Differentiated interchange fees

Payment networks typically differentiate interchange fees across different merchant sectors. This paper shows that it is generally efficient for a regulator to leave the decision on the structure of interchange fees to payment networks.     

The effect of production uncertainty on the labor-managed firm

The effects of production uncertainty on the behavior of the labor-managed, cooperative firm are examined and it is shown that they generally differ from the case of certainty and the case of the entrepreneurial, profit-maximizing firm. In particular, it is shown that the risk-averse (risk-seeking) cooperative will have a larger (smaller) ratio of labor to nonlabor input employed in production than the risk-neutral cooperative.     

Achievement Bias in the Evolution of Preferences

Currently, economists' models of the evolutionary selection of utility function parameters are generally based on two assumptions. First, it is assumed that utility parameters must serve Darwinian fitness, in the sense that individuals who maximize utility are also maximizing their biological survivability. Second, it is assumed that utility parameters accurately reflect well-being, in the sense that individuals who maximize utility also maximize their happiness. However, there is a large literature in anthropology, biology, and psychology suggesting that these two assumptions may not be warranted. Focusing on utility and happiness, the paper uses models of cultural selection to show that there is no guarantee that our evolved preference must be the preferences that maximize our happiness. Instead, there are plausible mechanisms of cultural selection that will allow immiserating preferences to persist in steady state equilibrium. These mechanisms are generally related to the concept of social achievement: those who achieve more in society will have a greater influence on the utility parameters of the next generation, and this influence is independent of the achievers' well-being. Thus, a preference is more likely to survive if it satisfies some mix of achievement goals and happiness goals, rather than just happiness goals alone. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Not Leverage but Change in Leverage Matters for Firms’ Future Growth: Evidence from Turkey's Top 1000

In the financial literature it is generally assumed that a firm's financial leverage is a good measure (proxy) of the firm's access to financing. In this study, it is argued that it is not the firm's debt (leverage), but the change in leverage that more accurately mirrors the firm's true likelihood to have access to external sources of financing. Applying a firm-type analysis and panel data techniques to data on the top 1000 private industrial companies of Turkey for the period 1997–2012, it is shown that it is the change in leverage ratio, not the level of leverage ratio itself that matters for the future firm growth, controlling for profitability, leverage and firm size.     

The social value of information on product quality

In the context of a seller with private information about product quality, I show that revelation of information on product quality is sometimes, but not always, socially valuable. When it is socially valuable, there is generally a tradeoff between the acquisition and revelation of finer, but more costly information and the revelation of coarser, but less costly information. As a result, it can be socially optimal for firms to reveal only coarse private information.     

The seasonal unit root structure in New Zealand Macroeconomic variables

ADF unit root tests are generally applied to macroeconomic data prior to testing theoritical models to ensure that all relevant variables are integrated of the same order. Not only is it important to test that these variables are integrated of the same order but also that a cointegrating relationship exists; failure to do so raise the specture of false inference associated with the spurious regression problem. The seasonal nature of quarterly data adds a further proplem which has generally been overcome by seasonally adjusting the data using procedure such as the census X-11 rather than suppressing it, have attempted to determine whether the seasonal component in each variable exhibits stochastic non-stationary. This paper analysisunit roots in a seasonal setting and compares the recently developed tests for seasonal unit roots as well as the standard augmented Dickey-Fuller zerop frequency unit root tests. Of the variables tested relatively few paper to be integrated at the seasonal frequenciues and, as other studies suggest,determinstic seasonal effects are typically more important than stochastic ones.     

Why do diners tip: rule-of-thumb or valuation of service?

When diners decide how much to tip, is the decision based on social convention or on conscientious appraisal of server productivity? Previous researchers in economics and social psychology are generally inconclusive on this question. A common finding in the literature is that tip size and service quality are unrelated, a result usually obtained from OLS regressions. OLS is only appropriate if service quality is exogenous. It is argued that service quality is very likely endogenous in any regression of tip size; good quality encourages good tips, but server expectations of good tips encourage good quality. This simultaneity is accounted for by jointly estimating percentage tips and customer rankings of service quality on a sample of 247 diners in a Central Minnesota restaurant. Included are explanatory variables consistent with both the social psychology and economic views of tipping. In contrast to previous studies, it is found that service quality significantly affects tip size and when servers expect higher tips, customers rank service quality higher. Also it is found that patronage frequency and coupon redemption have no effect on percentage tips, but server gender influences quality significantly. It is concluded that the results are generally supportive of an economic hypothesis of tipping.     

Price Bands and Buffer Funds

Price-band stabilization schemes are widely used although they have generally been regarded as second-best options. In this paper, it is shown that a class of control problems with plausible social welfare functions yields price-band stabilization as the optimal solution. Thus the proponents of price-band schemes need not be regarded as satisficers.     

Courts,contracts, and interference

This paper shows that the possibility of interference in court proceedings, or more generally jamming other agents’ messages, has significant consequences for the form of optimal contracts and the flexibility of decisions that can be made inside firms. Our approach offers a new view of authority, basing it on the ability of parties to have their say in court. Interference gives authority a role in worlds where it is traditionally absent in contract theory, like simple employment relationships without specific investments.     

