COLLECTIVE REPUTATION AND THE DYNAMICS OF STATISTICAL DISCRIMINATION

Economists have developed theoretical models identifying self‐fulfilling expectations as an important source of statistical discrimination practices. The static models dominating the literature, however, may leave the false impression that a bad equilibrium is as fragile as a “bubble” and can burst at any moment when expectations flip. By developing a dynamic version of the model, we clarify the limits of expectations‐related fragility. Even if group members can coordinate their expectations about future employer behavior, a group with a poor initial collective reputation may still be unable to recover its reputation, implying that the once‐developed discriminatory outcomes can be long‐standing.     

THE DYNAMICS OF NAMES: A MODEL OF REPUTATION*

The article studies reputation of names and its dynamics. First, the article shows that names backed by nothing intrinsic can bear reputation. Although the context is purely of adverse selection, a mechanism in the spirit of Kreps (1990) helps to sustain reputation. Second, it examines how the dynamics of the reputation affects the extent of sorting and the level of social efficiency and derives the dynamics in the equilibria with the highest efficiency. Finally, it empirically predicts that brand names can be fully established sooner in an industry where high‐end products have larger profit margins.     

INDUSTRY DYNAMICS AND THE MINIMUM WAGE: A PUTTY‐CLAY APPROACH

We document two new findings about the industry‐level response to minimum wage hikes. First, restaurant exit and entry both rise following a hike. Second, there is no change in employment among continuing restaurants. We develop a model of industry dynamics based on putty‐clay technology that is consistent with these findings. In the model, continuing restaurants cannot change employment, and thus industry‐level adjustment occurs gradually through exit of labor‐intensive restaurants and entry of capital‐intensive restaurants. Interestingly, the putty‐clay model matches the small estimated short‐run disemployment effect of the minimum wage found in other studies, but produces a larger long‐run disemployment effect.     

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS, REPUTATION AND VOLUNTARY ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTMENT

This note attempts to explore the driving force behind firms' voluntary environmental investment and to provide an alternative viewpoint to the traditional notion of environmental investment. We show that, if consumers are environmentally conscious, then firms' environmental investment will enhance their environmentally-based reputation and effectively stimulate consumer demand for the product. Thus, some firms will voluntarily engage in environmental investment. In addition, it is also found that when consumers become more environmentally conscious, in the steady state a high level of environmental investment may be associated with higher output. This result potentially provides an explanation as to why environmental quality may increase with output.     

PRODUCT QUALITY,REPUTATION, AND MARKET STRUCTURE*

In a repeated game in which firms simultaneously choose price and product quality, but quality is observed only after consumption takes place, equilibria exhibiting high quality may exist in oligopoly markets even when the low‐quality one is a unique equilibrium outcome in monopoly and competitive markets. Oligopolists can sustain high quality through the threat of both a loss of reputation and a breakdown in tacit collusion. While we abstract from other reasons that market structure might affect product quality, we show that the inverted‐U shaped relationship between feasible quality and market structure is robust to several generalizations of the model.     

HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS OF ONLINE REPUTATION FOR LOCAL AND NATIONAL RETAILERS

We study the heterogeneous effect of online reputation for sellers that differ in their national presence and examine how this heterogeneity affects the distribution of sales on a large Chinese platform. We estimate a demand model that incorporates a learning process and allow for the process to vary across sellers who are differentiated by their national presence. The estimates suggest that the impact of reputation is larger for local sellers. Using these estimates, we find that removing the reputation system would result in large shift of demand from local sellers to national sellers.     

A THEORY OF KLEPTOCRACY WITH PROBABILISTIC SURVIVAL AND REPUTATION*

We develop a positive theory of kleptocracy, in which the incumbent ruler's concern about his survival probability can induce him to pursue relatively benevolent policies. But, this effect can lower the equilibrium tax rate only until the time-consistency requirement becomes a binding constraint on the equilibrium tax rate. The minimum time-consistent tax rate in a reputational equilibrium is lower the more that the ruler values prospective future revenues, but the value of prospective future revenues itself depends on the ruler's survival probability. The analysis reveals that, if a relatively benevolent tax policy is both necessary and sufficient for a high survival probability, then equilibrium tax policy is relatively benevolent. Until two or three hundred years ago, it was characteristic almost     

TRADEMARK SALES,ENTRY, AND THE VALUE OF REPUTATION*

We develop an infinite‐horizon, overlapping‐generations model of reputation in which consumers base willingness to pay for agent services on past performance summarized by a trademark. We show that when trademarks can be sold, successful firms capture the full value of their reputations upon sale but receive smaller premia for good performance while active as service providers. With discounting, all agents are worse off with trademark trade. Taking entry cost into account, we show that trademark trade typically reduces entry. When entry costs are high, welfare is increased by prohibiting such trade.     

声誉、搜寻成本与网上交易市场均衡

本文在搜寻理论的框架内分析了在卖家声誉存在差异的情况下,网上拍卖市场搜寻成本对价格水平和价格离差的影响,进而考察了搜寻成本对网上市场声誉机制的影响。本文的结论是:尽管搜索工具提高了网上交易市场的效率,但网上交易市场仍存在不可忽视的搜寻成本;较高的搜寻成本导致不同声誉水平的卖家同时存在于网上交易市场,高声誉卖家制定的价格较高,低声誉卖家制定的价格较低;搜寻效率的提高可以降低均衡价格水平,网站提供的推广服务也可以降低搜寻成本,降低均衡价格水平。模型很好地解释了网上拍卖市场中的一些现象,也与最近文献的经验事实有较好的吻合。     

OBSERVABLE REPUTATION TRADING*

Is the reputation of a firm tradable when the change in ownership is observable? We consider a competitive market in which a share of owners must retire in each period. New owners bid for the firms that are for sale. Customers learn the owner's type, which reflects the quality of the good or service provided, through experience. After observing an ownership change they may want to switch firms. However, in equilibrium, good new owners buy from good old owners and retain high‐value customers. Hence reputation is a tradable intangible asset, although ownership change is observable.     

