Union structure and firms' incentives for cooperative R&D investments

Abstract .  We investigate the impact of alternative unionization structures on firms' incentives to invest on cost-reducing R&D and to form Research Joint Ventures (RJVs), in the presence of R&D spillovers. We show that if firms invest non-cooperatively and spillovers are low, R&D investments are higher under centralized rather than under decentralized wage-setting. In contrast, investments are always higher under decentralized wage-setting in the case of RJVs. Firms' incentives to form an RJV are stronger under centralized wage-setting if and only if spillovers are low enough. Finally, centralized wage-setting may hinder the formation of costly RJVs and their potential welfare benefits.     

论守信用的激励与反信用的约束

经济行为主体的利益一般难以隔离由他们相互间恪守承诺或者连弃承诺所带来的正负影响.而经济行为主体相互间基于利益的承诺及其兑现乃是信用本于社会行为规范的一般属性,这样的承诺及其兑现本质上即属于经济学意义的信用,且这样的承诺能否或能否完全兑现的问题同时即属于遵守或是违反信用的问题.一般而言.经济行为主体守信用与反信用的行为构成信用的一体两面.真实经济生活中信用关系无论是拟设的或者实有的,其债权主体准备或已经借出的信用具有对可能的债务主体反信用行为的高度敏感性、易受事实的债务主体反信用行为损毁的脆弱性、一经遭受反信用行为损毁即很难迅速修复的阻滞性.     

On the incentives to provide fuel-efficient automobiles

We argue that the provision of more fuel-efficient cars necessitates specific aerodynamic shapes. We show that the presence of this technological constraint may reduce the incentives to provide fuel efficiency. In equilibrium, cars become more similar and aerodynamic as fuel prices increase. However, the provided level of fuel efficiency falls short of the social optimal one such that a fuel-economy standard is welfare-enhancing.     

On the provision of incentives in finance experiments

Monetary incentives are a procedural pillar in experimental economics. By applying four distinct monetary incentive schemes in three experimental finance applications, we investigate the impact of an incentive scheme’s salience on results and elicit subjects’ perception of the experienced scheme. We find (1) no differences in results between salient schemes but a significant impact if the incentive scheme is non-salient. (2) The number of previous participations has a significant impact on the perception of the incentive scheme by subjects: it strongly correlates with subjects’ motives for participation, positively contributes to subjects’ understanding of the incentive scheme, but has no influence on subjects’ motivation within the experiment. (3) Subjects favor more salient over less- or non-salient schemes in the gain domain and negatively evaluate high salience in the loss domain.     

On the incentives for horizontal merger in an industry with dominant firms

The paper employs a variant of Perry and Porter's (1985) ‘oligopoly-fringe’ model to analyse the incentives for horizontal merger. We consider several ways in which mergers may form, and their impact upon the profits of both participating and non-participating firms. We investigate the alternative regimes of collusive and non-cooperative behaviour in order to highlight the often perverse results of apparently straightforward merger activities.     

On the price discriminating labour cooperative

This paper considers labor cooperatives selling in a competitive international product market and a monopolistic domestic market simultaneously. It is shown that output of the cooperative is smaller than that of a profit maximizing firm. Both firms have the same domestic sales. Output will decrease if domestic demand rises but it may rise or fall when foreign demand increases. These contrast with the single market comparative statics of Ward.     

Interactive planning for strategy development in academic-based cooperative research enterprises

The evolution of strategic management concludes that formulation and implementation is an emergent process. In today's knowledge-based society this requires that managers develop more creative ways to align strategies with core competencies to maximise organisational performance and efficiencies. This paper evaluates the approach taken by a university-based research collaborative to illustrate an integrated planning process that supports strategic management in higher education environments. Utilising the concepts of road mapping and interactive planning, this case study provides insights into the participative approach used and provides a modification of several conceptual models to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of this process.     

