OPTIONAL REAL-TIME PRICING OF ELECTRICITY FOR INDUSTRIAL FIRMS

Abstract. This paper proposes a pricing mechanism, optional real-time pricing (RTP), with day-ahead hourly prices, that exploits the potential offered by a competitive wholesale power market. When an electric utility offers the option to its industrial customers, the retail prices are based on an existing Hopkinson tariff and expectations as to the wholesale market's next-day hourly spot prices. The proposed RTP mechanism is Pareto-superior to the tariff in that it assures both the utility and the customer of profits that will be at least as great as under the tariff.     

COMMENT ON "THE IRREDUCIBLE ROLE OF DERIVED MARGINAL UTILITY IN DYNAMIC STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING"

This comment shows why the Lagrange method can be simpler than dynamic programming in solving dynamic optimization problems.     

城市生态学在福州市城市环境规划中的应用

城市生态学是生态学的重要分支,是研究城市居民与城市环境相互关系的科学.城市生态学的发展使人类对人居环境和可持续观念有了深入的认识,建立生态城市已经成为本世纪城市发展的明确目标.城市环境规划是城市建设和发展的"龙头",是城市健康发展、科学管理的重要依据,也是城市走可持续发展道路的重要环节.城市环境规划作为宏观指导和协调部门利益、优化城市土地资源配置、合理组织城市空间环境的重要战略部署,必须具备生态思想.     

The Usefulness of Earnings and Book Value for Equity Valuation in Emerging Capital Markets: Evidence From Listed Companies in the People's Republic of China

This paper examines the relative value relevance in equity valuation of two sets of accounting information of listed Chinese companies which issued the so-called B shares to foreign investors on the Chinese stock exchanges. These firms are required to prepare two sets of financial statements: one based on China's accounting regulations (domestic GAAPs) and the other based on International Accounting Standards (IASs). The study adopted the Ohlson (1995) model and used the Davidson-MacKinnon J-test to assess which one of these two competing sets of accounting information is more closely associated with the share prices. The results showed that earnings and book value reported based on IASs have greater information content than those based on domestic GAAPs. The results of yearly regression analysis generally suggested that the explanatory power of these earnings and book values for share prices increased over time.     

农产品质量分级与消费者福利:原理、现实及政策含义

随着人均收入水平的提高,消费者对农产品的关注日益由数量转向质量.基于消费者偏好差异的农产品质量分级,理论上可以提高消费者福利,反过来也会激励农业生产者优化资源配置,促进我国农业现代化.而美国农产品质量分级的实际情况表明,由于分级标准的制定由生产者和贸易者决定,并且消费者偏好难以把握,现行分级大多数是满足流通之需而不是从满足消费者偏好差异出发,不过这种情形正在发生改变.     

教师如何有效实施螺旋式项目教学法

在计算机专业的一些实践性很强的技能型课程中,采用新的螺旋式项目教学法,根据课程应用性的特点,以及职业能力的需求,在宏观的课程上的拓展,微观课堂上递进驱动教学法将理论教学与实践教学有机结合,实践教学效果很明显。但是新的教学方法对教师的工作任务有了新得标准,如何处理知识点的衔接,实现螺旋式上升势态,教学过程中如何把握知识点的内在联系,加强知识的层次性,最终实现知识点层层梯进,逐步深入。     

From political praise to stock options: Reforming compensation systems in the people's republic of China

The recent reforms in the People's Republic of China have brought into focus the system of compensation in Chinese enterprises. This paper examines the evolution of compensation schemes in China, with a special emphasis on the reforms of recent years, the obstacles they face, and the prospects for the future.     

Housing Prices in Urban China as Determined by Demand and Supply

This paper studies the demand for and supply of residential housing in urban China since the late 1980s when the urban housing market became commercialized. Using aggregated annual data from 1987 to 2012 in a simultaneous equations framework we show that the rapid increase in the urban residential housing price can be well explained by the forces of demand and supply, with income determining demand and cost of construction affecting supply. We find the income elasticity of demand for urban housing to be approximately 1, the price elasticity of demand to be approximately ?1.1 and the price elasticity of supply of the total housing stock to be approximately 0.5. The resulting long‐run effect of income on urban housing prices in elasticity terms is approximately 0.7, because the increase in income has shifted the demand curve outward more rapidly than the supply curve.     

Buyer Loyalty in Business Markets: Can the Firm and Salesperson Get What They Truly Desire?

Purpose: Prior literature has acknowledged multi-foci customer loyalties (loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty) and argued that both entities (selling firms and salespersons) foster customer loyalty through respective loyalty-capturing efforts (relationship investments). However, scholars have not investigated the influences of different types of interfirm relationship-specific investment (RSI) activities and salesperson behaviors (brand-building and guanxi behavior) on customer loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty, especially their simultaneous (interaction) effects. The current research attempts to address this issue and examines the impacts that RSIs and salesperson behaviors have on customer loyalties.

Methodology/approach: A survey of seller–buyer dyads was conducted to test the proposed theoretical model and hypotheses. Using 192 dyadic data from customers and salespersons in the Chinese business-to-business contexts, this study specifies the direct and interactive effects of sellers’ RSIs and salespersons’ behaviors on customer loyalties.

Findings: Results indicate that selling firms’ loyalty-capturing efforts—property-based and knowledge-based RSIs—have different influences on two types of customer loyalty. Salespersons’ relationship investments—brand-building and guanxi behaviors—also have asymmetric impacts on customer loyalty. Counterintuitively, salespersons’ loyalty-capturing efforts weaken the relationships between firms’ RSIs and customer loyalties.

Originality/value/contribution: This study specifies different types of relationship investments and examines their respective and interactive impacts on two types of customer loyalty—loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty. The findings indicate that firms’ and salespersons’ efforts may lead to unexpected and unintended effects on multi-foci loyalties. Therefore, the current study enriches our knowledge about multi-foci loyalty management and relationship marketing.

Practical implications: Because firms’ and salespersons’ loyalty-capturing strategies exert positive direct influences on loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty, both entities may actively leverage relationship investments’ impact on customer loyalty. However, as the interactive effects derived from concurrent loyalty-enhancing activities are negative, firms need to clearly assess the nature and

characteristics of their relationship with buyers and properly design relationship investments and guide salesperson behaviors. Managers should use property-based RSIs as a primary safeguard of customer loyalty to the selling firm. Meanwhile, internal branding and training programs can help salespersons develop brand building behaviors and better understand the potential unintended outcomes that different behaviors may induce. Aligning a branding goal between the firm and salespersons can benefit both parties while avoiding counter-productive outcomes.