高新技术产业投资、沉淀成本与补偿制度创新

高新技术产业投资对我国国民经济发展具有重要的作用和潜在的扩张力,但由于没有充分利用高新技术产业投资,严重影响国民经济的整体发展.为此,本文从沉淀成本角度出发,使用一个动态的投资模型,探讨高新技术产业投资所面临的障碍以及提供刺激高新技术产业投资的基本原则,在于完善投资成本补偿机制:一方面,需要大力完善市场制度;另一方面,更需要大力完善非市场制度,同时,政府折旧和税收政策等也是不可替代的.     

Pricing in a market without apparent horizontal differentiation: Evidence from web hosting services

This article explores pricing in a product lacking the conventional attributes of horizontal differentiation—physical location, design, color, etc.—and whose vertical characteristics are precisely specified and capable of rapid imitation. Web hosting exhibits low entry barriers, high turnover and low concentration. We use an electronically collected database covering over 17,500 US and UK product offerings, and find that after controlling for quality reputation and e-visibility characteristics exert a strong positive impact on price. This result from a heterogeneous B2B market, without horizontal differentiation, complements homogeneous B2C research elsewhere in suggesting that price disparities persist, even in ultra-competitive e-markets.     

Computing equilibria in finance economies with incomplete markets and transaction costs

Summary. Transaction costs on financial markets may have important consequences for volumes of trade, asset pricing, and welfare. This paper introduces an algorithm for the computation of equilibria in the general equilibrium model with incomplete asset markets and transaction costs. We show that economies with transaction costs can be analyzed with differentiable homotopy techniques and thus in the same framework as frictionless economies despite the existence of non-differentiabilities of agents asset demand functions and the existence of locally non-unique equilibria. We introduce an equilibrium selection concept into the computation of economic equilibria that picks out a specific equilibrium in the presence of a continuum of equilibria.Received: 2 December 2002, Revised: 15 November 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: C61, C62, C63, C68, D52, D58, G11, G12. Correspondence to: P. Jean-Jacques HeringsThis research started when Jean-Jacques Herings enjoyed the generous hospitality of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University. His research has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and a grant of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. We thank audiences at Stanford University, UC San Diego, and Venice for discussions on the subject. We are very grateful to an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on an earlier draft.     

差异化、成本领先和价值创新——企业竞争优势的一个经济学解释

差异化战略和成本领先战略并不是两个相互排斥的战略,二者可以被一个企业同时采用以获取竞争优势.本文运用产品差异化模型考察成本相同和成本不同两种情况下企业的竞争行为,证明差异化战略和成本领先战略并不矛盾,指出差异化有利于企业避免恶性竞争,获取市场势力,而且当成本不同时,具有成本优势的企业能够获得更大的竞争优势并具有进一步成本领先的动机,具有成本劣势的企业则具有降低成本的动机和更强的差异化动机.本文讨论了价值创新是企业同时采用差异化和低成本以获取竞争优势的战略逻辑,并提出企业价值创新的风险和对策,从而给出了企业竞争优势的一个经济学解释.     

Cost-effectiveness of risk stratification for preventing type 2 diabetes using a multi-marker diabetes risk score

Abstract

Background:

Personalized medicine requires diagnostic tests that stratify patients into distinct groups that may differentially benefit from targeted treatment approaches. This study compared the costs and benefits of two approaches for identifying those at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes for entry into a diabetes prevention program. The first approach identified high risk patients using impaired fasting glucose (IFG). The second approach used the PreDx Diabetes Risk Score (DRS) to further stratify IFG patients into high-risk and moderate-risk groups.

Methods:

A Markov model was developed to simulate the incidence and disease progression of diabetes and consequent costs and quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALY), comparing alternative approaches for identifying high-risk patients. We modeled direct medical costs, including the costs of the stratification testing, over a 10-year time horizon from a US payer perspective.

Results:

Stratification of IFG patients by the DRS method leads to improved identification and prevention among those at highest risk. At 5 years, the number needed to treat (NNT) in the IFG-only approach was 39 patients to prevent one case of diabetes compared to an NNT of 15 in the IFG?+?DRS approach. When compared to IFG alone, the IFG?+?DRS approach results in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $17,100/QALY gained at 5 years and would become cost saving in 10 years. In contrast and as compared to no stratification, the IFG-only approach would produce an ICER of $235,500/QALY gained at 5 years and $94,600/QALY gained at 10 years. The study findings are limited by the generalizability of the DRS validation study and uncertainty regarding the long-term effectiveness of diabetes prevention.

Conclusions:

The analysis indicates that the cost-effectiveness of diabetes prevention can be improved by better identification of patients at highest risk for diabetes using the DRS.     

Liquidity and Liquidation

The manager of a firm that is selling an illiquid asset has discretion as to the sale price: if he chooses a high (low) selling price, early sale is unlikely (likely). If the manager has the option to default on the debt that is collateralized by the illiquid asset, the optimal selling price depends on whether the manager acts in the interests of owners or creditors. We model the former case. In equilibrium the owner will always offer the illiquid asset for sale at a strictly higher price than he paid, and will default if he fails to sell. As a result, upon successful sales the illiquid asset changes hands at successively higher prices. We also consider a generalization of the model which permits sellers to finance sales using either debt or preferred stock, or both. This allows derivation of an optimal capital structure. We are indebted to seminar participants at the University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Barbara; Utah State University; University of Miami; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. We have received helpful comments from Tom Cooley.     

