Takings of development rights with asymmetric information and an endogenous probability of an externality

A game-theoretic model is used to analyze the interaction between the landowner and the government. In the benchmark model, efficiency can be reached when compensation is tied to the private value of developed land, which is contrary to much of the takings literature. Further, the level of compensation needed to create an efficient outcome with no over-development is derived. Next, two cases are considered: asymmetric information and an endogenous probability of an externality. First, the presence of the positive externality is revealed only to the landowner before the decision to develop early. In this case, if the landowner does not receive the full market compensation, then he or she has an incentive to eliminate the externality. In the second case, the model includes an endogenous probability of a positive externality occurring that depends on investment in conservation. For an efficient outcome to occur, the landowner should be compensated by the full amount of the positive externality. This compensation scheme aligns the incentives of the owner with society.     

Project financing,entrepreneurial activity,and investment in the presence of asymmetric information

We analyze a two-period signaling model in which a representative entrepreneur in a regional economy has a project that generates a random cash flow and that requires investment that the entrepreneur raises from a competitive market. The project's type is known to the entrepreneur but not to the investors. Further, the entrepreneur is restricted to issuing debt only or equity only. We first show that there is no separating perfect Bayesian equilibrium (PBE) contract involving the issuance of equity only, that there exists a pooling PBE contract involving the issuance of equity only, and that a debt contract is preferred to an equity contract by our entrepreneur. Next, we suppose that the entrepreneur incurs a non-pecuniary cost of financial distress F > 0 whenever he is unable to make a repayment at time t = 1. We provide conditions on F under which a pooling PBE contract with debt exists and a separating PBE contract with debt and equity exists. Finally, we examine whether a high type entrepreneur will prefer a setting with a cost of financial distress (F > 0) or a setting in which there is no such cost (F = 0).     

Investment decisions and managerial compensation design in the presence of product market rivalry

We consider an economy where firms operate in an imperfectly competitive industry and mutually affect each others’ investment opportunities. Each firm is assumed to face a mutually exclusive choice of investing in either a short‐ or a long‐term project. For example, firm i's commitment to a short‐term project cuts into firm j's market in the short‐term but frees‐up firm j's long‐term market, and vice versa. Our results show that, even in the absence of an owner–manager conflict, the owner anticipates the product market rivalry and optimally compensates their managers with short‐ as well as long‐term compensation. Although the optimal compensation design induces myopic investment decisions, it is shown to be in the owners’ best interest. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sequential estimation of a linear function of normal means under asymmetric loss function

The problem of estimating a linear function of k normal means with unknown variances is considered under an asymmetric loss function such that the associated risk is bounded from above by a known quantity. In the absence of a fixed sample size rule, sequential stopping rules satisfying a general set of assumptions are considered. Two estimators are proposed and second-order asymptotic expansions of their risk functions are derived. It is shown that the usual estimator, namely the linear function of the sample means, is asymptotically inadmissible, being dominated by a shrinkage-type estimator. An example illustrates the use of different multistage sampling schemes and provides asymptotic expansions of the risk functions. Received: August 1999     

Sequential estimation of normal mean under asymmetric loss function with a shrinkage stopping rule

The problem of estimating a normal mean with unknown variance is considered under an asymmetric loss function such that the associated risk is bounded from above by a known quantity. In the absence of a fixed sample size rule, a sequential stopping rule and two sequential estimators of the mean are proposed and second-order asymptotic expansions of their risk functions are derived. It is demonstrated that the sample mean becomes asymptotically inadmissible, being dominated by a shrinkage-type estimator. Also a shrinkage factor is incorporated in the stopping rule and similar inadmissibility results are established. Received September 1997     

基于因子分析的网络搜索品牌定位问题实证研究

文章基于因子分析的方法来对网络搜索品牌进行定位.首先,通过头脑风暴法找出消费者使用网络搜索的所有影响因素,然后,从语义角度对影响因素合并归类,并据此设计调查问卷,得出产品特色、品牌形象和消费者体验3个公因子及各个公因子对搜索使用的影响,最后根据分析结果给出相应的对策和建议.研究发现:相较于产品特色,消费者体验对消费者的搜索使用影响更大;品牌形象对搜索量没有显著影响.     

Buying cooperation in an asymmetric environmental differential game

We consider a two-player asymmetric differential game of pollution control. One player is non-vulnerable to pollution, or unwilling to consider damages when choosing her production policy in a non-cooperative game. We characterize the feedback-Nash equilibrium and the cooperative solution. We establish conditions under which the vulnerable player can buy the cooperation of the non-vulnerable player to control her emissions. We further use the Nash bargaining solution to allocate the total cooperative dividend between the two players and propose a time-consistent decomposition overtime of the total payoff.     

Blocking efficiency in an economy with asymmetric information

In this paper, we study a pure exchange atomless economy with asymmetric information and having an ordered Banach space with an interior point in its positive cone as the commodity space. An extension of the main theorem in Vind (1972) to the private core without free disposal is established. As a particular case of this result, a solution to a problem mentioned in Pesce (2010) is derived.     