合作创新研究现状与未来研究取向探析

随着创新的复杂性和难度的加剧,企业创新模式正逐步由自我为主体的封闭式创新转向知识共享的合作式创新。通过对国内外主要文献查阅和检索,探索了合作创新的内涵,并对合作创新的动机、组织模式、合作创新的风险与防范作了总结。在此基础上,提出合作创新未来的研究取向。     

Organizational management in australian cooperative research centres

Research collaborations are detleloped to share intellectual and physical resources and jirfher technological competitiveness. The Cooperatiue Research Centres programme has enabled the Australian government to adopt an interventionist role in national research directions and to stimulate innouation biy targeting collaborative arrangements. The programme has had an immediate impact on research pstems zwithin industy, universities and public research institutions. Management of research linkages is complex and based on resoliing competing strategies. This paper outlines critical management issues concerning collaborative research and suggests that the ways in which authorip structures and organizational strategies are formulated will determine the success of collaborative research in Australia.     

Long-term research and development incentives in a dynamic Cournot duopoly

This paper constructs an ex-ante asymmetric R&D Cournot differential game with knowledge spillovers. It shows that in the long-run equilibrium firms have incentives to innovate as long as the knowledge externalities are bidirectional. We also carry out a series of numerical simulations of the differential game to illustrate our results.     

试论新型农村合作医疗制度

近年来由于农村人口老龄化,医疗服务的普及,医药价格上涨等原因,农民医疗费用的攀升超过了农民实际平均收入的增长幅度.越来越多的农民无力承担日益增长的医疗费用,疾病成为农民致贫的重要原因.为了解决农村人口看病贵看病难的问题,2002,中共中央在过去旧的农村合作医疗的基础上不断完善,形成了新型农村合作医疗制度,并开始进行试点.到2007年,新型农村合作医疗制度在广大的农村地区得到了迅速推广,受到了广大农民的欢迎.新型农村合作医疗制度有何特点,是否能从根本上解决广大农民的看病贵看病难问题呢?     

On the stability of the cooperative type of organization

The stability of producer cooperatives in market economies is analyzed in a dynamic context. It is shown that, when permitted to hire wage laborers, a producer cooperative, even if its labor productivity is higher than in an otherwise equivalent capitalist firm, is likely to lose its cooperative character because members' personal income will be maximized when “expensive” members are replaced by “inexpensive” wage-laborers. Producer cooperatives will maintain their organizational character best when they operate in a marginal industry where cooperation enhances members' productivity so that their earnings exceed their opportunity wages. In general, competitive markets for membership are not a sufficient condition to prevent the transformation of cooperatives into capitalist firms.     

Political incentives for rent creation

Rent-seeking is often depicted as a contest in which rent-seekers compete for a prize—the rent. In the process of rent-seeking, much or perhaps all of the rent is dissipated through the costs the contestants incur to compete. Rent dissipation is inconsistent with the incentives of both the rent-seekers and those who create the rents. Policymakers have an incentive to create rents only if they gain from the process, and their gain comes from sharing any surplus that goes to those who obtain the rents. A surplus can be created through a barrier to entry into rent-seeking. When institutions that generate barriers to entry into rent-seeking break down, rent-seeking competitions can occur in which all rents are dissipated, but this should be a special case rather than the general rule in rent-seeking.     

Optimal incentives for labor force participation

Optimal taxation is analyzed under a Rawlsian criterion in an economy where the only decision of the agents is to participate, or not, to the labor force. The model allows for heterogeneity both in the agent's productivities and aversions to work. At a first-best optimal schedule, the marginal agent who decides to work pockets all of her productivity, while being just compensated for her work aversion. When the planner does not observe work aversion, financial compensation for work is lower than productivity. Theory puts little restrictions on the shape of the optimal tax schedules. The usual first-order conditions involving the elasticities of participation only apply for sufficiently regular economies. We qualitatively show how the optimal incentive schemes depend on the underlying structure of the preferences: 100% marginal tax rates or subsidies to work are related to specific features of the economies.     

