Pricing training and development programs using stochastic CVP analysis

This paper sets forth, analyzes and applies a stochastic cost‐volume‐profit (CVP) model specifically geared toward the determination of enrollment fees for training and development (T+D) programs. It is a simpler model than many of those developed in the research literature, but it does incorporate one advanced component: an ‘economic’ demand function relating the expected sales level to price. Price is neither a constant nor a random variable in this model but rather the decision‐maker's basic control variable. The simplicity of the model permits analytical solutions for five ‘special prices’: (1) the highest price which sets breakeven probability equal to a minimum acceptable level; (2) the price which maximizes expected profits; (3) the price which maximizes a Cobb–Douglas utility function based on expected profits and breakeven probability; (4) the price which maximizes breakeven probability; and (5) the lowest price which sets breakeven probability equal to a minimum acceptable level. The model is applied to data provided by the Center for Management and Professional Development at the authors' university. The results suggest that there could be a significant payoff to fine‐tuning a T+D provider's pricing strategy using formal analysis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What factors drive the price–rent ratio for the housing market? A modified present-value analysis

We consider which factors determined the price–rent ratio for the housing market in 18 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and at the national level over the period of 1975–2014. Based on a present-value framework, our proposed empirical model separates the price–rent ratio for a given market into unobserved components related to the expected real rent growth and the expected housing return, but is modified from standard present-value analysis by also including a residual component that captures non-stationary deviations of the price–rent ratio from its present-value level. Estimates for the modified present-value model suggest that the present-value residual (PVR) component is always important and sometimes very large at the national and MSA levels, especially for MSAs that have experienced frequent booms and busts in the housing market. In further analysis, we find that house prices in MSAs that have larger PVR components are more sensitive to mortgage rate changes. These are also the MSAs with less elastic housing supply. Also, comparing our results with a recent statistical test for periodically-collapsing bubbles, we find that MSAs with large estimated PVR components are the same MSAs that test positively for explosive sub-periods in their price–rent ratios, especially during the 2005–2007 subsample. Our approach allows us to estimate the correlation between shocks to expected rent growth, the expected housing return, and the PVR component. We find that the expected housing return and movements in the PVR component are highly positively correlated implying an impact of the expected housing return on house prices that is amplified from what a standard present-value model would imply. Our results also show that most of the variation in the present-value component of the price–rent ratio arises due to the variation in the expected housing return.     

House prices and consumer welfare

We develop a new approach to measuring changes in consumer welfare due to changes in the price of owner-occupied housing. In our approach, an agent's welfare adjustment is defined as the transfer required to keep expected discounted utility constant given a change in current house prices. We demonstrate that, up to a first-order approximation, there is no aggregate change in welfare due to price increases in the existing housing stock. This follows from a simple market clearing condition where capital gains experienced by sellers are exactly offset by welfare losses to buyers. We show that this result holds (approximately) even in a model that accounts for changes in consumption and investment plans prompted by current house price changes. There can, however, be changes in welfare due to additions to the stock of housing, or to changes in the price of renovating and upgrading the existing stock of housing. For the United States, we estimate the welfare cost of house price appreciation to be an average of $127 per household per year over the 1984–1998 period.     

基于顾客效用的物流服务水平决策

从顾客的角度出发，以物流服务效用为基础，通过建立企业利润与物流服务水平、物流服务价格的关系模型，分析了物流服务水平与顾客效用的关系，进一步帮助物流企业确定合理的物流服务水平及其相应的价格，最终更好地满足顾客的需求和获得更大的利润。     

住房价格、社会保障支出和居民消费——基于面板门槛模型的实证分析

党的十九大报告提出了改善住房制度、加强社会保障和完善消费体制等一系列要求,这些热点问题之间不是孤立的,而是存在着内在的联系。为此,基于不确定性视角,将社会保障支出水平纳入分析框架研究发现,住房价格上涨通过社会保障支出对居民消费产生正向影响,与原有住房价格通过收入视角对居民消费产生的效应相叠加,使住房价格对居民消费产生的总效应呈现非线性关系。在此基础上,以地方政府社会保障支出水平作为门槛变量,建立关于房价和居民消费率关系的面板门槛模型,以我国2007—2015年省际面板数据为样本进行实证分析,结果表明：社会保障水平的变化使得住房价格对于居民消费率的影响存在显著的单门槛效应。当社会保障支出水平小于其门槛值时,住房价格上涨对居民消费率有较强的抑制效应,两者之间呈现显著的负相关关系;当社会保障水平超过门槛值后,住房价格上涨对居民消费率的抑制效应明显减弱。     

