阶梯定价理论:一个综述

阶梯定价的广泛实施,使居民预算约束边界非线性和样本选择时出现即时性,给需求分析带来难题。本文按照逻辑演化过程梳理国外阶梯定价纷争和成果。首先简要整理了阶梯定价下的需求价格设定及其普适性文献,以及所致的需求估计偏误问题。通过简评简化估计、工具变量和极大似然法的不足,指出最新发展须基于微观行为分析和微观数据。其次梳理了多元化目标诉求和现有阶梯定价政策的综合绩效评定对阶梯定价结构类型选择的影响,从而衍生出进一步内生化研究的方向就是确定阶梯定价机制结构参数。     

Measuring the Welfare Effects of Reform: Urban Water Supply in Guinea

Reforming public utilities remains high on the agenda of economists and policy-makers. Few studies however have measured the impact of these reforms on welfare. This paper analyzes the radical changes in the arrangement providing water to Conakry (Guinea) and estimates the consequences of that reform on consumers, the government, and the foreign owners involved in the process. It shows that notwithstanding a difficult institutional environment, private sector participation benefited all constituents. It does so using a comparative method, with the actual results compared to a counterfactual scenario. The robustness of our results is supported by sensitivity tests.     

An Analysis of Welfare Changes in Zimbabwe*

Abstract: This paper presents a brief account of welfare changes in Zimbabwe along the income and education dimensions between 1995 and 2003. Using sequential dominance procedures, we find that education attainment substantially improved over time. However, these gains did not necessarily translate into poverty reduction, rather welfare over the joint distribution of income and education dramatically deteriorated. These results are robust for all education partitions, income thresholds and a broad class of welfare indices. A further inquiry into the factors underlying this apparent disconnection between education and income using decomposition techniques reveals that the increase in poverty incidence cannot be attributed to household characteristics but is reflective of the broader socio‐economic trends prevailing at the time. The decline in economic growth contributed tremendously to the decline in welfare while inequality changes account for a small proportion.     

ATM服务收费的策略分析

本文通过一个双重区位模型,考察了两个ATM网络规模不同的差异化银行对ATM跨行服务的收费问题.分析表明,ATM跨行服务收费不但直接影响各银行的ATM利润,也会通过影响消费者的银行选择行为而对银行利润产生重要的间接影响,故而ATM网络大的银行更有可能开征跨行费或额外费,这较好解释了中国解除跨行费禁令之后呈现的特征事实.但有趣的是,其他参数,如交换费、银行从客户存款所得收益、银行差异化程度以及消费者ATM提现的"交通成本",对各银行开征跨行费和额外费的激励影响却都恰好相反.     

Ethics,Welfare, and Markets: An Economic Analysis

The present article examines society's welfare when goods with identical physical attributes can be produced using two alternative technologies, one of them less ethically desirable but less expensive for at least some producers. For the scenario where identification costs must be borne by producers and consumers of the high‐quality good, the outcome under unregulated markets is identical to the optimal solution of a central planner constrained to neither ban the undesirable technology nor segregate the low‐quality good. However, under certain circumstances the unregulated market equilibrium may be improved upon by government intervention that shifts the burden of identification costs to the producers of the low‐quality good, or which bans the production of the low‐quality good. The optimal intervention needs to be determined case‐by‐case and depends on consumer preferences, relative production costs, and relative costs of identification and fraud prevention.     

汇率波动、出口结构与贸易福利——基于要素流动与世界经济失衡的分析

研究世界经济失衡背景下,汇率波动对一国出口商品结构和贸易福利的影响具有重要的理论价值与现实意义。本文通过构建不完全竞争模型,研究了世界经济失衡条件下汇率波动对劳动力资源无限供给的国家(以中国为代表)的出口结构与出口福利的影响,并就汇率波动对不同要素密集度产业的出口量、企业利润、就业和出口贸易福利等进行了模拟分析。研究表明:具有一定资本要素密集度的劳动密集型产业的出口受汇率波动的影响最大;劳动密集型产业的出口受到的影响较大;资本密集型产业的出口所受的影响较小;汇率波动对各种产业出口幅度的不同影响将改变一国的出口商品结构。     

The Spatial Dimension of Welfare and Poverty: Lessons from a Regional Targeting Programme in Indonesia

This paper examines the spatial dimension of welfare and poverty in Indonesia and explores the effective policy interventions to remedy the regional economic disparity which was most vividly shown during the recent economic crisis. The econometric estimations confirm the existence of a spatial poverty trap, where poverty persists for generations. The inclusion of the placement of Impres Desa Tertingal (IDT) implemented during 1994–96 suggests that the regional targeting programme could fail to achieve its policy goal when the empowerment of local communities is insufficient. It is suggested that full–scale decentralization could remedy the targeting policy failure.
JEL classification : O 15; O 18; R 15     