Designing incentives for online question-and-answer forums

We provide a game-theoretic model of sequential information aggregation motivated by online question-and-answer forums. An asker posts a question and each user decides when to aggregate a unique piece of information with existing information. When the quality exceeds a certain threshold, the asker closes the question and allocates points to users. We consider the effect of different rules for allocating points on the equilibrium behavior. A best-answer rule provides a unique, efficient equilibrium in which all users respond in the first round, for substitutes valuations over information. However, the best-answer rule isolates the least efficient equilibrium for complements valuations. We demonstrate alternate scoring rules that provide an efficient equilibrium for distinct subclasses of complements valuations, and retain an efficient equilibrium for substitutes valuations. We introduce a reasonable set of axioms, and establish that no rule satisfying these axioms can achieve the efficient outcome in a unique equilibrium for all valuations.     

On the level of cooperative behavior in a local-interaction model

We study local interaction within a population located on a connected graph. Subjects engage in several bilateral interactions during each round in a generalized Prisoners' Dilemma (PD). In each round of play one randomly selected player gets the possibility to update the action he plays in this PD. All individuals use the update rule Win Cooperate, Lose Defect, a multi-player variant of Tit-for-Tat. Theoretical results on the set of stable states of the associated dynamics are provided for the cases with and without rare mutations. Simulations provide insight into the probability distribution over these stable states. In both cases a rather high probability is assigned to stable states with a moderate level of cooperation implying that dominated strategies are used. Furthermore, the probability of reaching the stable state with Nash equilibrium play is small.     

Threshold effects and incentives for the conservation of biodiversity

Biological diversity is a central component of the stock of natural capital on which all economic development is based. Other things being equal, loss of biologically diversity implies loss of development potential, and its conservation through sustainable use or outright protection implies the protection of that potential. One characteristics of biodiversity loss of especial importance is that biodiversity loss, more than any other current environmental problem, is associated with ecological threshold effects. The paper explores the implication of this characteristics for the properties of a biodiversity conservation strategy.     

Regulatory design and incentives for renewable energy

Increasing electric power production from renewable energy sources is currently one of the major objectives of energy policy. The intermittent nature of renewables, such as wind and solar, necessarily imposes complex trade-offs for regulatory objectives, such as resource adequacy (and system reliability) versus reductions in green house gas emissions. We develop a highly stylized model of investments in order to derive insights regarding the workings of regulatory incentives for increased renewable energy. We first show that incentives are indeed needed when there are significant economies of scale in the form of “learning by doing” or alternatively, when there is excess capacity in conventional technology due to legacy investments. We analyze two different regulatory schemes (feed-in tariffs and renewable portafolio standards) aimed at increasing investment in renewable capacity. We show that neither scheme is capable of inducing the socially optimal level of investment in renewable capacity. A single feed-in tariff fails to induce optimal investment as a feed-in tariff exceeding marginal costs of conventional technology incentivizes over-development of the most attractive sites which preempts investment in less attractive, yet socially valuable sites. A renewable portfolio standard that promotes increased investment in renewable technology induces under-investment in the conventional technology. These results suggest that a “clinical” regulatory design, that is, one that promotes the right amount of renewable capacity without affecting conventional capacity is a challenging proposition.     

Interest group incentives for post-lottery trade restrictions

The rights to use publicly-managed natural resources are sometimes distributed by lottery, and typically these rights are nontransferable. Prohibition of post-lottery permit transfers discourages applicants from entering the lottery solely for profitable permit sale, so only those who personally value the use of the resource apply. However, because permits are distributed randomly and trade is restricted, permits may not be used by those who value them most. We argue that restrictions on permit transfers is a policy response designed to limit entry when interest group membership is not distinguishable ex ante, and characterize the economic/informational conditions under which post-lottery prohibitions on trade are likely to arise. We develop our model using the specific case of the Four Rivers Lottery used to allocate rafting permits on four river sections in Idaho.