Indifference pricing with uncertainty averse preferences

We consider the indifference valuation of an uncertain monetary payoff from the perspective of an uncertainty averse decision maker. We study how the indifference valuation depends on the decision maker’s attitudes toward uncertainty. We obtain a characterization of comparative uncertainty aversion and various characterizations of increasing, decreasing, and constant uncertainty aversion.     

Incomplete regulation, market competition and collusion

Regulators often do not regulate all firms competing in a given sector. Due to product substitutability, unregulated competitors have incentives to bribe regulated firms to have them overstate their costs and produce less, thereby softening competition. The best collusion-proof contract entails distortions both for inefficient and efficient regulated firms (distortion ‘at the top’). But a contract inducing active collusion may do better by allowing the regulator to ‘team up’ with the regulated firm to indirectly tax its competitor. The best such contract is characterized. It is such that the unregulated firm pays the regulated one to have it truthfully reveals its inefficiency. We finally compare those contracts.     

高校师生关系淡漠的原因分析和对策

大学师生关系既受到社会关系制约,也受到教育规律的制约。随着社会发展和时代的变化,高等教育实现了由精英教育到大众化教育的转变。旧的师生关系依然存在,新的问题和矛盾应运而生,大学师生关系面临着巨大的挑战。良好的师生关系是大学生成才、促进教师个人魅力的辐射和渗透、构建和谐校园的重要因素之一。对当前大学师生关系现状的研究,探析师生关系不和谐的原因,提出构建良好大学师生关系的对策,对构建和谐校园具有重大意义。     

Updating and Estimating a Social Accounting Matrix Using Cross Entropy Methods

The problem in estimating a social accounting matrix (SAM) for a recent year is to find an efficient and cost-effective way to incorporate and reconcile information from a variety of sources, including data from prior years. Based on information theory, the paper presents a flexible 'cross entropy' (CE) approach to estimating a consistent SAM starting from inconsistent data estimated with error, a common experience in many countries. The method represents an efficient information processing rule-using only and all information available. It allows incorporating errors in variables, inequality constraints, and prior knowledge about any part of the SAM. An example is presented, applying the CE approach to data from Mozambique, using a Monte Carlo approach to compare the CE approach to the standard RAS method and to evaluate the gains in precision from utilizing additional information.     

Preference symmetries,partial differential equations,and functional forms for utility

A discrete symmetry of a preference relation is a mapping from the domain of choice to itself under which preference comparisons are invariant; a continuous symmetry is a one-parameter family of such transformations that includes the identity; and a symmetry field is a vector field whose trajectories generate a continuous symmetry. Any continuous symmetry of a preference relation implies that its representations satisfy a system of PDEs. Conversely the system implies the continuous symmetry if the latter is generated by a field. Moreover, solving the PDEs yields the functional form for utility equivalent to the symmetry. This framework is shown to encompass a variety of representation theorems related to univariate separability, multivariate separability, and homogeneity, including the cases of Cobb–Douglas and CES utility.     

Outsourcing of front-end business processes: Quality,information, and customer contact

We examine the recent supply chain phenomenon of outsourcing front-end business processes in this paper. Few, if any, of the existing theories provide satisfactory explanation for the rapid growth in this area. We use a model proposed by Sridhar and Balachandran [Sridhar, S.S., Balachandran, B.V. 1997. Incomplete information, task assignment, and managerial control systems. Manage. Sci. 43(6), 764–778] to determine the factors that might contribute to this phenomenon. Our analysis reveals that the ability of the vendor to forecast the task environment without bias and to gain sophistication in interpreting contract terms might make the firm indifferent between outsourcing and retaining front-end processes in-house. We validate our findings against the work of Apte and Mason [Apte, U.M., Mason, R.O., 1995. Global disaggregation of information-intensive services. Manage. Sci. 41(7), 1250–1262], who develop a theoretical framework to identify criteria for companies to select services to be outsourced. They base their decisions predominantly on the nature of “customer contact.” The combined theories are shown to provide a rich framework for identifying customer-facing tasks that can be outsourced.     

