Estimating Multiple-Discrete Choice Models: An Application to Computerization Returns

Buyers in many markets face multiple-discrete choices: they can purchase multiple-units as well as multiple-brands at the same time. This paper presents a multiple-discrete choice model for the analysis of differentiated products demand. Users maximize profits by choosing the number of units of each brand they purchase. I estimate the model using micro-level data on the demand for personal computers. I use the estimated demand structure to assess the welfare gains from computerization and technological innovation in peripherals. The estimated return on investment in personal computers is 92%. Moreover, a 10% increase in the performance-to-price ratio of microprocessors leads to a 2·2% gain in the estimated user surplus.     

Technology Adoption Costs and Productivity Growth: The Transition to Information Technology

Using two panels of U.S. manufacturing industries, this paper estimates capital adjustment costs from 1961 to 1996. I find that from 1974–1983 adjustment costs rose sharply—they more than doubled from about 3% of output to around 7%. Moreover, this increase is specifically associated with a shift to investment in information technology. But such large adoption costs imply that the Solow residual mismeasures productivity growth: Adoption costs are resource costs representing an unmeasured investment. I find that when this investment is included, productivity grew about 0.4% per annum faster than official measures during the 1970's and early 1980's, reducing the size of the productivity “slowdown.” Indeed, estimated productivity growth rates were roughly the same from 1974–1988 as from 1949–1973. Thus technology transitions critically affect productivity growth measurement. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: O30, O47, E22.     

中国的选择:生产力发展的绿色道路

随着中国经济的发展 ,环境问题日益严重 ,解决发展与环境问题就成为一个迫切任务。但就目前现有的环境和发展理论而言都有根本性缺陷 ,不能胜任这一任务。因而本文把中国未来环境、资源和发展问题归结为“中国生产力发展的绿色道路”问题。这一提法的要义在于强调中国“发展是硬道理”的过渡时期的时代特征和有中国特色的绿色道路只有从生产关系、上层建筑这样的大视角下才能被正确理解和最优化其组织过程。这也是绿色生产力概念存在的必要充分条件。“生产力发展的绿色道路”理论不是排斥现有“绿色”和“发展”的相关理论 ,而是在中国实践之上的一次理论综合     

A Random Parameter Model with Onsite Sampling for Recreation Site Choice: An Application to Southern California Shoreline Sportfishing

Estimation of consistent parameter estimates for recreational demand models faces challenges arising from the choice-based nature of the data collected primarily for resource management purposes. As an alternative to randomized respondent-based sampling, choice-based onsite sampling can provide information on actual choices made by a subset of the population where participation has a low incidence. While the literature has shown that under specific restrictions the estimation of choice models from onsite sampling data yields unbiased fixed parameter estimates for the conditional logit model, this result does not carry over to estimation of the random parameter logit model. We propose an estimator for the unbiased estimation of the random parameter model using choice-based data; our estimator uses weights based on information about the level of sampling effort. An empirical application of the standard and weighted discrete choice RUM models to onsite sample data on recreational fishing illustrates the advantages of the proposed estimator. The estimation results indicate the compensating variation associated with an decrease, or increase, of 50 % in expected catch rates for a recreational shoreline sportfishing trip to a man-made structure in southern California is $$-{\$}2.80$$ or $${\$}3.54$$ per trip, respectively.     

Relationships and Hybrid Contracts: An Analysis of Contract Choice in Information Technology

Selecting the type of contract is an important aspect of governinginterfirm transactions. The purpose of this article is to examinethe use of fixed-fee and time-and-materials (T&M, or cost-plus)contracts and a hybrid contract that consists of a T&M contractwith a cap. In addition to uncertainty and measurement factors,we also address a relatively unexplored aspect of contracting—howthe prior relationship between the firms influences the typeof contract the firms select. Using data on 394 contracts fromthe information technology (IT) services industry, we show thatT&M contracts are preferred when the cost of measuring qualityex post is high and when it is difficult to estimate costs exante. We also find site-specific measures of relationship leadto a preference for low-powered T&M contracts.     

