Is Grameen Lending Efficient? Repayment Incentives and Insurance in Village Economies

Many believe that a key innovation by the Grameen Bank is to encourage borrowers to help each other in hard times. To analyse this, we study a mechanism design problem where borrowers share information about each other, but their limited side contracting ability prevents them from writing complete insurance contracts. We derive a lending mechanism which efficiently induces mutual insurance. It is necessary for borrowers to submit reports about each other to achieve efficiency. Such cross-reporting increases the bargaining power of unsuccessful borrowers, and is robust to collusion against the bank.     

Information Sharing and Cooperative Search in Fisheries

We present a dynamic game of search and learning about the productivity of competing fishing locations. Perfect Bayesian Nash equilibrium search patterns for non-cooperating fishermen and members of an information sharing cooperative are compared with first-best outcomes. Independent fishermen do not internalize the full value of information, and do not replicate first-best search. A fishing cooperative faces a free-riding problem, as each coop member prefers that other members undertake costly search for information. Pooling contracts among coop members may mitigate, but are not likely to eliminate free-riding. Our results explain the paucity of information sharing in fisheries and suggest regulators use caution in advocating cooperatives as a solution to common pool inefficiencies in fisheries.     

Delegation and Information Sharing in Cournot Duopoly

Information sharing in oligopoly has been analyzed by assuming that firms behave as a sole economic agent. In this paper it is assumed that ownership and management are separated. Contrary to the classical result of information sharing in a Cournot duopoly with private cost information, the paper shows that information sharing is no longer always a dominant strategy and expected consumer surplus is no longer always decreased. The paper determines the circumstances under which information is exchanged and analyzes its welfare consequences.      

Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies

Recent work on consumption allocations in village economies finds that idiosyncratic variation in consumption is systematically related to idiosyncratic variation in income, thus rejecting the hypothesis of full risk-pooling. We attempt to explain these observations by adding limited commitment as an impediment to risk-pooling. We provide a general dynamic model and completely characterise efficient informal insurance arrangements constrained by limited commitment, and test the model using data from three Indian villages. We find that the model can fully explain the dynamic response of consumption to income, but that it fails to explain the distribution of consumption across households.     

知识经济与信息资源共享

知识经济是指以现代科学技术为核心、建立在知识和信息的生产、分配、使用之上的经济。知识经济的兴起和发展,必然会对我国图书馆事业产生广泛而深远的影响。在知识经济中,人们对知识信息的需求将明显增加,图书馆的地位将更加突出,作用更大,对于知识经济的发展具有不可替代的重要作用。知识经济的一个重要特征是社会信息化水平不断提高、不断发展。以计算机为核心的信息技术的进步,多媒体技术的应用,数字化电子出版物的出版,改变了图书馆的信息存贮、传递和检索方式;计算机网络技术的应用打破了图书馆的封闭式管理,信息资源以数字…     

Intergenerational Risk Sharing and Health Insurance Financing

When medical care prices and individual health needs follow stochastic processes with non-zero trends. community rating facilitates lifetime insurance and intergenerational risk sharing. While such a policy is unsustainable in competitive private insurance markets. it provides the basis for the financing of public health systems designed to spread risks efficiently.     

发达经济体农业风险管理体系建设经验与启示

农业风险管理体系是综合协调"政府—市场—组织"关系,由农业微观经济主体利用金融工具与合作组织,主动管理市场风险和生产风险。经过长期发展,在发达经济体逐渐形成的农业风险管理体系中,政府已日益倾向于减少对农业风险的直接干预,而是引导农业经营主体综合利用远期合同、期货、期权、保险来管理市场风险。这一发展趋势为我国农业风险管理实践和构建农业风险管理体系提供了全新思路。     

论债权人的风险分担

本文从债权的性质出发,论述了公司经营风险与财务风险的关系,指出公司的财务风险产生于债务资本转嫁给权益资本的经营风险,并且因债权性质而被放大,因此降低公司财务风险的关键是降低经营风险。由于股东承担风险的能力是有限的,当公司总风险超过风险临界点时,债权人在事实上开始承担公司除股东承担的风险之外的剩余风险,因此公司风险是一种不同于传统意义上的状态依存的分担机制。尽管在一定状态下债权人承担了剩余风险,但债权的性质决定了债权不能取得更高的报酬。因此在日本和德国的公司里,大的债权人都被赋予了状态依存的管理或监督职能,这可以看作是债权在现代公司治理中的延伸,也是债权人管理债权承担的风险的一种创新机制。     

International Risk Sharing and the Transmission of Productivity Shocks

This paper shows that standard international business cycle models can be reconciled with the empirical evidence on the lack of consumption risk sharing. First, we show analytically that with incomplete asset markets productivity disturbances can have large uninsurable effects on wealth, depending on the value of the trade elasticity and shock persistence. Second, we investigate these findings quantitatively in a model calibrated to the U.S. economy. With the low trade elasticity estimated via a method of moments procedure, the consumption risk of productivity shocks is magnified by high terms of trade and real exchange rate (RER) volatility. Strong wealth effects in response to shocks raise the demand for domestic goods above supply, crowding out external demand and appreciating the terms of trade and the RER. Building upon the literature on incomplete markets, we then show that similar results are obtained when productivity shocks are nearly permanent, provided the trade elasticity is set equal to the high values consistent with micro-estimates. Under both approaches the model accounts for the low and negative correlation between the RER and relative (domestic to foreign) consumption in the data—the "Backus–Smith puzzle".     