An Experimental Analysis of Regulatory Interventions for Complex Pricing

Considerable evidence demonstrates that consumers make poor choices when facing complex multidimensional pricing schemes. The problem is clear but appropriate regulatory interventions less so. We study the efficacy of five different interventions to improve consumer decision making in an experimental context where subjects choose among a set of predefined phone plans involving nonlinear tariffs. We compare two types of intervention: information provision and consumer literacy training. We find that training about plan costs significantly improves decision quality, while providing information about plan value assists inexperienced decision makers, and visual feedback helps experienced decision makers. Implications for policy are discussed, mindful of heterogeneous consumer literacy and the infrequency with which consumers are actually “in the market” for a better phone service plan.     

Traditions,Land Rights,and Local Welfare Creation: Studies from Eastern Indonesia

This research focuses on the impacts of traditional systems of land distribution among households, clans, and the government in two of Indonesia’s poorest provinces: East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku. Our main goal is to discuss and propose alternative ways of dividing and governing productive land to meet new needs in the management of agriculture and forestry. We apply a mixed research methodology that includes in-depth discussions with more than 50 key informants and survey interviews with 640 randomly selected respondents. We find that the number of land conflicts is rising, that land privatisation is becoming increasingly relevant, and that communal land ownership tends to lead to land under-utilisation rather than to natural resource overuse and environmental degradation. We argue that economic gains can be made by changing land-use patterns and land user rights. Our policy recommendations include introducing formalised and taxable clan land ownership with specified and registered family user rights.     

宝岛还是荒岛:岛屿离岸金融中心的福利效应分析

文章以全球9个典型岛屿离岸金融中心巴哈马、中国香港、巴巴多斯、新加坡、塞浦路斯、巴林、毛里求斯和马耳他为研究对象,使用时间跨度为12年的金融发展变量——协调证券资产调查(CPIS)和外部贷款的面板数据检验了离岸金融发展对岛屿离岸金融中心的福利效应。文章研究发现:岛屿离岸金融发展对岛屿经济体的人均GDP、财政收入和人均储蓄存款有显著的正向影响,对失业率的影响并不显著;在离岸金融发展变量对人均GDP和财政收入的影响中,外部贷款的贡献达到CPIS的数倍之多,表明来自于银行体系的直接贷款要比来自于资本市场的资产头寸在提升岛屿离岸金融中心的福利水平方面发挥了更大的作用。     

Renting Goodwill in International Marketing Channels: An Analysis of Pricing Strategies and Bargaining Power

This paper investigates the pricing decisions of foreign manufacturers in international markets within a bargaining framework with asymmetric information and the rental of goodwill. The key findings are: first, the foreign manufacturer follows a mark-up pricing strategy in which its gross margin and the quality premium over the domestic product are shared with the importer. Second, a manufacturer–importer contract occurs only when the manufacturer’s bargaining power is within an admissible range which shrinks as transaction costs increase. Third, the domestic consumer will only purchase the foreign product if the importer’s goodwill in the domestic market is sufficiently large to signal quality. The paper contributes to the literature on exchange relationships between foreign manufacturers and importers.     

Promoting Small Scale and Cottage Industries in Indonesia: An Impact Analysis for Central Java

This paper reviews the promotion of small scale and cottage industries (SSCI) in Indonesia and its impact on employment creation. The review was conducted for the province of Central Java, the ‘heartland’ of SSCI employment. Secondary data showed that participation rates in technical and financial assistance programs for SSCI are low, suggesting that programs may continue for many years before a majority of SSCI producers are reached. A field survey in six clusters of SSCI investigated the effectiveness of current programs to enhance the development of these industries. The analysis provides little evidence that the programs have a positive impact on employment in the less dynamic clusters of SSCI. In the very dynamic clusters, firms using a combination of technical and financial assistance were most successful in terms of employment generation. The study concludes that present assistance programs are not a ‘cause’ of employment growth in SSCI, but are accommodating such growth.     

东亚汇率合作的现实选择——基于汇率动态性的考察

从理论上看,东亚地区汇率合作有多种形式可以选择,然而,合作选择受制于双边汇率动态性。本文通过东亚主要国家汇率相关性和锚货币的动态性考察,推导出现阶段东亚汇率合作的方案选择,即从非正式的单独钉住货币篮子入手,逐步过渡到正式的共同钉住区域内外货币组成的混合货币篮子,最终的方向是构建东亚共同的由区域内货币组成的货币篮子或者说亚洲货币单位(ACU)。