Choice of Technology and Labour Market Consequences: An Explanation of US-Japanese Differences

This paper provides an explanation for U.S.-Japanese differences concerning continuous process improvement, turnover rate, and the level and firm-specificity of human capital accumulation. Connection between continuous process improvement and the firm-specificity of training causes multiplicity of equilibria. In the Japanese equilibrium, each firm conducts continuous process improvement because other firms do so, and as a consequence training provided by such a firm becomes less effective in other firms. This lowers the turnover rate, which, in turn, increases firms' incentives to train employees. In the US equilibrium, training is general, which raises the turnover rate and decreases incentives to train.     

国产化政策与全要素生产率——来自汽车零部件制造业的证据

产业政策是否有效已成为当下学术界的热点话题.文章聚焦2005年中国汽车工业国产化政策,并结合同时期的税收减免政策,利用2002-2007年中国汽车零部件和整车制造业的微观数据,实证分析其对企业全要素生产率的影响.研究发现:(1)整车厂商对零部件厂商的纵向技术溢出效应是国产化政策提升零部件企业全要素生产率的主要机制,但市场规模的扩张和短期内市场垄断程度的上升也使零部件企业产生了技术改进的惰性;(2)国产化政策对企业生产率的影响在不同所有制企业之间存在差异:内资企业、非国有企业更多地从整车厂商的技术溢出中获益,外资企业则更多地从市场规模的扩大中获益,国有企业生产率受该政策影响不显著;(3)国产化政策与同一时期税收减免政策之间的关系存在两面性.国产化政策下,受税收减免的FDI向本土零部件企业发生了更多的技术转移,受税收减免的企业本身却缺乏效率改进的动力.上述结论带给新一轮中国工业改革的启示是:国产化政策在一定范围内仍然是有效的,特别是对高端装备制造业等战略新兴产业,政策导向有利于为新产业主体建设打下基础;但是产业政策同样不应被过度使用,制定政策应该重视政策工具在不同阶段的有机组合,取长补短,使各产业政策形成合力进而保证企业效率的提升.     

Productivity Dynamics in a Large Sample of Countries: A Panel Study

Recent research shows that productivity differences are more important than differences in accumulation rates in explaining per capita income differences across countries. So far static differences in productivity have been mainly computed and analyzed in large samples of countries. This paper extends the research by focusing on productivity dynamics . It uses the panel approach to compute productivity indices for a large sample of countries for two time periods, namely an initial period of 1960–75 and a subsequent period of 1975–90. This allows computation of ordinal and cardinal changes in productivity between the two periods. The results show considerable variation in productivity dynamics across countries. The task ahead is to find out what accounts for the observed dynamics.     

Aids: An Economic Approach to the Choice of Policies*

This paper presents a novel approach to the difficult problem of society choosing the optimal set of policy instruments to control the spread of AIDS. The economic approach emphasizes the determinants of agents' behaviour and the reciprocal nature of the market failure problem. The nature of the social objective function is discussed and an expected-utility-maximizing model of the behaviour of HIV-infectious agents is developed In the light of the agents' responses to government policies, some general principles relating to the ranking of instruments and their targeting of individual groups and of instrument variables are developed     

External Tests of Scope and Embedding in Stated Preference Choice Experiments: An Application to Endangered Species Valuation

A criticism often levied against stated preference (SP) valuation results is that they sometimes do not display sensitivity to differences in the magnitude or scope of the good being valued. In this study, we test the sensitivity of preferences for several proposed expanded protection programs that would protect up to three US Endangered Species Act-listed species: the Puget Sound Chinook salmon, the smalltooth sawfish, and the Hawaiian monk seal. An external scope test is employed via a split-sample SP choice experiment survey to evaluate whether there is a significant difference in willingness to pay (WTP) for protecting more species and/or achieving greater improvements in the status of the species. The majority of 46 scope tests indicate sensitivity to scope, and the pattern of scope test failures is consistent with diminishing marginal utility with respect to the amount of protection to each species. Further tests suggest WTP may be proportional to the number of species valued.     

