PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT WITH TRANSACTION COSTS: AN ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE MORTON AND PLISKA MODEL

We examine the Morton and Pliska (1993) model for the optimal management of a portfolio when there are transaction costs proportional to a fixed fraction of the portfolio value. We analyze this model in the realistic case of small transaction costs by conducting a perturbation analysis about the no-transaction-cost solution. Although the full problem is a free-boundary diffusion problem in as many dimensions as there are assets in the portfolio, we find explicit solutions for the optimal trading policy in this limit. This makes the solution for a realistically large number of assets a practical possibility.     

Effect of emotional victim images in prosocial advertising: The moderating role of helping mode

Charities and marketers routinely incorporate images of recipients, for example victims of a flood or famine, in their prosocial advertising; however, previous literature suggests mixed results regarding the effectiveness of relying on sad versus happy images of victims. Recently, due to reactance to excessively traumatic marketing campaigns, happy victim images have been found to be more effective in eliciting prosocial behaviors. To extend this line of research, an experiment found that consumers are more willing to help when viewing advertisements featuring happy children over sad children. Moreover, helping mode moderates the relationship between victim image and helping intentions. The effect of a happy victim image is attenuated when consumers are asked to buy cause-related products rather than donate to charities. According to emotion regulation consumption theory, consumers mitigate the feeling of negative emotions by increasing their intention to buy cause-related products. Practically, the findings provide guidance on integrating victim images in prosocial advertising.     

Thinking regionally: Aviation and development implications in the Karoo region,South Africa

This study focuses on regional economic development in South Africa, across provincial political jurisdictions. The article argues that remote hinterlands can be more usefully understood as forming an integrated whole, rather than functioning as the poor rural cousins of their provincial metropoles. This article considers three propositions: that key transport projects (such as airports) may unlock regional development; that this may stimulate regional spatial integration; and that this may spur the South African government to address its weak regional planning system. All three propositions are speculative, drawn from the international literature, but they contribute to an argument for greater spatial coherence in South African planning in rural regions. The argument is illustrated with reference to the Karoo region of South Africa, and the potential of a new airport to impact on regional economic dynamics. Furthermore, the article argues that such impacts will require new regional planning systems, which are currently absent from the South African political system.     

The influence of Newtonian‐Cartesian scientific thinking on the interpretation of welfare and development

Development planning is essentially an exercise in strategy formulation and implementation. The first step in strategy formulation is the design of effective practice: doing the right things. Therefore strategic thinking requires that the context be considered before the particular. This requires a metaperspective.

In scientific practice such a metaperspective requires first of all an inquiry into the appropriateness of the paradigms, theories and models that are used in research and practice. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the vibrant discourse on development and welfare theory by proposing that this discourse is caught in the thought trap of the Newtonian‐Cartesian scientific culture of reductionism, disciplinarity and multidisciplinarity.

The evolution of scientific tradition from classical to Newtonian‐Cartesian is reviewed and also the contrasting societal and developmental implications of changes in this tradition. Tönnies's social transition theory and technological innovation are used to illustrate the need for a synthesis between the classical and modern traditions of science, in particular between the search for wisdom and understanding which dominated classical science and insight and specialised knowledge which regulate progress in modem science.

It is proposed that the social systems approach (the ‘soft’ systems approach) can provide some guidelines for a metaperspective (a grand synthesis) for studies in social welfare and human development The social systems approach is transdisciplinary and its process of synthesis differs fundamentally from the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary procedures that are often used to provide a synthesis between projects and disciplines in development planning. Its proposed synthesis also differs in important respects from the structure‐functionalist approach ofTalcott Parsons.     

Reforming or Transforming the Federal Tax System: (A Review Essay)

A bstract . Several proposals to reform the federal income tax system are under active consideration. Professor Richard W. Lindholm has proposed instead that we abolish the individual and corporate income taxes and the estate and gift taxes. To replace the lost revenue he proposes a flat 15 per cent value added tax and a flat 2 per cent net wealth tax. He posits five goals for successful tax reform and discusses his proposed system in terms of them. He finds his system would be simpler and less disruptive of markets than even a simplified income tax structure.     

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In this paper we develop a general equilibrium model of the Mexican economy in which unemployment and government deficits play important roles. The unemployment rate depends on a downwardly rigid real wage in the urban sector. The government runs a deficit simply by selling bonds that consumers consider perfect substitutes for physical capital as savings instruments. The model is used to analyze the impact of the 1980 fiscal reform. The presence of the rigid real wage and alternative specifications of government policies regarding the size of the deficit are found to have significant effects on the comparative statics results. Whether or not the reform improves the welfare of rural households compared to urban households, for example, depends on whether government policy is to keep the deficit constant or keep expenditures constant in response to changes in tax revenues.     

Instrumentalism and Economic Policy: The Quest for Reasonable Value

Neuroeconomics and behavioral economics (NEBE) is one of the most dynamic fields in contemporary economics. However, from the viewpoint of economic methodology there are still substantial reasons why NEBE is irrelevant for economic theory. This paper argues that they will only become an essential part of economics if they are embedded into a fully-fledged institutional and evolutionary paradigm. I develop a Neo-Veblenian theory of the individual that starts out from the observation that modern brain sciences do not support the notion of the brain to be an integrated and consistent rational decision apparatus. An evolutionary explanation is offered for this, which reinstates Veblen's distinction between adaptation as engineering optima and social selection. Individual identity does only emerge through communication and interaction among brains, in particular via language. The concept of the "extended brain" is proposed, which is applied to define human individuality as a social phenomenon. Thus, the systematic unity of neuroeconomics and institutional economics is established.