网上交易中的私人秩序-社区、声誉与第三方中介

网络扩大了市场范围,减少了信息收集成本和信息传播成本,使买家和卖家更容易配对。但是,网上C2C交易中也存在着严重的囚徒困境问题。交易网站以及其他第三方中介建立了信用评价等一系列机制来解决网上交易的治理。本文主要探讨在法律制度不完善或法律不能很好发挥作用的情况下,交易方以及追求利润最大化的第三方中介如何建立起私人秩序来保证交易的顺利进行。这些私人秩序在一定程度上起到了替代法律这种公共秩序的作用。     

投资银行声誉、IPO质量分布与发行制度创新

本文通过构建投资银行声誉的静、动态分析模型,对投资银行、IPO质量与新股发行抑价之间的关系进行了探讨,并运用统计分析技术和方法,对有关推论进行了实证检验。结果表明:(1)对投资银行的声誉与其承销的IPO质量之间的关系来说,1999年是一个分水岭;(2)影响投资银行声誉的主要因素是其综合竞争力;(3)IPO上市五日抑价与公司业绩缺乏统计上的显著性,而主要受企业规模、发行比例、中签率、新股定价的管制程度、上市地点与时间等因素的影响。     

利益相关者治理与中国上市公司的企业信用

企业信用可以信号、抵押、担保的方式,部分消除内生性交易费用所抵消的交易创造。中国上市公司的企业信用与其治理状况密切相关,本文从406家调查样本中选取了249家中国上市公司的数据,对企业信用与其利益相关者的治理进行了实证研究,以期为中国上市公司的企业信用建设提供一些思路。     

中美物流业的产业关联效应动态比较分析

基于中美1997、2002、2007年投入产出表和相关指标,比较分析了两国物流业与制造业、其他服务业的产业关联关系及其在不同经济发展阶段的动态变化特征.结果表明,由于目前我国尚处于工业化中期,我国物流业的发展对制造业具有较强的中间依赖,而美国已进入服务经济社会,物流业逐渐与其母体制造业分离,对其他服务业的依赖更强,且两国物流业与其他服务业的融合对产业价值创造贡献均更大;影响产业发展的因素中,产业自身的作用均占据主导地位,但对中国来说,物流业与制造业之间的互动效应也较大,而美国其他服务业与物流业之间互动更为显著.     

TECHNOLOGICAL LEARNING AND LABOR MARKET DYNAMICS

The search‐and‐matching model of the labor market fails to match two important business cycle facts: (i) a high volatility of unemployment relative to labor productivity, and (ii) a mild correlation between these two variables. We address these shortcomings by focusing on technological learning‐by‐doing: the notion that it takes workers' time using a technology before reaching their full productive potential with it. We consider a novel source of business cycles, namely, fluctuations in the speed of technological learning, and show that a search‐and‐matching model featuring such shocks can account for both facts. Moreover, our model provides a new interpretation of recently discussed “news shocks.”     

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INDUSTRIAL DYNAMICS*

In this article, industrial evolution is driven by endogenous technology choices of firms, generating a rich environment that includes the possibility of a dramatic shakeout. The likelihood, magnitude, and timing of this shakeout are characterized and depend not only on the size of an innovation but also on cost structure. In this setting, trade liberalization reduces the likelihood of a shakeout, resulting in more stable industrial structures. However, when shakeouts arise in global markets, the distribution of exits can vary widely across countries. Furthermore, conditions exist where a shakeout occurs in a closed economy but not in an open economy.     

GROWTH,INTER‐INDUSTRY AND INTRA‐INDUSTRY COMPETITION AND WELFARE*

In this paper we introduce strategic interaction between firms in an R&D growth model which captures both the intra‐industry competition between firms operating within an industry and the inter‐industry competition between firms in different industries. We show that the more substitutable the goods produced within each industry (across industries) are, that is, the more intense the intra‐industry (inter‐industry) competition, the higher is the growth rate. In the comparison between social optimum and a decentralized economy, it is shown that the market outcome is characterized by inefficiently high entry of firms within each industry and insufficient productivity growth.     

FINANCIAL FRICTIONS AND NEW EXPORTER DYNAMICS

This article studies the role of financial frictions as a barrier to international trade. We study new exporter dynamics to identify how these frictions affect export decisions. We introduce a borrowing constraint and working capital requirements into a standard model of international trade, with exports more working capital intensive than domestic sales. Our model can quantitatively account for new exporter dynamics in contrast to a model with sunk export entry costs. We provide additional evidence in support of our mechanism. We find that financial frictions reduce the impact of trade liberalization, suggesting that they constitute an important trade barrier.     

世界第三产业与产业结构演变规律的分析

本文从经济发展、发展阶段和第三产业内部结构等方面分析了亚洲“四小龙”产业结构的演变趋势,从产值结构、就业结构和标准模型等方面探讨了世界第三产业与产业结构的演变规律。