Are there lasting impacts of aid to poor areas?

The paper re-visits the site of a large, World Bank-financed, rural development program in China, 10 years after it began and four years after disbursements ended. The program emphasized community participation in multi-sectoral interventions (including farming, animal husbandry, infrastructure and social services). Data were collected on 2000 households in project and non-project areas, spanning 10 years. A double-difference estimator of the program's impact (on top of pre-existing governmental programs) reveals sizeable short-term income gains that were mostly saved. Only small and statistically insignificant gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer-term — though in rough accord with the average gain to permanent income. The use of community-based beneficiary selection greatly reduced the overall impact, given that the educated poor were under-covered. The main results are robust to corrections for various sources of selection bias, including village targeting and interference due to spillover effects generated by the response of local governments to the external aid.     

家纺展突破成熟期瓶颈?--写在第11届中国国际家纺博览会之后

8月份的第十一届中国国际家用纺织及辅料博览会再次向人们展示了朝气蓬勃的中国家纺,博览会上汇聚的家纺最新成果,直面世界家纺发展热点,至今仍让人历历在目.     

Valuing the social cost of corruption using subjective well being data and the technique of vignettes

Corruption can have an effect on people's happiness and satisfaction, and therefore, can generate a social cost. However, the perceptions of corruption and satisfaction can also vary across subjects, due to socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. This article studies the differences in the perceptions of corruption and satisfaction across subjects, utilizing the technique of vignettes for the correction of the bias that follows from the differences in the response scale across individuals. The evidence comes from a sample of citizens in Spain, who are asked about their perceptions of corruption and personal satisfaction. The results show that there exists a response scale bias, both for corruption and satisfaction. These results are utilized to approximate the social cost of corruption.     

On fair allocations and monetary compensations

Summary In this paper we study fair division problems with the special feature that there exists only one transferable good that everyone likes. This good will be used to compensate some individuals for their differences in other non-transferable resources (like talents or handicaps). In this context we test the traditional no-envy solution and we verify that: 1) its ethical content can be a matter of discussion, and 2) frequently it does not select a non-empty set of allocations. We propose an extension of this criterion that partially solves the existence problem while also retaining the main ethical properties of the preceding solution.Comments and criticisms on earlier drafts by Ahmet Alkan, Marc Fleurbaey, Louis Gevers, Leonid Hurwicz, Mathew Jackson and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. Financial support has been provided by Spanish DGICYT, PT 90-0654 and Protocolo Aquitania-Navarra-Pais Vasco.     

Risk control measures in payment systems

The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative analysis of modern gross and net payment systems, emphasizing on the implications of the availability of intraday liquidity in the former and of credit limits in the latter. This allows for the comparison of both the effects on social welfare of each of the two systems and the different risk control instruments analyzed. In a numerical exercise, it is shown first, how it would be legitimate for a benevolent authority a preference for a gross system, like Fedwire, over a net system, like EURO1, for relatively high values, although plausible, of risk aversion. Second, as financial development improves, the preference for a net system shifts either to gross systems or, for some countries, to a cohabitation of both settlement modes.     

跨国企业大腕为何屡遭厄运

世界知名品牌近来在中国市场频频失利，有的退出曾经雄霸一方的市场，有的遭遇财政年度赤字，有的坐失老大位置，由此带来的问题是：跨国企业如何避免折戟沉沙的厄运？[编者按]     

Stability and equilibrium selection in a link formation game

In this paper we study a static link formation game under consent that has multiple Nash equilibria. In the literature, the use of coalitional refinements has been the standard approach to select among equilibria. Alternatively, based on the Global Games theory, a non cooperative equilibrium selection approach is proposed, so as to select those Nash equilibria that are robust to the introduction of incomplete information. Interestingly, the equilibrium selected is unique and it is in conflict with those predicted by the commonly used coalitional refinements. Furthermore, a conflict is found between stability and efficiency even when no such conflict exists with the coalitional refinements. We are especially grateful to Deborah Minehart, Roger Lagunoff, Daniel Vincent, Peter Cramton, Luca Anderlini, Axel Anderson, Felipe Zurita, Francis Bloch, Colin Stewart, the editor and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments that contributed to improve the paper. We also thank participants at the EEA-ESEM, Stockholm 2003, the IUSC conference, Columbia University 2003, and the Workshop on Global Games, SUNY, Stony Brook, 2007.