Protection with many sellers: An Application to Legislatures with Malapportionment

What effect, if any, does legislative malapportionment have on international trade protection? This paper argues that in malapportioned legislatures, such as the U.S. Senate, industries become over‐represented in a legislature if they are disproportionately located in small constituencies. As a result, industries that are disproportionately located in smaller constituencies are likely to receive greater protection from international trade. To argue this point theoretically, this paper develops a new model, combining legislative bargaining and a model of lobbying to study trade protection while allowing for a legislature with multiple legislators and differently sized constituencies. We then test the predictions of this new model using tariff votes from the U.S. Senate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and a panel of tariffs and non‐tariff barriers to trade in the U.S. in the 1990s. Considerable support is found for the model's predictions. Industries concentrated in states where the population is low receive greater protection from imports.     

会计政策选择的经济学思考

本文从会计信息具有的稀缺性和有偿性两个特点出发，将会计信息纳入传统经济学的范畴分析。笔者首先建立基本假设和五项具体假设，据此建立理想条件下的分析模型，以便分析会计政策选择的一般性约束；然后，在理想模型的基础上，逐步放松这5项具体，分析现实中会计选择所面临的多重约束，并分析得出结论。     

Inflation and Productivity in Europe: An Empirical Investigation

Motivated by the ``Maastricht proposition' that nominal convergence will generate significant real benefits, the paper investigates the inflation-productivity nexus in fifteen European countries over the period 1960–1997. Modern econometric techniques organised around I(1) and cointegration analysis are used to test for the existence of a long-run relationship between inflation and productivity. Bayesian and recently developed causality testing procedures are employed to examine the inflation-productivity relationship. The empirical results suggest the existence of causality in seven countries. Causality is bi-directional in five cases. Notably, causality fails exactly where the ``Maastricht proposition' would be more useful: The European South and the smaller member states of the Union.     

Individual Choice Modelling with Discrete Commodities: Theory and Application to the Tasman Bridge Reopening*

Many choice situations facing individual consumers entail selection of one alternative out of a set of discrete commodities. The essential elements of a theory of individual choice behaviour are outlined for the situation where the alternatives are discrete. An operationally tractable model is proposed within the theoretical framework but with certain assumptions. The model, multinomial logit, is applied to a study of the prediction of mode and route market shares associated with the reopening of the Tasman Bridge. The empirical study is primarily designed to illustrate the potential of this relatively new microeconomic approach to demand modelling.     

中国已婚妇女人工流产中的性别选择

利用2001年全国计划生育/生殖健康调查数据,分析了育龄妇女进行人工流产选择的几种可能性,包括终止再生育、时间选择和性别选择等。在缺乏必要的B超检查等手段与性别选择流产数据的情况下,以流产后子女性别为指标,探讨了人工流产与性别选择的关系,比较了曾生子女的性别和不同生育政策对于人工流产的性别选择的影响。     

Freedom of Choice in Technology Strategy? An Analysis of Technology Strategy in the Large Commercial Aircraft Industry

Many companies experience difficult situations as a result of their selected strategy. Strategic management theories implicitly assume that companies have a free choice in setting their strategy. Hence, when companies experience difficult situations this is because of management inadequacy. It is questionable whether companies always have a free choice. This research examines this issue by examining the new product strategies of the two main competitors in the commercial aircraft industry. The development of the A380 aircraft was selected to determine to what extent the companies had a choice in setting their product development strategies. The conclusion is that neither has the alleged freedom for setting its strategy. Implications of this finding are that the strategy theory needs to be adjusted for this choice issue, and that management should not always be held fully responsible for the developing events.     

Discrete Choice Model Application to the Credit Risk Evaluation

The aim of the paper is to discuss the application of classification functions and artificial neural networks (such as multilayer perceptron and radial basis function) to recognize the risk category of investigated companies. The research is based on data from 295 enterprises that applied for credit in two regional banks operating in Poland. Each firm is described by 13 diagnostic variables and potential borrowers are classified into four classes. The efficiency of classification is evaluated in terms of classification errors calculated from the actual classification made by the credit officers. The results of the experiments show that application of artificial neural networks and classification functions can support the creditworthiness evaluation of borrowers.