Prosecutorial Resources, Plea Bargaining, and the Decision to Go to Trial

This article examines the strategic interaction between a defendantand a prosecutor during the plea bargaining process. A four-stagegame of incomplete information is developed where the defendant'sguilt or innocence is private information but the amount ofresources available to the prosecutor is common knowledge. Thebasic result of the article is that equilibrium is semiseparating;the plea offer is accepted by a proportion of the guilty defendantsand is rejected by all of the innocent defendants and the remainingguilty defendants. In this model an increase in the resourcesavailable to the prosecutor increases the proportion of guiltydefendants who accept plea offers. Although the prosecutor isunable to generate complete separation of the guilty and innocentdefendants through the plea bargaining process, prosecutorialresources are beneficial from a societal standpoint.     

Prosecutorial Discretion at the EPA: Some Evidence on Litigation Strategy

This paper examines the determinants of the EPAs litigation strategy between 1977 and 1996 focusing on the tenure of Ann Gorsuch. Two hypotheses about this period are tested: (1) that changes in the EPAs litigation strategy were in fact an effort to reduce the expected penalty for violating environmental laws or (2) that the changes made in litigation strategy were consistent with efforts to reduce transaction cost. Contrary to previous research, I find no conclusive evidence of an overall shift toward business interests in EPA prosecutions. There is, however, clear evidence of shifts in the EPAs litigation strategy across administrations.     

Signaling Product Quality by Price

This paper analyzes the role of price as a signal of the quality of a monopoly firm's new product. The quality of the goods is drawn from a continuum and is unknown to consumers. We establish a unique separating equilibrium using equilibrium characterization results for signaling games. The equilibrium price monotonically increases with quality levels and exceeds the complete-information monopoly price for all quality levels but the lowest one. However, the upward distortion decreases as the proportion of pre-informed consumers increases. These results extend both the signaling role of price and characteristics of the separating equilibrium as established in Bagwell and Riordan (1991).     

Learning by Trial and Error: A Case for Moot Courts

This article describes the development of a computer tutorial for use in a history of economic ideas class. An early version of the tutorial contained ten topics, ranging from early Mercantilist thought to Jevons's marginal utility analysis. These concepts were presented in three ways: verbally, graphically, and in summary form. Student critiques were used to extend the content and revise the mode of presentation.     

Large-Class Retention: The Effects of Method in Macroeconomics

This article deals with some of the same questions addressed by Kohen and Kipps in their article in this issue. There were important differences, however, in the approach to teaching economics; and these authors focus on some aspects of the retention issue not dealt with by the others. Class size was considered by Craig, O'Neill, and Elfner; and student attitude toward economics was also taken into account. Teachers who are interested in the lasting effects of economics instruction will want to study both articles very carefully.     

Signaling about Norms: Socialization under Strategic Uncertainty

We consider a signaling model in which adults possess information about the dominant social norm. Children want to conform to whatever norm is dominant but, lacking accurate information, take the observed behavior of their parents as representative. We show that this causes a signaling distortion in adult behavior, even in the absence of conflicts of interest. Parents adopt attitudes that encourage their children to behave in a socially safe way (i.e., the way that would be optimal under maximum uncertainty about the prevailing social norm). We discuss applications to sexual attitudes, collective reputation, and trust.     

Trading for the future: Signaling in permit markets

Permit markets are celebrated as a policy instrument since they allow (i) firms to equalize marginal costs through trade and (ii) the regulator to distribute the burden in a politically desirable way. These two concerns, however, may conflict in a dynamic setting. Anticipating the regulator's future desire to give more permits to firms that appear to need them, firms purchase permits to signal their need. This raises the price above marginal costs and the market becomes inefficient. If the social cost of pollution is high and the government intervenes frequently in the market, the distortions are greater than the gains from trade and non-tradable permits are better. The analysis helps to understand permit markets and how they should be designed.     

Signaling bargaining power: Strategic delay versus restricted offers

Summary. I study the first-round separating equilibrium of a buyer-seller bargaining game, extended to allow for asymmetric information, strategically delayed offers and offers restricted to a portion of the good. When bargaining is over a consumption good, in equilibrium the “strong” buyer uses a restricted offer if his optimal consumption path is conservative relative to the “weak” buyer. A pure restricted offer may even be a costless, efficient signal. When the good is durable, a pure strategic delay is involved in signaling a strong bargaining position if the discount factor is high. Received: June 24, 1998; revised version: May 30, 1999     

Retention of talented academic researchers: Evidence from a government intervention

The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program is designed primarily to retain academic talent in Canadian universities by providing targeted grants to outstanding researchers. Once awarded a chair at her home university, a researcher's compensation increases by 6.3% on average, with a significant decline over CRC tenure. Furthermore, the chance of the researcher changing jobs does not decrease. Although universities report spending more than half of the grant on compensation, only a small portion of the grant can be accounted for as a compensation increase. This demonstrates the difficulty in designing government interventions to have an impact on academic retention.     