Bargaining over effort

Employment contracts generally specify both the reward for labour and the conditions of employment. Although it is clear how unions affect the payment received by workers, the effect of unions upon working conditions, particularly the contracted effort level that must be supplied, is not so well-understood. This note analyses the generalised Nash bargain between a union and a firm over employment level and effort level. Under standard assumptions, it is shown that an increase in union power always leads to a reduction in the agreed effort level. The effect upon employment is dependent upon whether the firm has the ‘right-to-manage’.     

Income effects in quality-quantity models

The theorems on quality-quantity interactions well known in the fertility literature generally hold even when all goods in the utility function have a quality component. Although the results in this paper are presented in terms of the quality-quantity framework, it is clear that they can be applied to any problem in which the constraint is multiplicative in the variables.     

Attracting private investment: Tax reduction,investment subsidy,or both?

This paper uses a real-option model to examine the net benefit to a government from using tax cut and/or investment subsidy as incentives to induce immediate investment. Although earlier papers generally concluded that investment subsidy dominates tax cut, it is observed that many governments use a combination of subsidy and tax cut. We show that, when the government uses a different discount rate from private firms, and when it has to borrow money to provide an investment subsidy, it is possible to get an internal optimum; that is, it might be optimal for the government to provide an investment subsidy as well as charge a positive tax rate on the profits from the project. Thus, we provide an explanation for the puzzling fact that many governments provide an investment subsidy to a firm while simultaneously taxing its profits.     

What really matters: Discounting, technological change and sustainable climate

This paper discusses the interplay between the choice of the discount rate, greenhouse gas mitigation and endogenous technological change. Neglecting the issue of uncertainty it is shown that the Green Golden Rule stock of atmospheric carbon is uniquely determined, but is not affected by technological change. More generally it is shown analytically within the framework of a reduced model of integrated assessment that the optimal stationary stocks of atmospheric carbon depend on the choice of the discount rate, but are independent of the stock of technological knowledge. These results are then reinforced numerically in a fully specified integrated assessment analysis.     

Endogenous (re-)distributive policies and economic growth: A comparative static analysis

This paper analyzes the interplay of economic growth, (re-)distribution and policies when the latter are set exogenously or when they depend on economically important fundamentals. A redistribution policy generally causes lower growth, but less so when economic efficiency is higher. The model implies that high (endogenous) tax rates may not necessarily imply low growth. The paper shows that the long-run cross-country relationship between growth and endogenous policy is generally not clear-cut. But it is shown that this relies on conditions that can be used for identification in empirical research. The paper also argues that in the long run workers benefit more from higher efficiency than capital owners, even though inequality might and growth would rise.     

Foundations of an Institutional Theory of Regulation

Although the work of Clarence Ayres is held in high regard within the tradition of American Institutionalism, it has made little impact upon the study of technology more generally. Moreover, even within the Institutionalist tradition, his work is seen to embody a tension - on the one hand his dichotomy between technology and institutions is too strict, but to the extent that it is "softened," his main contributions are undermined. This paper argues that Ayres' work does have something to contribute to current technology debates, but that this contribution cannot be made if his conception is "softened" in the way that recent contributions suggest.     

What jackpot? The optimal lottery tax

The payout rate on lotto is normally fixed. We show that such a policy is generally suboptimal from the lotto authorities' point of view. The payout rate should be allowed to vary according to the number of rollovers that have occurred. To illustrate our argument, we simulate and optimize an econometric model of the lotto market in Israel. We also consider whether it is profitable to increase the frequency of lotto from once to twice a week.     

A variable-production generalisation of Lerner's theorem

A government wishes to choose an optimal set of wage rates, but it is uncertain of individual characteristics. All it knows for certain is that each utility function is strictly quasi-concave and that the production function is linear. We assume that it can determine probability distributions, for each individual. of possible utility functions and ability levels. If each of these probability distributions is the same for every individual, expected social welfare is maximised by equalisation of wage rates. But since actual utility functions, and therefore labour supplies, will generally be unequal, incomes will then be unequal.     

论经济法的政策性

尽管学界对经济法众说纷纭，但普遍承认经济法是一个国家和政府经济政策的法律化。认为：政策性是经济法的本质特征，经济政策对经济法的内容、体系、实施等方面都有决定意义。同时认为，经济法也是法，其政策性是与整个法秩序一致的，否则经济法就失去了法的意义和价值。     

Volunteering a public service: an experimental investigation

In some public goods environments it may be advantageous for heterogeneous groups to be coordinated by a single individual. This “volunteer” will bear private costs for acting as the leader while enabling each member of the group to achieve maximum potential gains. This environment is modeled as a War of Attrition game in which everyone can wait for someone else to volunteer. Since these games generally have multiple Nash equilibria but a unique subgame-perfect equilibrium, we tested experimentally the predictive power of the subgame-perfection criterion. Our data contradict that subjects saw the subgame-perfect strategy combination as the obvious way to play the game. An alternative behavioral hypothesis—that subjects were unable to predict accurately how their opponents would play and tried to maximize their expected payoff—is proposed. This hypothesis fits the observed data generally well.     

SCALE ECONOMIES IN MULTIPRODUCT FIRMS

As normally employed, multioutput cost functions impose a bias against a finding of economies of scale, because a firm's optimal expansion path generally does not entail constant proportions over the various outputs. This bias can be overcome using a cost function defined in terms of a scalar aggregate output. An empirical example using New York commercial banks bears out the argument. As a sidelight, it is also argued that the traditional concept of scale economies is appropriate for policy purposes even when it conflicts with the more recently developed condition of natural monopoly (subadditivity of the cost function).