Reminiscing about Gordon Tullock

Some thoughts about my year with Gordon Tullock and his intellectual contributions,notably rent-seeking.     

A technology replacement model with variable market potential — An empirical study of CRT and LCD TV

The rapidly changing economic environment and increasingly fierce competition indicate that companies must innovate in both their products and marketing strategies if they are to continue to flourish. Specifically, the ability to accurately predict the demand for products is crucial when firms decide to allocate their resources, especially in the fast moving high technology industries, where there is very high investment in R&D and production facilities. This study establishes a forecast model for technology replacement based on the diffusion model with population growth used for the variable market potential. The proposed model is then applied to investigate the CRT and LCD TV market.The results suggest that the new model is more accurate than the constant market potential model in fitting and forecasting performance. Consumers who purchase a TV for the first time are likely more attracted to LCD TV rather than CRT TV. As for those individuals who already own a CRT TV, the attraction is not strong enough to encourage them to replace their current CRT TV with a new LCD TV. Moreover, it is noted that the falling price of LCD TV is an essential factor in encouraging purchases.     

The financial performance of the East African Development Bank: a retrospective analysis

This paper analyses retrospectively the financial performance of the East African Development Bank. Three methods of analysis, derived from a selective review of the literature, are applied, namely the standard financial ratios; statistical moments such as the mean, range and standard deviation of balance sheet and related accounts; and the Subsidy Dependence Index. The results show that the bank's historical performance has been disappointing. It is suggested that the bank should engage proactively in the identification, promotion and post-evaluation of projects. Further research is proposed in order to encompass analytically the financial, developmental and technological functions of the bank.     

The museum pass game and its value

We discuss a game in which service providers (e.g., museums) team up in offering a limited time access pass allowing unlimited usage of their services. In this game, a natural way to allocate the joint income from the sale of passes among the service providers is by using the Shapley value. We show that, for the particular game considered, the Shapley value takes a very intuitive and computationally simple form.     

Beijing: urban transport issues in a socialist Third World setting (1949–1992)

Post-1949 development of urban transport in Beijing, the national capital of the People's Republic of China, has been for a long time shaped by the ideology of the Chinese communists, in a setting of rapid urban growth and industrialization with general neglect of the ‘consumption’ needs of the urban populace. The Old City of feudal Beijing which the municipality inherited in 1949 and the need to preserve its pre-industrial street pattern, set by the city wall and the former Imperial Court (the Forbidden City), for historical and cultural reasons added another interesting and almost insurmountable constraint to the city's urban transport development.This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the situation and development of urban transport in the city from 1949 to 1992, outlining its major characteristics and problems. The effects of the new Open Door and modernization policies since 1978 and their impact on a new approach emphasizing market forces are evaluated. Wherever feasible, comparative figures and materials from the western and Third World city are used to provide better appreciation of Beijing's situation. The experience of the new policy of Market Socialism that started in 1978 provides valuable evidence for other large Third World cities.     

Languages in the European Union: The quest for equality and its cost

The European Union has recently expanded from 15 to 25 countries, bringing the number of official languages to 20. Currently, the EU extends equal treatment to all member countries’ official languages. This, however, is costly, especially since many Europeans speak one of the procedural languages, English, French or German, either as a native or a foreign language. We develop a simple theoretical model of linguistic-regime choice in a multilingual society and apply the model's insights to the case of the EU: we compute disenfranchisement rates that would result from using only the three procedural languages for all EU business and then proceed to quantify the average cost per person and cost per disenfranchised person associated with providing translations and interpreting into the remaining languages. Both the disenfranchisement rates and costs are shown to vary substantially across the different languages, raising important questions about the economic efficiency of equal treatment for all languages. We argue that an efficient solution would be to decentralize the provision of translations.     

英国亨利管理学院

杰出的董事是怎样炼成的？ 普遍的趋势和看法是，未来外部董事将在董事会中扮演越来越重要的作用，下一代的董事会主席应该从非执行董事中选出。同时，在未来的公司里，董事会主席也将扮演更重要的角色，这不仅仅是为了权力平衡和独立董事会的需要，因为一个公司的领导能力将在越来越激烈的竞争中变得更加重要，金融投资机构对董事会的关注也越来越高就证明了这一点，董事会主席的作用将明显不同于首席执行官的作用。     

Zur Frage der Ankurbelung durch Kreditpolitik

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