基于价值链的桂林房地产企业战略分析

桂林是中国著名旅游城市之一,城市环境的改善派生了大量的购房需求。由于桂林城区的房价在全国房价水平中处于中低位,因此其房地产产品具有良好的增值预期,吸引了大量资本进入桂林的房地产市场,使当地房价持续保持稳步上升的趋势。文章结合房地产开发价值链的特点,探讨桂林房地产企业的发展机理、发展策略。     

Property taxation and the demand for housing: An econometric analysis

There is disagreement among economists regarding the effect of a local increase in property taxation on the housing market. In defining the price of housing services studies of the demand for housing have treated the property tax exclusively as an excise tax on housing consumption. Two recent theoretical developments suggest this is a misrepresentation of the tax. One theory holds that the excise effects of property taxation may be shifted backward to the factors employed in the production of housing. The other theory concludes that the property tax is not an excise, but rather serves as an efficient price for local public services. To investigate these hypotheses, data from the Annual Housing Survey were employed to estimate a housing demand model which included the net effective property tax rate among the set of independent variables. In addition to revealing the property tax-housing demand relationship, the model provides more reliable estimates of income and price elasticities by eliminating specification errors found in previous studies. Results indicate that the property tax reduces the housing consumption of central city homeowners, but does not distort the suburban housing market.     

An alternative test of the hedonic theory of housing markets

In this paper the hedonic theory of housing markets is used to generate a multinomial logit model of household behavior in an urban housing market. Application of hedonic theory to housing markets is by now fairly familiar and a link to multinomial logit has also been established. However, by emphasizing more heavily the bid price interpretation of hedonic theory, this paper develops a new connection to econometric estimation that essentially involves running the usual logit equations in reverse. One advantage of this approach is that the link between the logit equations and hedonic theory involves bid price rather than utility functions, and this in turn permits the empirical results to be given an extremely clear interpretation. Furthermore, in contrast to the standard logit model, the extreme value distribution required to justify the estimation technique emerges endogenously as part of the analysis.     

Adaptation investments and homeownership

This article develops a model where ownership improves the efficiency of the housing market as it enhances the utility of housing consumption for some consumers. The model is based on an extended Hotelling–Lancaster utility approach in which the ideal variant of housing is obtainable only by adapting the home through a supplementary investment. Ownership offers low costs of adaptation, but has high contract costs compared with renting. Consumers simultaneously choose housing demand and tenure, and because of the different cost structure only consumers with strong preferences for individual adaptation of the home choose ownership. This article analyses the consumer’s optimization. The model provides an explanation for the observation that homeowners typically live in larger dwelling units than tenants. It also provides an explanation for a high price of housing services tending to reduce homeownership rates.     

What moves housing markets: A variance decomposition of the rent–price ratio

We apply the dynamic Gordon growth model to the housing market in 23 US metropolitan areas, the four Census regions, and the nation from 1975 to 2007. The model allows the rent–price ratio at each date to be split into the expected present discounted values of rent growth, real interest rates, and a housing premium over real rates. We show that housing premia are variable and forecastable and account for a significant fraction of rent–price ratio volatility at the national and local levels, and that covariances among the three components damp fluctuations in rent–price ratios. Thus, explanations of house-price dynamics that focus only on interest rate movements and ignore these covariances can be misleading. These results are similar to those found for stocks and bonds.     