自然灾害风险可保性分析及其损失分散机制

自然灾害风险不符合传统精算理论上的可保风险,然而市场—社会效用意义上的可保风险标准拓展了自然灾害风险的可保性.建立在这—理论基础上,文章探讨了如何构建自然灾害保险意义上的整体性、多层次的自然灾害损失分散机制.从直接保险、共同保险、再保险到资本市场和政府的最终保障,居民、保险市场、再保险市场和资本市场是市场化的自然灾害保险损失分散主体,而政府财政救助不应再是“第一保险人”的角色,反之应是承担较高层次的自然灾害损失——“最后再保险人”角色,并以此达到有效的将自然灾害损失分摊到不同主体和个人,最终实现最大限度的损失补偿,为我国的自然灾害保险制度的构建与设计提供参考依据.     

分税制、转移支付与地区风险分担

本文分析了中国地区间风险分担的程度以及财政制度如何影响地区间的风险分担水平.根据消费平滑和风险分担的实证模型,本研究得到如下结论:各地区间的风险分担程度尚显不足,各地区仅能把消费变动的一小部分进行平滑;分税制以及中央-地方间的转移支付制度使地区间的风险分担程度有所下降,这意味着目前的财税体系在实际上没有能够很好的平滑地区的收入变动.     

经济学视角下的会计信息外部性问题研究

会计信息作为一种特殊的产品具有外部性,这种外部性的存在会促使逐利的会计信息生产者虚假会计信息提供过量、真实会计信息提供不足,从而引致会计信息质量的劣化.从博弈论的视角来看,会计信息的生产者--企业管理当局任期的有限性破坏了合作博弈产生的自然约束条件,因而要解决会计信息外部性问题,只有从企业管理当局入手,约束他们的行为,加大他们的违规成本.并正确引导他们提供真实的会计信息才能彻底解决.在此,政府管制与市场调节都是必要的手段.本文对会计信息外部性问题的成因、后果进行了系统的分析,并在此基础上提出了解决的办法.     

中小企业异质性、信息分享及其融资问题研究

理论界普遍认为,信息不对称伴随经济转型期金融体系缺失是中国中小企业融资难的根本原因,但迄今提出的中小企业融资难治理对策对信息分享机制的研究相对匮乏。本文分析了信息分享机制缓解信息不对称问题的机理,模型研究表明,信息分享机制通过信息甄别消除逆向选择、降低信息搜寻成本和增加贷款市场竞争程度,从而提高了中小企业贷款的可得性,但这些作用的发挥依赖于中小企业异质性特征。     

基于SNA的项目群管理信息共享研究

文章运用社会网络分析法(SNA)对一家英国大型公用企业的项目群管理展开研究,主要参与主体客户方、一级承包商和咨询公司形成信息共享网络,文章通过阐述三方在项目群生命周期的收尾阶段如何在网络中共享信息以快速关闭项目来探寻组织间网络中行动者和他们之间的联结。由此研究项目群管理环境中不同组织如何在网络中分享信息、知识和创新观点以加速完成项目群绩效目标。研究发现：信息共享网络中,组织属性和任职时间属性有利于理解组织间信息共享;一级承包商和咨询公司员工在项目群收尾阶段位于网络中心位置,反映了他们协助客户加速关闭项目的行为;组织间信息共享不仅能提升合作关系,而且能提高信息共享网络的效率。     

产业集群风险:一个演化经济学的视角

产业集群加速了地方经济的发展,增强了地方竞争力,但是产业集群存在的一些风险也不容忽视,文章从演化经济学的视角分析了产业集群风险产生的原因,并试着提出一些对策措施。     

Property Regimes as Information Regimes: Efficiency and Economies of Joint Production

The paper argues that it is useful to view property regimes asinformation regimes. A conceptual model and numerical example are usedto show that, under some reasonable assumptions, a common propertyregime is preferable to a private property regime when property regimesare viewed as information regimes. The paper considers a case ofidiosyncratic risk in a dynamic grazing context where the marginality ofthe resource is such that insurance markets are thin or non-existent.Agents are thought to be risk averse and exogenous enforcement of a risksharing scheme is not feasible. The policy implication is that theestablishment and maintenance of a common property regime is shown to bea (possibly) reasonable institutional response in the face of difficultand particular circumstances when property regimes are viewed asinformation regimes.     

农村社会风险防控比较研究

本文首先说明了中国农村社会风险的区域差别及共有的问题,然后阐述了中国各地防控农村社会风险的不同特点,接着探讨了国外防控农村社会风险的独特经验,最后根据比较提出了中国各地共同适用的防控农村社会风险的对策.     

企业知识共享的利益均衡及风险化解研究

知识管理最重要的环节是知识共享，但是由于各方面原因企业难以真正实现知识共享。因此讨论知识共享重要性，分析知识共享风险存在原因，并针对风险的存在问题提出化解办法，对于企业管理具有重要的现实作用。     

东亚消费风险分担的度量及潜在福利分析

文章利用1970-2004年的相关数据,度量了东亚13个经济体的消费风险分担的程度以及东亚地区在实现完全风险分担后带来的潜在福利收益.实证结果表明:东亚区域资本市场在平滑GDP冲击方面的作用非常小,对区域借贷市场虽有一定的作用,但较为有限,这说明东亚的消费风险分担程度还相当低;相比OECD国家和欧盟国家,东亚各经济体风险分担的福利收益是比较高的.