可转债的信号发送功能:中国市场的例子

本文研究了双边市场中的银行卡支付系统,其中的银行卡组织和商户都拥有垄断力量。在未考虑商户竞争的基准模型中,本文证明银行卡组织征收的双边费率与其在双边的固定成本支出和双边所获得的便利程度皆正相关。在拓展模型中,本文采用豪泰林博弈刻画商户之间的竞争,为了争夺市场份额,商户愿意接受的最高费率是其自身的便利和消费者的平均便利之和,这使得银行卡组织可以不向消费者收取刷卡费乃至提供补贴。     

基于手机信令数据的上海大型公园 分类研究

利用手机信令大样本数据中提取的上海32个大型公园游客出发、抵达、离开时间和居住地坐标等数据信息，解析公园游客时空行为，利用行为特性在公园使用中的表征将公园进行分类：基于公园的游客来源地(以下简称“客源地”)覆盖范围划分为服务公园周边区域的局地类和服务市域的广域2个大类；基于不同时段客流量分布趋势的均缓与集中特性，划分局地均缓、局地集中，广域均缓和广域集中4个中类；基于客源地核心形态紧凑与松散的特性，将4个中类分为局地均缓紧凑、局地均缓松散等8个小类。分别通过8类公园的时空指标——客源地面积、核心聚集面积、游客居住地至公园的人均OD和高峰开始与持续时间，对每类公园特征进行了量化描述并对其成因进行了解析。将基于游客行为的“公园利用类型”与基于资源供给视角的“公园规划类型”分类结果进行比对，发掘产生公园定位错位的原因，并对公园的规划管理现状提出改进建议。     

银行资产证券化的风险自留监管：作用机制和福利效果

本文首先建立了一个两期模型的理论框架,分析当银行将信息不透明的资产通过证券化卖给连续统个市场投资者时,风险自留监管的效果。基本模型的分析发现:首先,单一风险自留比例不具有普适性;最优风险自留比例与基础资产的风险收益特征、交易双方的风险态度都密切相关。其次,风险自留监管会降低差资产证券化数量的有效信息含量,从而加剧逆向选择程度;而对于好资产,又存在发信号成本。本文进而从道德风险的角度证明,银行的风险态度会影响单一风险自留要求是否能够提高银行监督贷款的激励。因此,在实施风险自留监管时,政府应当结合银行和投资者的风险规避程度等具体情况有针对性地进行,从而比单一风险自留监管更好地提高社会福利。     

Signaling without a common prior: Results on experimental equilibrium selection

The common prior assumption is pervasive in game-theoretic models with incomplete information. This paper investigates experimentally the importance of inducing a correct common prior in a two-person signaling game. Equilibrium selection arguments predict that different equilibria may be selected depending on whether the common prior is induced or not. Indeed, for a specific probability distribution of the sender?s type, the long-run behavior without an induced common prior is shown to be different from the long-run behavior when a common prior is induced, while for other distributions long-run behavior is similar under both regimes. We also present a learning model that allows players to learn about the other players? strategies and the prior distribution of the sender?s type. We show that this learning model accurately accounts for all main features of the data.     

Signaling Public Private Partnership Activities: Reporting Behavior Within Annual Reports

This empirical study examines whether, and if so, to what extent, firms report on Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects to signal PPP engagement even beyond legal obligations. The annual reports of the sample’s firms listed on the VSE in 2005 have been investigated in a qualitative and quantitative way to reveal information policy. Annual reports confirming PPP activities are examined qualitatively by an in-depth content analysis to answer the question in which way information about the revealed PPP projects is published. Further, predetermined keywords that at least indicate a PPP participation are statistically evaluated. The results outline that annual reports only give little and predominantly unspecific information on PPP which emphasizes the absence of corresponding reporting obligations and of a standardized PPP definition.     

Signaling quality with increased incentives

Previous work on informed-principal problems with moral hazard suggested that the principal should signal project quality by retaining a larger share of the project and hence lowering incentives for the agent. We show that this view is incomplete. If project quality and effort are complements and effort is more valuable for high-quality projects, a principal with a high-quality project may separate from a principal with a low-quality project by increasing incentives for the agent. This holds with a risk-neutral agent who is protected by limited liability as well as with a risk-averse agent and unlimited liability. A dynamic version of our model in which the agent learns project quality in later periods provides an explanation for the use of initially reduced royalty rates in business-format franchising contracts.     

Assisting the Long-Term Unemployed: Results from a Randomised Trial

Welfare reform in Australia centres on both economic and social participation. The policy concern is that people who fail to participate in economic and social life may become entrenched in disadvantage. In 2000–2001, a randomised trial was conducted by the Department of Family and Community Services to assess whether an intensive interview with follow-ups would result in increased participation for long-term recipients of income support. Participation in the trial led to a reduction in average hours worked, but increased hours spent in study or training. We find evidence of increased social integration associated with participation in the trial.     

Welfare Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Cost Saving vs. Signaling

We compare the effects of two types of foreign direct investment (FDI) (viz., FDI for trade cost saving and FDI for signaling foreign cost of production) on consumer surplus, profit of the host-country firm and host-country welfare. We show that the effects are dramatically different. If the reason for FDI is to save trade cost, FDI (compared to export) always makes the consumers better off and the host-country producer worse off, while the effect on host-country welfare is ambiguous. However, if the FDI is to signal the foreign cost of production, FDI (compared to export) always makes the host-country producer better off and increases host-country welfare, while it makes the consumers almost always worse off.     

Signaling Corporate Social Responsibility: Third‐Party Certification versus Brands

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a credence attribute of products, which can be signaled either through a label certified by a third party, or via unsubstantiated claims used as part of a brand‐building strategy. We use an experimental posted‐offer market with sellers and buyers to compare the impact of these signaling strategies on market efficiency. Only third‐party certification gives rise to a separating equilibrium and an increase in CSR investments. Unsubstantiated claims can generate a halo effect on consumers, whereby the latter are nudged into paying more for the same level of CSR investments by firms.