Estimating features of a distribution from binomial data

We propose estimators of features of the distribution of an unobserved random variable W. What is observed is a sample of Y,V,X where a binary Y equals one when W exceeds a threshold V determined by experimental design, and X are covariates. Potential applications include bioassay and destructive duration analysis. Our empirical application is referendum contingent valuation in resource economics, where one is interested in features of the distribution of values W (willingness to pay) placed by consumers on a public good such as endangered species. Sample consumers with characteristics X are asked whether they favor (with Y=1 if yes and zero otherwise) a referendum that would provide the good at a cost V specified by experimental design. This paper provides estimators for quantiles and conditional on X moments of W under both nonparametric and semiparametric specifications.     

Social capital configuration, legal bonds and performance in buyer-supplier relationships

Academics have increasingly recognized the benefits derived from social networks embedded within companies’ buyer-supplier relationships. However, prior research has only examined the influence of social capital elements on performance, either individually or in part. We propose an integrative model examining the relationships among relational, structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital, and between these dimensions and the cost and innovation performance of the firm. A sample of 163 buyer-supplier relationships is used to test the model. Regression results indicate that the relational dimension of social capital fully or partially mediates the effect of the cognitive dimension on performance, and partially mediates the link between the structural dimension, operationalized as social interaction ties, and innovation performance. Further, high levels of legal bonds were found to moderate the relationship between the relational dimension of social capital and performance outcomes. Implications for theory and managers are discussed.     

Are U.S. stock prices mean reverting? Some new tests using fractional integration models with overlapping data and structural breaks

Using recently developed econometric models of fractional integration with overlapping data, this study examines the time series properties of real monthly U.S. stock returns over the period 1871–2003. Using 1-month and overlapping, long-horizon stock returns of 12, 24, and 36 months, we find that real U.S. stock returns are covariance stationary for this period before and after allowing for the presence of structural breaks. Our results imply that the permanent (random walk) component of stock prices overwhelms any temporary (mean reverting) component, producing a fractional d-value for returns indistinguishable from zero. We highlight the limitations of standard ACF models of overlapping returns, and suggest that the previously observed pattern of increasingly negative autocorrelations is largely an artifact of short-term ARMA dynamics. We confirm the result of Souza (J Time Ser Anal 28:701–722, 2007) that, holding the bandwidth constant, overlapping (and nonoverlapping) temporal aggregation should not affect semiparametric, frequency domain d-estimates such as the GPH and feasible exact local Whittle.     

IS MARKET‐ORIENTED REFORM PRODUCING A ‘TWO‐TRACK’ EUROPE? EVIDENCE FROM ELECTRICITY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ABSTRACT: The European Commission has formally recognized that adequate provision of basic household services, including energy, communications, water and transport, is key to ensuring equity, social cohesion and solidarity. Yet little research has been done on the impact of the reform of these services in this regard. This article offers an innovative way to explore such questions by analyzing and contrasting stated and revealed preferences on citizen satisfaction with and expenditure on two services, telecommunications and electricity, in two large countries, Spain and the UK. We find evidence that in telecommunications, but not in electricity, reform has led to a ‘two‐track’ Europe, where citizens who are elderly, not working or the less‐educated behave differently in the market, with the result that they are less satisfied with these services than their younger, working, better‐educated, counterparts.     

When a Precedent of Donation Favors Defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma

Abstract. In this paper, we examine the question of whether a collective activity can influence cooperation in a subsequent repeated one‐shot prisoner's dilemma (PD) game. We conduct two series of experiments. The first consists of control experiments in which 30 periods of a PD game are played, with a random rematching of the pairs in every period. In a second series of experiments, subjects first play a donation game (DG) and then the PD game. In the DG, they collectively discuss the amount of a donation to a given charity, before putting the question to an individual and anonymous vote. Cooperation levels in the PD games preceded by the DG are significantly lower than those observed in the control experiment.     

You are not in my boat: common fate and discrimination against outgroup members

Sharing a common fate with some people but not others may affect how economic agents behave in economic transactions, quite independently of strategic incentives. We present an experimental test of the effect of perceptions of common fate on the inducement of economic discrimination in bilateral settings. In settings where the bargaining power was all with one subject (the dictator game and a ‘unilateral power game’), about half of the subjects engaged in negative discrimination: insiders were not treated better relative to control sessions, but outsiders were treated worse. Discrimination may be induced by a more conflictual perception of the decision problem.     

Profits,Layoffs, and Priorities

This study examines the deliberations of professional MBA students when presented with a dilemma that weighs the difference between commitments to profit- maximization against concerns for fired workers who would need to seek a new job during a recession. Using content analysis, accounting, economic, and ethically based rationales that differ from the profit-maximizing recommendation are categorized. Results also show that those who make non-profit-maximizing recommendations consider, but ultimately reject the profit-maximizing approach to layoffs.     

The study of emerging industries: Recognizing and responding to some central problems

The emergence of new industries is an important phenomenon that remains relatively neglected by researchers. We address several theoretical and methodological problems that impede the study of emerging industries. In doing so, we propose that historical archives represent a critical and under-utilized research resource. More generally, we contend that advancing the study of emerging industries will require scholars to develop several distinct categories of research, to make more extensive use of qualitative and historical data, to collaborate across traditional boundaries of domain and method and to engage key practitioners, including professional archivists and institutional entrepreneurs.     

EFFICIENT HEDGING OF EUROPEAN OPTIONS WITH ROBUST CONVEX LOSS FUNCTIONALS: A DUAL‐REPRESENTATION FORMULA

Motivated by numerical representations of robust utility functionals, due to Maccheroni et al., we study the problem of partially hedging a European option H when a hedging strategy is selected through a robust convex loss functional L(·) involving a penalization term γ(·) and a class of absolutely continuous probability measures . We present three results. An optimization problem is defined in a space of stochastic integrals with value function EH(·) . Extending the method of Föllmer and Leukerte, it is shown how to construct an optimal strategy. The optimization problem EH(·) as criterion to select a hedge, is of a “minimax” type. In the second, and main result of this paper, a dual‐representation formula for this value is presented, which is of a “maxmax” type. This leads us to a dual optimization problem. In the third result of this paper, we apply some key arguments in the robust convex‐duality theory developed by Schied to construct optimal solutions to the dual problem, if the loss functional L(·) has an associated convex risk measure ρ^L(·) which is continuous from below, and if the European option H is essentially bounded.     

被高估的天才

在争相追逐能＂跳出盒子思考＂的天才时,企业和咨询公司们都忽视了,也许这正是企业体制的盒子需要被修补的时刻了。若干年前,美国最负盛名的管理咨询公司——麦肯锡公司的几位高管发动了所谓的＂人才战争＂。他们向全美数千名经理人派发问卷,