保障性住房供给中民间资本引导--以天津市为例

民间资本具有逐利性，民间资本参与保障性住房供给必然要追逐利益，相应的制度设计必须尊重民间资本的逐利性，给予民间资本稳定、持续的利益激励，从而保证其稳定、持续地参与保障性住房供给。但基于民间资本的流动性，需要在制度设计中中断民间资本的逐利性，避免民间资本参与保障性住房过程中为追逐利益而偏离住房保障目标。对于具有较高获益性的保障性住房，天津市允许民间资本直接参与供给；而在获益性较低的保障性住房项目中，天津市采用保障性住房投资基金、保障性住房信托投资基金、住房公积金贷款等工具鼓励民间资本参与保障性住房供给，有效地兼顾了民间资本的逐利性和保障性住房的公益性，在结果上达到了双赢。     

Love thy neighbor: Income distribution and housing preferences

Do homeowners prefer living in an area with a more equal distribution of income? We answer this question by estimating a semi-parametric hedonic pricing model for about 90,000 housing units transacted in Hong Kong between 2005 and 2006. We first identify a hedonic price function by locally regressing the rental price of the housing unit on its intrinsic and neighborhood characteristics, one of which is the Gini coefficient for household income of the constituency area. We then combine the estimates with a log utility function to obtain the heterogeneous preference parameters. Finally, we estimate the joint distribution of the preference parameters and demographics. We find that most homeowners have a strong distaste for inequality in their neighborhood, and the distaste increases with income and goes down with education level. Counterfactual experiments show that reallocating public rental housing by half can increase the welfare of homeowners by about HK$8,000 on average per year, an amount which is equivalent to increasing the housing unit by 20 square feet or reducing the age of the unit by 5 years.     

城市商品住宅价格水平影响因素研究

商品住宅价格问题是社会关注的焦点问题.以全国35个重点城市1999年-2005年数据为基础,研究城市住宅价格水平的影响因素.研究显示,代表城市经济发展水平和居民收入水平、单位面积土地投入、城市区位和城市环境等侧面的职工平均工资、单位面积固定资产投资、人均铺装道路面积、距海岸线的距离、通过城市的国道数量、建成区绿化覆盖率这6个因素是影响城市住宅价格水平的主要因素.可以预期,当一个城市的这些因素发生相对变化和绝对变化的时候,城市的住宅价格水平必然会发生相应的变化.阳光充足、水资源丰富、交通便捷的近海地区城市的商品住宅价格变动幅度会由于经济发展、人口增加、区住条件进一步优化、投入加大等各种条件的较大变化而高于其他城市.     

Optimal density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city with endogenous residential distribution and housing prices

This paper proposes an analytical urban system equilibrium model for optimizing the density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city. The proposed model involves four types of agents: local authorities, property developers, households and household workers (i.e. commuters). The local authorities aim to maximize the total social welfare of the urban system by determining the optimal density of radial major roads in the city. The property developers seek to determine the intensity of their capital investment in the land market to maximize the net profit generated from the housing supply. The households choose residential locations that maximize their utility within a budget constraint, and the commuters choose the radial major roads that minimize their individual costs of travel between home and workplace. A heuristic solution procedure is developed to find the urban system equilibrium solution. A system optimum model is also proposed to optimize the density of radial major roads that maximizes the social welfare of the urban system. The proposed model can endogenously determine household residential distribution and land values across the city, along with the housing market structure in terms of housing prices and space. Numerical comparative static analyses of congestion pricing and road infrastructure investment (adding a new radial major road) are carried out together with evaluation of the effects of the service level of radial major roads, urban population size, and household income level on the urban economy.     

The flight to the suburbs: insights gained from an analysis of central-city vs suburban housing costs

The central thesis of this paper is that the prices people pay for housing can be used to determine whether the movement of population to the suburbs is caused primarily by attraction to suburban advantages or by the desire to escape deteriorating conditions in the central city. Estimates of the coefficients indicating the price of central city versus suburban housing in the United States are presented and analyzed using a regression model.     

Intrametropolitan migration: A simultaneous model of employment and residential location of white and black households

This study explores the relationship between the home and job location of the household within a metropolitan area. The model is an extension of the Alonso-Muth framework and allows the household to simultaneously choose its residential and employment location, monthly rent, number of rooms and the type of structure of the dwelling unit, so as to maximize its utility subject to the budget constraint.The data base is the Home Interview Survey conducted in 1965 by the (San Francisco) Bay Area Transportation Study Commission. The coefficients in the simultaneous model are estimated by two-stage least squares. The cross-section sample is stratified by tenure into renters and homeowners; by race into black and white households; and further by position in the life-cycle.The results of the location equations reveal that both the home and job location are responsive to each other which implies that the decentralization of jobs will result in the decentralization of residences for black households. The results of the housing equations imply that black and white households have almost identical elasticity of demand for housing. There is very slight evidence of price discrimination against black households. However, there is evidence that black households do face a geographical segregated market for rental housing.The results of this study argue that the decentralization of population is not due solely to rising incomes and will continue as long as industry decentralizes. Furthermore, governmental policies of increasing the income of central city residents, through subsidies to employers to locate in the central city will have a strong effect: inducing those residents to remain in or move into the central city. Thus, a policy that is meant to alleviate the plight of the city center may only result in strengthening the racial and income split between the suburb and the central city inhabitants.     