Cost data quality considerations for eco-efficiency measures

Cost data are a central aspect of eco-efficiency measures, either as means to assess value of production, or, more directly, as one dimension of the efficiency ratio. Several aspects may affect the quality of cost data, among them definitions, time and space, and confidentiality issues. Somewhat surprisingly, cost data quality has received little attention in the field of sustainability and eco-efficiency so far. Even worse, perhaps, is the lack of tools suitable for a cost data quality assessment and management.This paper discusses parameters that affect cost data quality, and will then propose a pedigree matrix as a tool designed for managing cost data quality issues. The application of the matrix is described, also in combination with a previously proposed, and broadly used, pedigree matrix for environmental data quality management.     

Efficient payments: How much do they cost for the Central Bank?

Previous works related to optimal denominations for coins and banknotes consider that the “principle of least effort” that defines an efficient payment is the most important criterion for two main reasons. Firstly, it is more convenient for transactors and, secondly, it limits the production costs of denominations incurred by the central bank. Exploiting production cost data for the U.S. currency system in 2010, we show using simulations that efficient payments actually increase the annual production costs of the Federal Reserve by $156 million. As a consequence, we raise a larger issue for central banks which consists in issuing an efficient denominational mix that is more convenient for transactors and that reduces the production costs of denominations.     

The direct medical costs of Huntington’s disease by stage. A retrospective commercial and Medicaid claims data analysis

Abstract

Objective:

This study quantified the direct healthcare costs and major cost drivers among patients with Huntington’s disease (HD), by disease stage in commercial and Medicaid databases.

Methods:

This retrospective database analysis used healthcare utilization/cost data for HD patients (ICD-9-CM 333.4) from Thomson Reuters’ MarketScan Commercial and Medicaid 2002–2009 databases. Patients were classified by disease stage (Early/Middle/Late) by a hierarchical assessment of markers of disease severity, confirmed by literature review and key opinion leader input. Costs were measured over the follow-up time of each patient with total costs per patient per stage annualized using a patient-year cost approach.

Results:

Among 1272 HD patients, the mean age was similar in commercial (752 patients) and Medicaid (520 patients) populations (48.5 years (SD?=?13.3) and 49.3 years (SD?=?17.2), respectively). Commercial patients were evenly distributed by stage (30.5%/35.5%/34.0%; Early/Middle/Late). However, most (74.0%) Medicaid HD patients were classified as Late stage. The mean total annualized cost per patient increased by stage (commercial: $4947 (SD?=?$6040)–$22,582 (SD?=?$39,028); Medicaid: $3257 (SD?=?$5670)–$37,495 (SD?=?$27,111). Outpatient costs were the primary healthcare cost component. The vast majority (73.8%) of Medicaid Late stage patients received nursing home care and the majority (54.6%) of Medicaid Late stage costs were associated with nursing home care. In comparison, only 40.6% of commercial Late stage patients received nursing home care, which contributed to only 4.6% of commercial Late stage costs.

Conclusions:

The annual direct economic burden of HD is substantial and increased with disease progression. More late stage Medicaid HD patients were in nursing homes and for a longer time than their commercial counterparts, reflected by their higher costs (suggesting greater disease severity). Key limitations include the classification of patients into a single stage, as well as a lack of visibility into full long-term care/nursing home-related costs for commercial patients.     

Average-cost Pricing, Increasing Returns, and Optimal Output: Comparing Home and Market Production

We employ a model with both market production and home production to show that, ignoring administrative costs and indirect effects (such as rent-seeking), even if both the home and the market sectors have the condition of increasing returns and there are no pre-existing taxes, it is still efficient to tax the home sector to finance a subsidy on the market sector to offset the under-production of the latter due to the failure of price-taking consumers to take account of the effects of higher consumption in reducing the average costs and hence prices, through increasing returns or the publicness nature of fixed costs. Within market production, it is efficient to subsidise more the sector with a higher fixed cost, a lower elasticity of substitution between goods (higher value of diversity), and a lower degree of importance in preference, which all increase the degree of increasing returns.     

Do we really care about Biodiversity?

This paper addresses from an economic perspective the issue of global biodiversity conservation. It challenges the perception that the world really cares a great deal about biodiversity and is prepared to pay the full cost of maintaining this stock of natural capital. Despite the existence of a plethora of international agreements there still seems to be a global ‘deficit of care’ surrounding efforts to combat challenges such as those posed by global warming and biodiversity conservation. More light can be thrown on the degree of care by measuring both the actual expenditures and the stated willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. However, actual expenditures are much lower than willingness to pay estimates recorded in the published literature. Using the criteria that the ‘right’ amount of conservation effort is one where the marginal economic benefits from conservation just equal the marginal costs of conservation, the paper explores the biodiversity conservation conundrum and concluded that, on the available evidence, the world does not care too much about this natural capital stock and bequests to future generations. An erratum to this article can be found at