Incorporating affirmative action into the welfare state

In this paper, we discuss a novel aspect of affirmative action policy. We examine its redistributive role, asking whether in an egalitarian society, supplementing the tax-transfer system with an affirmative action policy would enhance social welfare. We demonstrate that affirmative action could be a desirable policy tool even if racial discrimination does not exist in the labor market.     

Applying for social programs in India: Roles of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action

India has among the most extensive affirmative action programs in the world. Depending on the State, up to 50% of jobs in the public sector are reserved for members of low castes. However, recruitment is highly discretionary, making it hard for low castes without connections to access reserved jobs and thereby benefit from affirmative action. This paper studies how having a local elected leader from the same caste affects the probability of applying for reserved jobs. The identification strategy focuses on the political reservation system at the village level that determines the caste group of the local elected leader. Taking data from three States in South India, I find that households are more likely to apply when the local elected leader is from their caste group. The evidence suggests that the impact is driven by updated beliefs regarding the probability of a successful application.     

Survival auctions

Dynamic clock auctions with drop-out information typically yield outcomes closer to equilibrium predictions than do comparable sealed-bid auctions. However, clock auctions require congregating bidders for a fixed time interval, which has limited field applicability and introduces inefficiencies of its own given the time cost of congregating bidders. In this experiment we explore the effects of removing these inefficiencies through survival auctions—a multi-round sealed-bid auction which is theoretically isomorphic to the dynamic clock auction with drop-out information. Kagel’s research was partially supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. 0136925 and 0136928. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We thank the associate editor, an anonymous referee, seminar participants at Purdue University, especially Tim Cason, participants at International Industrial Organization April 2004 Conference, the ESA June 2003 meetings, and our discussant, Tim Salmon, for valuable comments. Kirill Chernomaz provided valuable research assistance. The usual caveat applies.     

Gender,Class, and Caste Schisms in Affirmative Action Policies: The Curious Case of India's Women's Reservation Bill

Following the introduction of economic liberalization policies in 1991, India has registered steady gains in terms of conventional economic indices such as external trade, investment inflows, and foreign exchange reserves. However, globalization has also caused the feminization of poverty. To counter this trend of marginalization of women, it is necessary to address the gender imbalance in decision-making positions. A Constitutional Amendment Bill seeking 33 percent reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures has, however, been scuttled by three successive governments since 1996, even while each party swears by its commitment to gender equity. The reasons for this curious schism showcase a classic example of gender-class-caste alignments and divisions, under political compulsions. This paper examines this ongoing gender-caste-class imbroglio, in the context of Indian affirmative action policies (economic, social, political), which have generated "backlash" reactions.     

Revenues in discrete multi-unit, common value auctions: a study of three sealed-bid mechanisms

This paper proposes a discrete bidding model for both quantities and pricing. It has a two-unit demand environment where subjects bid for contracts with an unknown redemption value, common to all bidders. Prior to bidding, the bidders receive private signals of information on the (common) value. The relevant task is to compare the equilibrium strategies and the seller’s revenue of the three most common auction formats with two players. The result is that the Vickrey auction always gives the most revenue to the seller, the discriminatory auction follows closely and the uniform auction clearly is the worst due to demand reduction.

政府采购的本土创新效应研究

政府采购是创新实践领域的重要工具。分析了我国政府采购制度演化历程,将研发活动分为两个阶段,以2002-2011年我国内地29个省级单位的面板数据为样本,构建计量模型检验了政府采购对我国本土创新的影响。研究结果表明,政府采购有效促进了本土创新过程中的研发设计和产品转化,国内私人需求、国外市场需求和研发投入也有效促进了本土创新;研发人力资本投入对研发设计创新有显著的抑制作用,对产品转化创新有显著的促进作用。最后,根据研究结果,提出了相应的建议。     

Teachers' Unions and Student Achievement in High School Economics

High school students in unionized schools score higher on the Test of Economic Literacy than students in nonunion districts, ceteris paribus.     

Revenue comparison in common-value auctions: Two examples

When players' affiliated values are symmetrically distributed, expected revenue in the second-price auction equals or exceeds that in the first-price auction (Milgrom and Weber, 1982). We provide two common-value examples where this ranking fails when players are asymmetrically informed.     