Intraurban variation in the price of housing

Theoretical models of spatial consumer behavior assume the existence of a housing price surface that increases with accessibility. It is often hypothesized that inadequate accessibility measures are responsible for the failure of most empirical studies to support this premise. A general accessibility measure consisting of a double power series in cartesian coordinates is developed and shown to represent a general formulation of traditional accessibility measures. This formulation is incorporated in a hedonic price regression model, and the model is estimated using census tract data for the city of Milwaukee. The hedonic prices are then used to construct intraurban housing price indexes. The results of this study provide strong support for the existence of the presumed price surface. A comparison of this new hedonic price model with traditional models suggests that the double power series formulation is a superior representation of accessibility.     

A dymimic model of housing price determination

This paper presents and estimates a model of the resale housing market. The data are a cross-section of monthly time series obtained from the multiple-listing service for a suburb of San Diego. The model is specified and estimated as a dynamic multiple indicator multiple cause system of equations where the capitalization rate is taken to be an unobservable time series to be estimated jointly with the unknown parameters. These are estimated by maximum likelihood using an EM algorithm based upon Kalman filtering and smoothing.The specification of the model features hedonic equations for each house sale and a dynamic equation for the capitalization rate which is constrained to make the expectation of prices equal the present value of the net returns to home ownership whenever the economic variables stabilize at steady state values. Out of steady state, the capitalization rate slowly adapts to new information.The model attributes a large portion of housing price increases of the 1970's to a fall in the capitalization rate which in turn was driven by rental inflation, tax rates and mortgage rates. Post-sample simulations indicate an initial flattening of housing inflation rates and later a fall brought on by the increase in steady state capitalization rates. In-sample simulations show that although both Proposition 13 and the inflation induced rise in the marginal income tax rates provided partial explanations for the fall in capitalization rates, the single most important factor was the acceleration in price of housing services which interacted with the tax treatment of home ownership to produce an amazing 18% average annual rate of price increase over the last seven years of the 1970's.     

Identification and stochastic specification in Rosen's hedonic price model

The use of an explicitly specified utility function to derive the inverse demand functions in S. Rosen's hedonic price model provides considerable insight into the correct stochastic specification of the model. It turns out that except in special cases, the inverse demand equations are nonlinear in parameters and cannot be formulated conveniently as regression models. Moreover, the inverse demand functions and the hedonic price function must be estimated simultaneously to obtain consistent estimates of the parameters of these functions. A tractable estimation technique is described. It is desirable to derive the inverse demand functions from a utility specification that is not a strongly separable function of houses' attributes since strong separability implies the existence of deterministic relations among incomes, prices, and observed housing attributes that may fail to hold in applications. Finally, it is shown that the use of an explicitly specified utility function does not guarantee identification of the parameters of Rosen's model.     

Wages and prices: Are workers fully compensated for cost of living differences?

This paper investigates the equilibrium relationship between wages and prices across labor markets. Of central interest is the extent to which workers receive higher wages to compensate for differences in the cost of living. According to the spatial equilibrium hypothesis, the utility of homogenous workers should be equal across labor markets. This implies that controlling for amenity differences across areas, the elasticity between wages and the general price level across areas should equal one, at least under certain conditions. I test this hypothesis and find that the predicted relationship holds when housing prices are measured by rents and the general price level is instrumented to account for measurement error. When housing prices are measured by housing values, however, the wage-price elasticity is significantly less than one, even using instrumental variables. Rents reflect the price paid for housing per unit of time and are arguably the superior measure. Thus, findings in this essay provide support for the full compensation hypothesis. These findings also have important implications for researchers estimating the implicit prices of amenities or ranking the quality of life across areas.