Renegotiation Design and Contract Solutions to the Hold-Up Problem

Abstract.  This paper surveys the literature on contractual solutions to the hold-up problem which has addressed the issue of how to design the optimal contractual arrangement to achieve efficient investments in the presence of contract incompleteness. Although scholars have argued that renegotiation design is a necessary condition to avoid the hold-up problem, some recent papers have seriously questioned this condition. We mainly show that renegotiation design remains a necessary condition to implement efficient investments.     

资源税促进煤炭企业能源节约的经济学分析

当今国家大力提倡节能减排,它的落实,离不开相应的财税政策。本文从资源税着手,来讨论一下资源税对节能的激励作用。促进社会节能,务必首先增加人们对能源的珍惜程度。所以本文首先引入社会珍惜度函数。通过珍惜度无差异曲线得出不同的资源分配状况会对人们珍惜能源起到不同的效果。合理的资源分配可以促使人们节约能源。然后再从企业的利润函数着手,分析资源税的征收能否调整社会的资源分配。在税负转嫁不明显的情况下,我们得出了肯定的回答。最后再次从社会珍惜度函数入手对制定合理的资源税税率初步提出了数学模型。本文的结论是:在合理的财税政策下,节能便会水到渠成。     

关于中国银行集中度风险的实证研究

本文采用熵值法分析银行业的集中程度。实证结果表明,熵值与银行业的风险是正相关,而熵值与银行集中度是负相关,也就是说银行的集中度越高,风险就越小,银行系统也就越安全。由此可以得出以下结论:开放经济情况下,银行业集中度的提高可以降低风险,尤其是在外部经济不确定的情况下,更应保持金融力量的集中,以此来对抗危机的冲击。     

Skill-biased technological change and homeownership

In the United States, the residential housing market went through important changes over the period from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Although the aggregate homeownership rate was relatively stable during that period, the distribution of homeownership rates by age changed in remarkable ways. While younger households saw substantial declines in homeownership rates, the opposite happened for older households. In this paper, we argue that the skill-biased technological change (SBTC) that began during the 1970s has been an important factor behind the observed change in the distribution of homeownership rates by age. We build a life cycle model in which skills are accumulated on-the-job through experience: learning by doing. Early in life, households have lower levels of skills and therefore lower earnings. SBTC increases the returns to skill, widening the wage gap between young and old ages. As a consequence, it takes more time for young households to become homeowners given frictions in financial markets (e.g. downpayment requirements) and housing markets (e.g. large and indivisible houses), in line with consumption smoothing behavior. On the other hand, older households that could not afford a house before may now become homeowners, given higher returns to skill. Our analysis confirms this conjecture, namely, that SBTC shifts the distribution of homeownership from the young to the old.     

不完全资本市场与国际贸易赤字

本文通过带有风险资产的两期一般均衡模型研究了不完全资本市场和一国国际贸易之间的相关性。研究表明,当市场是完全的或者没有风险资产时,一国的国际贸易是平衡的,但是当资本市场不完全时会出现贸易不平衡。如果是国家间的不完全市场,由于一些国家的收入对风险资产的回报具有更强的相关性,使得国家间的贸易出现不平衡;如果资产在一个国家内是不完全的,则由于完全市场国家具有更强的国内分散收入变化风险的能力,会减少预防性储蓄,导致更大的贸易赤字。一些国际数据基本支持本文的研究结论。     

CONTRACTS,ENTREPRENEURS, MARKET CREATION AND JUDGEMENT: THE CONTEMPORARY MAINSTREAM THEORY OF THE FIRM IN PERSPECTIVE

This survey gives an overview of the theory of the firm as it is formulated within the contemporary ‘mainstream’ of economics. Two groupings of theories are briefly discussed: principal–agent and incomplete contract models. Next, three of the most recent contributions regarding firms are considered. The reference point approach is looked at first followed by a discussion of Spulber's book The Theory of the Firm. Last, we consider the entrepreneurial judgement perspective.     

A strong incompatibility between efficiency and equity in non-convex economies

In allocation problems of perfectly divisible goods, we study the equity property of ‘no-domination', according to which no agent can receive strictly more of all goods than any other agent. We prove that no-domination is incompatible with Pareto efficiency, as soon as preferences are allowed to be non-convex.