公共采购塑造创新的方式、机制及障碍:文献综述与展望

作为创新政策需求方复兴的核心工具之一,公共创新采购（PPI）具有改善公共服务效能和促进技术创新的双重功能。通过梳理国内外文献,从方式、机制及障碍等方面对公共创新采购研究进展进行评述。从原理看,以公共采购者、创新提供者和中介为主要参与者的公共创新采购,其本质是一个由采购过程和创新过程耦合而成的系统且包含3种机制,即交易实现机制、创新生成机制和创新扩散机制;从实践看,框架条件、组织能力、需求识别和传递、风险管理是影响公共创新采购政策效果的主要障碍。最后,总结公共创新采购研究理论框架,提出未来研究方向。     

Supply function equilibria of pay-as-bid auctions

This paper characterizes the Nash equilibrium in a pay-as-bid (discriminatory), divisible-good, procurement auction. Demand by the auctioneer is uncertain as in the supply function equilibrium model. A closed form expression is derived for a one shot game. Existence of an equilibrium is ensured if the hazard rate of the demand distribution is monotonically decreasing with respect to the shock outcome and sellers have non-decreasing marginal costs. Multiple equilibria can be ruled out for markets, for which the auctioneer’s demand exceeds suppliers’ capacity with a positive probability. The derived equilibrium can be used to model strategic bidding behavior in pay-as-bid electricity auctions, such as the balancing mechanism of United Kingdom. Offer curves and mark-ups of the derived equilibrium are compared to results for the SFE of a uniform-price auction.      

Reduced Form Auctions Revisited

This note uses the Theorem of the Alternative to prove new results on the implementability of general, asymmetric auctions, and to provide simpler proofs of known results for symmetric auctions. The tradeoff is that type spaces are taken to be finite.     

向上叫价时钟双向拍卖机制设计

通过深入分析统一价格密封双向拍卖机制的诸多缺陷,充分借鉴单向拍卖市场上时钟拍卖的基本思想,将时钟拍卖引入双向拍卖市场,构建了一个无论从分配效率方面考虑还是从竞价风险方面考虑都优于统一价格密封双向拍卖机制,不仅为同类物品确定统一价格,还可以为不同类的物品确定其不同的价格的向上叫价时钟双向拍卖机制。     

An experimental investigation of soft price caps in uniform price auction markets for wholesale electricity

This paper presents the results from an auction experiment using industry professionals and student participants who compete in a simulated wholesale market for electricity. Motivated by the intervention by FERC in response to the “meltdown” of the California spot market, we investigate the effect of including a “soft” price cap in a uniform price auction as a means of mitigating high prices. When prices are driven above the soft cap, offer curves become flat, in contrast to the hockey stick shape observed in a typical uniform price auction for electricity. This flat offer curve leads to market prices that are relatively insensitive to both generation costs and demand reductions.      

A restriction on lobbyist donations

This paper studies the consequences of a fine for violating a ceiling on permissible donations in a competition for a political prize. Increasing the fine can increase or decrease the amount of expected donations in equilibrium.     

多属性逆向拍卖理论研究进展

从多属性逆向拍卖机制的设计原理、经典模型、最优投标与实施以及网上多属性逆向拍卖机制等方面着手,梳理了多属性逆向拍卖理论的研究进展,并对未来的研究方向予以展望。     

博弈理论分析框架下的贫困县政府采购制度研究

与经济发达地区的政府采购相比，贫困县政府采购存在资金少、规模小、市场相对滞后、寻租现象普遍等问题。应完善采购资金管理，创新采购模式，建立县级政府采购信息系统。建立全方位的监督机制，以完善贫困县政府采购。     

The effectiveness of English auctions

We study the performance of the English auction under different assumptions about the seller's degree of “Bayesian sophistication.” We define the effectiveness of an auction as the ratio between the expected revenue it generates for the seller and the expected valuation of the object to the bidder with the highest valuation (total surplus). We identify tight lower bounds on the effectiveness of the English auction for general private-values environments, and for private-values environments where bidders' valuations are non-negatively correlated. For example, when the seller faces 12 bidders who the seller believes have non-negatively correlated valuations whose expectations are at least as high as 60% of the maximal possible valuation, an English auction with no reserve price generates an expected price that is more than 80% of the value of the object to the bidder with the highest valuation.