浦东新区极化开发的负社会外部性研究

当前中国正处于工业化和城市化加速发展时期,城市规模和数量在不断增长,对于城市未来和城市居民福利的关注,已经使人们在最近几年对于城市问题引发了许多的关注.过去人们只关注于极化开发的经济功能,而忽视极化开发造成人口大量流入、快速城市化造成的城市社会结构和城市功能结构转变引发的负社会外部性问题.本文探索了极化开发造成负社会外部性的机理,并利用人口普查资料及其它社会经济统计资料,分析浦东新区极化开发的集聚效应和负社会外部性.当前浦东新区极化开发引发的负外部性问题如社会极化、社区重组、社会隔离、就业压力已经开始显现,并对浦东新区的社会稳定和可持续发展产生一定的影响.浦东新区极化开发产生的负社会外部性问题在中国其它许多大城市也开始凸显,因此,如何最大限度地减少极化开发的负社会外部性问题应引起重视.     

A reconsideration of the link between vertical externality and managerial incentives

Previous research revealed that the strategic role of delegation contracts disappears if two quantity‐setting firms outsource input production to a monopolistic supplier. I show that this role is restored if the assumption of a downstream duopoly is relaxed. Thus, delegation contracts allow downstream profit‐maximizing owners to commit their firms to a behavior that differs from their preferences. This behavior varies nonmonotonically with the number of firms in the downstream market. Corresponding deviations from profit maximization are larger if the upstream monopolist makes a price precommitment. But little to no deviation occurs if the number of firms is large.     

面向机械产品的通用网络虚拟拆装系统开发

拆卸与装配是机械产品维修的重要组成部分。文章针对基于网络的产品虚拟拆装,开展了产品VRML文件前置处理的数据分析处理方法研究,建立了优先级的知识拆装路径规划方案,实现了零件的拆装路径定义和存储。采用脚本编程接口SAI技术对虚拟拆装场景的出入事件进行监听,结合脚本进行路径的开关控制,实现了虚拟拆装交互场景的动态生成。系统运行实例表明,虚拟拆装系统有利于维修人员熟练掌握产品组成结构,加深认识,能显著提高维修效率。     

面向机械产品的通用网络虚拟拆装系统开发

拆卸与装配是机械产品维修的重要组成部分。文章针对基于网络的产品虚拟拆装,开展了产品VRML文件前置处理的数据分析处理方法研究,建立了优先级的知识拆装路径规划方案,实现了零件的拆装路径定义和存储。采用脚本编程接口SAI技术对虚拟拆装场景的出入事件进行监听,结合脚本进行路径的开关控制,实现了虚拟拆装交互场景的动态生成。系统运行实例表明,虚拟拆装系统有利于维修人员熟练掌握产品组成结构,加深认识,能显著提高维修效率。     

Sustainable product attributes and firm performance: The moderating role of marketing resource intensity

This paper aims to study the performance implications of sustainable product attributes (SPA) of US manufacturing firms. Specifically, it analyzes the influence of aggregate and disaggregated SPA on firm profitability. The study further explores the moderating influence of marketing resource intensity on aggregate and disaggregated SPA and firm profitability relationships. The fixed-effect regression analysis of 433 US manufacturing firms' panel dataset reveals that aggregate and disaggregated SPA positively influence the firm profitability. The moderation analysis also confirms the positive influence of marketing resource intensity on aggregate and disaggregated SPA and firm profitability relationship. The current paper contributes to the triple-bottom-line and theory-of-the-firm literature streams by empirically studying the influence of aggregate and disaggregated SPA on firm profitability. Furthermore, this study uses the resource-based view to complement theory-of-the-firm model of SPA and empirically study the moderating role of marketing resource intensity between aggregate and disaggregated SPA and firm profitability. Finally, the findings inform the managers of the increased firm profitability by aggregate and disaggregated SPA, and the pivotal role of marketing resource intensity in strengthening the positive influence of aggregate and disaggregated SPA on US manufacturing firms' profitability.     

Core and equilibria in an assembled product industry

We show that the core is non-empty and coincides with the set of competitive equilibria for an assembled product industry. This paper was written while the author was affiliated with the School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of Witwatersrand at Johannesburg.     

Adaptive learning in an asymmetric auction: genetic algorithm approach

Agent-based simulations are performed to study adaptive learning in the context of asymmetric first-price auctions. Non-linearity of the Nash equilibrium strategies is used to investigate the effect of task complexity on adaptive learning by varying the degree of approximation the agents can handle. In addition, learning in different information environments is explored. Social learning allows agents to imitate each other’s bidding strategies based on their relative success. Under individual learning agents are limited to their own experience. We observe convergence to steady states near the predicted equilibrium in all cases. The ability to learn non-linear functions helps the agents with a non-linear equilibrium strategy but hurts the agents with an almost linear one. Better information about the opponent population has a relatively modest impact. A larger number of strategies to experiment with and an ability to systematically compare strategies by holding a number of factors constant have a comparatively stronger beneficial effect.     

