Victory margins and the paradox of voting

This paper addresses a simple question: why do people vote? Though simple, this question remains unanswered despite the considerable attention it has received. In this paper, I show that purely rational–instrumental factors explain a large fraction of turnout variations, provided that the effect of the margin of victory on implemented policy is considered. I extend Myerson's models of elections based on Poisson games, and show that, when platforms are responsive to vote shares, the predictions of the model become consistent with several stylized facts, including the secular fall in turnout rates in the US.     

Gender and Piece Rates, Commissions, and Bonuses

Previous work shows that establishments with higher proportions of women are more likely to use piece rates but that individual women are less likely to receive performance pay. We present a model in which lower expected tenure and labor force attachment are positively associated with piece rates but are negatively associated with other forms of performance pay. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) confirms that women are more likely to be paid piece rates and simultaneously less likely to be paid commissions and bonuses.     

Using Industry-Sponsored Game Nights to Educate About Risk and Insurance

As educators in the field of risk management and insurance, we see know- ledge of risk management and insurance as a core business function. However, some colleagues and students see insurance as cold-call sales or companies with a lot of money that continue to raise their prices. So we have to find ways to make our public aware of the usefulness of risk management and insurance in the business world and in private life and of the opportunities that having such knowledge presents to all business majors and business people. One method that is beginning to show dramatic improvements in at least our students' perceptions of the field and the major involves industry-sponsored game nights. While not an academic endeavor nor strictly risk management education, we believe the idea provides a useful tool for opening students' eyes to the need for knowledge of risk management and insurance and of the opportunities that are available in the insurance industry and its related fields. This article discusses the history of such an event at Appalachian State Univer- sity, the current status of the North Carolina Surplus Lines Association (NCSLA) event, and the benefits of the event.     

The Local Whittle Estimator of Long-Memory Stochastic Volatility

We propose a new semiparametric estimator of the degree of persistencein volatility for long memory stochastic volatility (LMSV) models.The estimator uses the periodogram of the log squared returnsin a local Whittle criterion which explicitly accounts for thenoise term in the LMSV model. Finite-sample and asymptotic standarderrors for the estimator are provided. An extensive simulationstudy reveals that the local Whittle estimator is much lessbiased and that the finite-sample standard errors yield moreaccurate confidence intervals than the widely-used GPH estimator.The estimator is also found to be robust against possible leverageeffects. In an empirical analysis of the daily Deutsche Mark/USDollar exchange rate, the new estimator indicates stronger persistencein volatility than the GPH estimator, provided that a largenumber of frequencies is used.     

Motivations and barriers of foreign R&D activities in China

The continued growth of the Chinese economy accompanied with the expansion of international investment in China has led to an increase in foreign research and development (R&D) activities in the country. Aside from the rising importance of R&D internationalization, research on foreign R&D in China has been neglected in the past due to its emerging status. In this article we examine drivers and barriers for conducting R&D in China. The focus of our research is on transnational companies typically characterized by decentralized R&D activities. Our research is mainly based on qualitative interviews with senior R&D managers. The success of foreign R&D activities in China strongly depends on the realistic estimation of its advantages and the proper identification and handling of barriers.     

Ownership of Cross–Listed Equities: An Investigation of Turnover, Diversification, and Risk

Using data for a sample of Malaysian stocks that are traded in both Malaysia and Singapore, we show that the turnover rate (trading volume relative to shares held) is significantly higher in the foreign market than in the domestic market. We also find that ownership of cross–listed shares by foreign investors is not motivated by diversification benefits. Instead, we find that the proportion of a firm's shares held in Singapore is directly related to the firm's level of systematic risk.     

The myth of purchasing professionals’ expertise. More evidence on whether computers can make better procurement decisions

In a previous experiment, we have shown that risk assessments of purchasing experts are certainly not better than that of subjects untrained in purchasing, and worse than the decisions made by formal models (J. Purchas. Supply Manage. 9 (2003) 191–198). Since both these results are rather counterintuitive, we conducted a series of experiments geared at replication and extension of these findings. These new experiments show that our previous results are robust, and reveal an additional finding that is both worrying and puzzling. It actually seems to be the case that for the purchasing decision tasks in our experiments, experts perform worse with growing experience. It therefore seems that, at least for the kinds of purchasing decisions under study, it does not make much sense to use expert judgments at all. However, we show that there is a way in which expert judgments can be used in combination with formal models to improve the predictive accuracy of purchasing predictions. In our case, superior predictions are made when we combine the prediction of a formal model with the prediction of the ‘average expert’, thereby combining the robust linear trends as encapsulated in the formal model with the more intuitive configural rules used by experts. We provide several explanations for this phenomenon.     

Self‐help in housing and chengzhongcun in China's urbanization

This article focuses on the housing issues of rural migrants arising from urbanization, with particular reference to chengzhongcun, a topic with considerable impact on policymaking. An attempt is made to understand the underlying rationale of self‐help in housing and the important role of chengzhongcun in sheltering rural migrants in the context of China's rural‐urban dichotomy. As demonstrated in this study, chengzhongcun accommodate, with little in the way of government resources and assistance, millions of rural migrants because of their social accessibility and affordability. While not denying their social problems, we argue that chengzhongcun in fact act as an innovative and positive agent to promote urbanization in present day China by housing massive numbers of rural migrants and assimilating them into cities. Current government policies towards chengzhongcun have generated a wide range of interest conflicts and confrontations. The consequences of such conflicts show that the government policies were problematic and unworkable, as they violated basic market principles as well as citizen rights. Policy strategy towards the redevelopment of chengzhongcun must acknowledge their credibility in the Chinese road to urbanization and requires more thoughtful and prudent consideration of migrants' demands for affordable housing.     

Regional and National Perspectives of China's Integration into the WTO: A CGE Inquiry with Emphasis on the Agricultural Sector

China's integration in the World Trade Organization (WTO) is already on its fast track. Understanding the complexity of China's dynamic adjustment resulting from its membership in the WTO and the differential regional impacts within China is very important and poses crucial challenge in evaluating its impacts. In this study, we make an attempt to incorporate seven regional commodity-detailed models into a dis-aggregated multi-sector and multi-region China Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework. This framework has allowed us to evaluate the impacts of China's integration into the WTO at both national and regional levels and analyze the inter-linkages between China's provincial agricultural markets. Using the framework and assumptions about factor mobility, we assess the impacts on China's agricultural and non-agricultural sectors (regionally and nationally) by reduction of its trade policy distortions, such as tariffs rate changes and quantitative restrictions. We also evaluate the structural changes on China's national and regional production and trade as China implements its commitments and moves into the WTO.