Henry George and Europe: As Dissident Economist and Path-breaking Philosopher, He was a Catalyst for British Social Reform

Abstract . Henry George's influence was greater in the United Kingdom than in the United States. The 80s and 90s there were particularly favorable for the reception of his revolutionary ideas. Though, thanks to such thinkers as Alfred Russell Wallace and James and John Stuart Mill, a land reform movement already existed, its sudden rise to national significance was due to George. George's writing and speaking skills and his dedication moved many serious citizens into the political Left and heavily influenced men and women who became leaders of British non-Marxian socialism, at the formation and consolidation of their movement. While George's followers broke with both the Wallace and socialist movements, George's rhetorical talents awakened the broad circles of thinking people to a consciousness of the full range of the social question.     

Comment: Credit Market Access and the Effects of CRA

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics -     

A Rose.com by Any Other Name

We document a striking positive stock price reaction to the announcement of corporate name changes to Internet-related dotcom names. This "dotcom" effect produces cumulative abnormal returns on the order of 74 percent for the 10 days surrounding the announcement day. The effect does not appear to be transitory; there is no evidence of a postannouncement negative drift. The announcement day effect is also similar across all firms, regardless of the firm's level of involvement with the Internet. A mere association with the Internet seems enough to provide a firm with a large and permanent value increase.     

A State‐Price Volatility Index for China's Stock Market

This study derives a volatility index for China's stock market with similar properties to the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (the ‘VIX’). A long‐term benchmark of historic volatility expectations is here presented for China from 1996 to 2011, called the ‘China‐ State‐Price Volatility (SPV)’. Construction of this index involves the use of SPV methodology, using implied volatility calculated from options on the Hang Seng China Enterprise Index (HSCEI). Historic open–high–low–close volatility on the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCI) is also used to extend the benchmark prior to the availability of HSCEI options data. The China‐SPV successfully forecasts realised volatility for the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It also serves as a ‘fear gauge’ in that it monitors daily movements of the SHCI in the same way that the VIX monitors the S&P 500 index (Whaley, 2009). The China‐SPV evidences an increasing relation with the US market in terms of the dynamic correlation of levels and changes with the VIX since 2004.     

定价策略迷失：不只是简单降价

在经济低迷时期,由于需求下降、产能过剩和价格敏感度提高,各种因素都在共同推动产品价格走低,降价已经成了很多企业应对低迷的杀手锏。     

Why do employees keep choosing the high-premium health care plan? An investigation of the financial consequences and logic of employee health care plan selections

In 1991, Dannon employees had the choice to stay with their current health care plan or switch to a new plan which offered a lower premium and less hospital cost coverage that better fit the needs of most employees. Both plans were the same in all other respects. Only 25% of employees chose the new lower-premium plan over the old plan. This article reports a collaborative effort between The Dannon Company and Cornell University's Center for Advanced HR Studies to identify the patterns of employee choices, and the effects of those choices on the actual costs that employees incurred. The actual decisions of 287 Dannon employees were examined, and the out-of-pocket costs that they actually incurred in the two years after the plan was introduced were calculated. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The George Washington University Forecast of Emerging Technologies: A Continuous Assessment of the Technology Revolution

A method is presented for the continuous assessment of major technological advances—the George Washington University (GWU) forecast of emerging technologies. Environmental scanning and trend analysis are used to identify emerging technologies (ETs), and a Delphi-type survey then asks a panel of authorities to estimate the year each advance will occur, its associated probability, the potential size of its market, and the nation that will lead each ET. Eighty-five prominent ETs have been identified and grouped into 12 fields: energy, environment, farming and food, computer hardware, computer software, communications, information services, manufacturing and robotics, materials, medicine, space, and transportation. Results are presented from four survey rounds covering the past 8 years, and they are compared longitudinally to estimate the range of variance. The data are also divided into three successive decades to provide scenarios portraying the unfolding waves of innovation that comprise the coming technology revolution.     

Aggregation and pairwise aggregation of demand when the distribution of income is fixed

This paper derives necessary and sufficient conditions for “pairwise aggregation” of the demand functions of a group of consumers (conditions under which the mean demand for each pair of consumers satisfies the Slutsky restrictions) when the distribution of income is fixed. The sufficient conditions imply existence of a “representative” competitive consumer whose demand is the mean demand of the group. The necessary conditions imply that such a representative consumer exists for every fixed income distribution only if the consumers have homothetic preferences or, alternatively, if for each price vector, all the consumers' income expansion paths lie in the same plane.