The accident externality of driving: Evidence from observance of the Jewish Sabbath in Israel

We document and measure an externality of driving, whereby a driver’s decision to take to the road affects fellow drivers risk of accident. Because religious Jews refrain from driving during the Sabbath, traffic on Israeli roads decreases sharply when the Sabbath begins each Friday, at a precisely defined time before sundown, and increases after the Sabbath ends on Saturday evening, at a precisely defined time after sunset. Using plausibly exogenous variation in traffic volume associated with the Sabbath, we estimate the effect of traffic volume on the risk of fatal or injurious accident. We find that a positive accident externality emerges only at the Sabbath exit, when traffic volumes are greater. Remarkably similar results arise when the analysis is confined to non-Jewish drivers, whose travel choices are not bound by the precise timing of the Sabbath, supporting the interpretation that our findings reflect an externality. Finally, the effect emerges mainly on a class of road sections that is considered highly perilous, suggesting that the interaction of traffic volume and road perilousness is important for understanding this issue and shaping implicated policy.     

International evidence on persistence in output in the presence of an episodic change

This paper uses some newly developed methods and techniques to examine the dynamic properties of international output in the presence of a structural break. We provide statistical evidence to show that the unit root test results can, in some cases, be sensitive to whether a one-time structural break in the data is modelled exogenously or endogenously. However, in most cases the unit root test results remain robust to specification of the structural break exogenously or endogenously; moreover, we find that the null hypothesis of a unit root in output can be rejected in favour of a ‘flexible’ trend alternative for a number of countries such as Canada, Denmark, France, and the United States.     

Network motifs in an inter-firm network

Firms build business relationships during economic activities. The goal of this paper is to clarify production mechanisms and economic functions by identifying characteristic patterns of inter-firm interactions. In this paper, we empirically analyze an inter-firm network consisting of about one million firms and four million directed links, in order to specify network motifs, which are small subgraphs that occur more frequently than expected in a randomly generated network. We found that V-shaped triads are network motifs, while feedforward and feedback loop are anti-motifs. By defining roles in the subgraph according to structural equivalence, we also detected the significance profile of roles characterizing the industry sector. The taxonomy of industries obtained from the profiles is economically meaningful. These empirical findings may serve to provide an easily interpretable view of the entire inter-firm network and to improve the efficiency and safety of economic systems.     

A contingent theory of supplier management initiatives: Effects of competitive intensity and product life cycle

Direct investments in supplier development and close relationship building are the two major collaborative supplier management strategies for developing and accessing superior supplier capability. The impact of these two strategies, however, has not been uniform across firms, calling for a deeper examination of their relative effectiveness. Utilizing multiple theoretical frameworks, this study examines the relevance and effectiveness of the two collaborative strategies across the growth and maturity stages of the product life cycle (PLC). Specifically, the study analyzes the influence of competitive intensity as an antecedent to supplier development and relational initiatives, and the role of product life cycle as a moderator of the inter-relationships among competitive intensity, supplier development, relational initiatives, and supplier capability. Based on primary survey data, and discussion with practicing managers, the study finds that the individual and integrative effectiveness of supplier development investments (SDI) and relational orientation (RO) can be influenced differently by competitive intensity and PLC stage. In particular, RO can have a foundational role in motivating SDI for superior supplier capability, as also in safeguarding against supplier opportunism in the standardized product market context of the maturity stage. The managerial and theoretical implications of varied emphasis on the two collaborative supplier management strategies across the PLC stages are discussed.     

Supply chain decisions and coordination in the presence of an imperfect spot market

This study considers a supply chain consisting of a commodity supplier and a final product manufacturer with uncertain demand. In addition to purchasing from the supplier through a forward contract, the manufacturer can adjust their inventory by trading the commodity in an online spot market after observing the actual demand. However, the spot market is imperfect in that transactions cannot be certainly realized and come with additional transaction costs. Furthermore, the spot price is volatile such that overly relying on the spot market is unwise. To investigate how the spot market affects the decisions and coordination in a supply chain, we develop a game-theoretical model incorporating spot trading. We derive the optimal ordering decision in a centralized supply chain, as well as the supplier's and manufacturer's equilibrium pricing and ordering decisions in a decentralized supply chain. The impact of the imperfect spot market on the optimal decisions and profits is analyzed. This study also demonstrates how the supply chain can be coordinated in the presence of an imperfect spot market. Finally, a numerical analysis is performed to examine the analytical results. Our results indicate that the spot market can generally improve the performance of the centralized supply chain and benefit the manufacturer in the decentralized one. However, it can be detrimental to the supplier. The supply chain can be coordinated by a revenue-sharing contract, and both parties' profits can be improved. Our findings suggest that the manufacturer could take advantage of the spot market, and the supplier should attempt to integrate or coordinate the supply chain to share the benefits of spot trading.