性与僵化性的缺陷,阻碍了中国政治经济学的健康发展。因此,当代中国政治经济学应当从中国国情出发,立足自主创新,致力于构建民族性与原创性相统一的中国特色政治经济学,这既是当代中国政治经济学发展的根本要求,也是中国政治经济学的根本特征。构建中国特色政治经济学应当立足中国实际国情,构建中国特色的社会生产方式理论;从中国实际出发,着力研究制约中国经济发展的制度结构问题;实现继承与发展的统一,构建中国政治经济学的崭新范式。     

31例妊高症剖宫产麻醉配合体会

目的探讨妊高症剖宫产麻醉配合体会经验.方法对2009年4月－2012年3月在牡丹江医学院附属二院妇产科住院的31例妊高症剖宫产产妇资料进行回顾性分析.结果31例患者中,18例行腰-硬联合麻醉,13例行硬膜外麻醉,入ICU率及住院天数,腰硬联合麻醉组明显低于硬膜外麻醉组;新生儿1－5min Apgar评分≤7分的百分率,腰硬联合麻醉组明显低于硬膜外麻醉组,两组患者的术后血压、胎儿娩出时间、术后并发症均无显著性差异.结论腰-硬联合麻醉运用于妊高症剖宫产是疗效确切并且安全的.     

Equilibrium theory with asymmetric information and with infinitely many commodities

The traditional deterministic general equilibrium theory with infinitely many commodities cannot cover economies with private information constraints on the consumption sets. We bring the level of asymmetric information equilibrium theory at par with that of the deterministic one. In particular, we establish results on equilibrium existence for exchange economies with asymmetric (differential) information and with an infinite dimensional commodity space. Our new equilibrium existence theorems include, as a special case, classical results, e.g. Bewley [Existence of equilibria in economies with infinitely many commodities, J. Econ. Theory 4 (1972) 514-540] or Mas-Colell [The price equilibrium existence problem in topological vector lattices, Econometrica 54 (1986) 1039-1053].     

Asymmetric common-value auctions with applications to private-value auctions with resale

We study a model of common-value auctions with two bidders in which bidders’ private information are independently and asymmetrically distributed. We present sufficient and necessary conditions, respectively, under which the expected revenues from first-price and second-price auctions can be ranked. Using these conditions and a bid-equivalence between common-value auctions and private-value auctions with resale, we extend the revenue-ranking result of Hafalir and Krishna [Am Econ Rev 98, 2008a] and provide necessary conditions for their ranking to hold. In addition, we provide sufficient and necessary conditions for the opposite ranking of revenues, respectively. Our analysis helps clarify the roles of two forms of regularity assumptions (buyer-regularity and seller-regularity) in ranking revenues and illustrates how revenue ranking is linked to submodularity and supermodularity of the common-value function and to a single-crossing property of a function derived from the monopoly or monopsony pricing function in the resale stage.     

Cost-effectiveness of amisulpride compared with risperidone in patients with schizophrenia

SUMMARY

Amisulpride is an atypical antipsychotic, which has demonstrated efficacy across the range of symptoms of schizophrenia. This study compares the treatment costs of amisulpride (including drug costs, hospital costs, and costs of clinician and nurse visits) with those of risperidone over a 6-month treatment period, from the perspective of the UK National Health Service. Resource utilisation data were collected alongside an international, multicentre clinical trial comparing amisulpride (400-1000 mg/day) with risperidone (4-10 mg/day) in 198 patients with schizophrenia. As this trial demonstrated that amisulpride had at least equivalent efficacy to risperidone, the present study was a cost-minimisation analysis. Unit cost data for the UK were obtained from published sources and applied to the clinical data to calculate direct treatment costs. Amisulpride was associated with lower drug acquisition costs and lower resource utilisation costs than risperidone, although the differences did not reach statistical significance. Overall, the average total cost per patient for 6 months of treatment with amisulpride (£12,673; 95% CI: 10,628,14,717) was £2,145 less than for risperidone (£14,818; 95% CI: 12,323,17,312). These findings are similar to those of a previous study that compared the treatment costs of amisulpride with those of haloperidol, and found that

amisulpride was associated with significantly lower direct treatment costs than haloperidol. Amisulpride is a valuable treatment option in patients with schizophrenia.     

Auctions with cross-shareholdings

Summary. We study the effect of cross-shareholding among two competing firms on their bidding behavior and the expected sales revenue for the seller in an auction environment. The bidders private signals are independent, and the model encompasses the private values model and a particular common value model as special cases. When cross-shareholding is symmetric, the bids decrease towards the collusive level as the degree of cross-shareholding increases. The Revenue Equivalence result no longer holds: the first-price auction generates higher expected revenue for the seller than the second-price auction.With asymmetric cross-shareholding, revenue comparisons are only possible in the common value setting. Expected revenue for the seller is again higher in the first-price than in the second price auction. Bidding behavior in the second-price auction is more sensitive to changes in cross-shareholding and the value environment than in the first-price auction.Received: 18 September 2000, Revised: 27 May 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D44.Correspondence to: Sudipto DasguptaWe thank Sugato Bhattacharyya, Paul Klemperer, Kunal Sengupta and Guofu Tan for helpful discussions, and an anonymous referee for suggestions that improved the paper. The usual disclaimer, of course, applies.     

Tournaments with gaps

A standard tournament contract specifies only tournament prizes. If agents’ performance is measured on a cardinal scale, the principal can complement the tournament contract by a gap which defines the minimum distance by which the best performing agent must beat the second best to receive the winner prize. We analyze a tournament with two risk averse agents. Under unlimited liability, the principal strictly benefits from a gap by partially insuring the agents and thereby reducing labor costs. If the agents are protected by limited liability, the principal sticks to the standard tournament.     

Evolution with Delay

This paper analyses evolutionary models with delays in players’ observations. I apply best response dynamics to symmetric 2 × 2 games, in particular the coordination game and the game with no symmetric pure strategy equilibrium. When the dynamics have no delay, their solutions converge to symmetric Nash equilibria monotonically. However when I introduce delays to the dynamics, although these dynamics represented by differential difference equations are seemingly simple, it shows that they have periodic solutions. JEL Classification Number: C79.     

Voting with abstention

Most voting models in the literature neglect abstention, but is such a simplification justified? I investigate this question in a model with outside pressure on voters. For sequential voting (e.g., roll call votes), with and without an abstention option, there is a unique subgame perfect equilibrium, which implies that true majorities always succeed. Abstention can be an equilibrium strategy for some voters, in particular under complex decision rules (e.g., weighted voting, double majorities). Simultaneous voting often has a unique pure strategy equilibrium but also a plethora of mixed and pure/mixed strategy equilibria. Therefore, only with equilibrium selection, can we evaluate the consequences of neglecting abstention. For equal weight voting, equilibria selected by the procedure of Harsanyi and Selten change completely with an abstention option, even if abstention itself is not or rarely used. With small enough outside pressure, however, the selected equilibrium honors true majorities in both cases.