Two Risks to World Market

eyond our expectations of happy slowdown＇in 2007, we offer our first guess at the global economic picture in 2008, We expect global growth in 2008 to be higher than in 2007, not least due to a possible improvement in the U.S.. Our forecasts also suggest that the trend growth rate is on the rise in many parts of Europe （especially Germany and the UK）, as well as in significant parts of Asia （particularly China and India）, We also see few signs that this strong growth is generating higher inflation.     

Effort and Performance: What Distinguishes Interacting and Noninteracting Groups from Individuals?

We study how group membership affects behavior both when group members can and cannot interact with each other. Our goal is to isolate the contrasting forces that spring from group membership: a free‐riding incentive leading to reduced effort and a sense of social responsibility that increases effort. In an environment with varying task difficulty and individual decision making as the benchmark, we show that the free‐riding effect is stronger. Group members significantly reduce their effort in situations where they share the outcome but are unable to communicate. When group members share outcomes and can interact, they outperform groups without communication and individuals. We show that these groups do as well as the best constituent member would have done on his or her own.     

香港投资者看好越南

哪里有利润，资本就会流向哪里。由于投资祖国大陆的生产成本以及税收的增加，越来越多的香港企业正将目光投向越南，寻找更好的投资机会。[第一段]     

Efficiency of continuous double auctions under individual evolutionary learning with full or limited information

In this paper we explore how specific aspects of market transparency and agents’ behavior affect the efficiency of the market outcome. In particular, we are interested whether learning behavior with and without information about actions of other participants improves market efficiency. We consider a simple market for a homogeneous good populated by buyers and sellers. The valuations of the buyers and the costs of the sellers are given exogenously. Agents are involved in consecutive trading sessions, which are organized as a continuous double auction with order book. Using Individual Evolutionary Learning agents submit price bids and offers, trying to learn the most profitable strategy by looking at their realized and counterfactual or “foregone” payoffs. We find that learning outcomes heavily depend on information treatments. Under full information about actions of others, agents’ orders tend to be similar, while under limited information agents tend to submit their valuations/costs. This behavioral outcome results in higher price volatility for the latter treatment. We also find that learning improves allocative efficiency when compared to outcomes with Zero-Intelligent traders.     

小茶叶，大商机

具有保健功效的普洱茶除了可以饮用之外还具有收藏价值，所以被喻为能喝的古董，自然成为收藏有和茶叶爱好者的心头爱。     

Deterministic criteria for the absence of arbitrage in?one-dimensional diffusion models

We obtain a deterministic characterisation of the no free lunch with vanishing risk, the no generalised arbitrage and the no relative arbitrage conditions in the one-dimensional diffusion setting and examine how these notions of no-arbitrage relate to each other.     

'THE LAW OF STORMS': EUROPEAN AND INDIGENOUS RESPONSES TO NATURAL DISASTERS IN COLONIAL INDIA, c. 1800–1850

Focusing on collective response to storms and floods in early colonial India, the paper explores obstacles to successful disaster response with one example related to meteorology of cyclones and the other the use of embankments. In both these examples, there was an attempt to build public-private partnerships, which succeeded in the case of weather prediction and failed in river embankment. The failure is explained by two factors. Coordination and contracting were costly when the private partners had variable capacities and interests. Furthermore, whereas meteorology predicted nature, embankments interfered with nature, an intervention which carried social and economic costs.