Competition among the big and the small

Many industries are made up of a few big firms, which are able to manipulate the market outcome, and of a host of small businesses, each of which has a negligible impact on the market. We provide a general equilibrium framework that encapsulates both market structures. Due to the higher toughness of competition, the entry of big firms leads them to sell more through a market expansion effect generated by the shrinking of the monopolistically competitive fringe. Furthermore, social welfare increases with the number of big firms because the procompetitive effect associated with entry dominates the resulting decrease in product diversity.     

玩转口碑营销

一旦消费者决定购买一项产品,他们会首先确定经过产品体验、推荐或打知名度的营销活动而筛选出的一组初选品牌。在消费者收集来自各种渠道的产品信息并决定购买何种产品的过程中,他们会对这些以及其他品牌进行积极评估。然后,他们的售后体验会为他们的下一次购买决策提供依据。尽管在这一过程的各个阶段,     

Revisiting the trans-situationality of values in Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire

Quality & Quantity - Schwartz in his famous theory of basic values follows Parsons and Rokeach in arguing that human values are trans-situational or context free. For any individual, the same...     

A Career Path Leading to Well‐being and Success

In line with self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), this study aims to determine the influence of different contents and motives of career aspirations, together with objective career success, on subjective career success and well‐being. Moreover, it aims to verify if psychological need, satisfaction, and frustration play a mediating role in these relationships. Results suggest that the pursuit of some aspirations and the underlying motives for their pursuit are more beneficial. Aspiration contents, and aspiration motives, together with objective career success, influence subjective well‐being and subjective career success, in part because they satisfy or frustrate psychological needs. This study brings together two fields of research evolving in parallel—career and life aspirations— to shed new light on both of them. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Street-lighting projects selection: A rational decision making approach

The study presented in this paper represents a new and fresh approach to the problem of efficiently and optimally allocating scarce resources in the provision of public services—namely, street-lighting. The methodology developed is aimed at introducing more systematic and rational thinking in a way which is both technically and politically feasible. To the best of the author's knowledge, the study presents, for the first time, a procedure for the comprehensive quantitative estimate of the utility accruing from street-lighting. The utility value derived from each street-lighting project depends upon several factors, some of which can be technically assessed and others estimated only by subjective values.

In order to deduce the subjective values, the Delphi method was employed. This method permits derivation of subjective values for groups of interviewees whose assessments may reasonably be assumed to be crucial in determining the relative values of the objectives of the utility function. Those components of the utility function representing subjective values were identified and estimated.

The conventional practice, whereby residents have no explicit say in the planning of the lighting system in their city, was abandoned. Residents' value judgements concerning the relative importance of the objectives to be gained by the lighting system were incorporated into the planning process. An optimization model based on an integer programming algorithm was employed because it permits periodic (e.g. annual) selection of a set of indivisible projects to be realized during a given period. This enables maximum economic and social utility to be derived, subject to budgetary and technological constraints.

The selection process was extended and deepened so as to render it sensitive to benefit from economies of scale and external economies. The optimization process was carried out with the use of an IBM-MPS X (an integer programming algorithm). The methodology was applied to a large and diverse quarter in the city of Jerusalem that is divided into seven semi-homogeneous neighborhoods—in terms of their physical as well as their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. This represents a very different approach when compared to the conventional way in which the planning design and installation of street-lighting projects are currently carried out.     

MEASURING THE DIVERSITY OF HOUSEHOLD SPENDING PATTERNS

Households tend to diversify their spending across a wide range of goods and services as they become more affluent. Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding the precise manner in which this spending diversification process takes place. We review what facts are known about this process and the underlying behavioural tendencies that are thought to drive it. In addition, we clarify the relationship between different approaches to measuring the level of spending diversity. A number of indices are employed, including measures based on joint probabilities, distances and the concept of entropy. Using UK household spending data, we show the extent to which these measures deliver different results and shed light on the nature of behavioural heterogeneity.     

When Borch's Theorem Does Not Apply: Some Key Implications of Market Incompleteness,with Policy Relevance Today

Markets are incomplete when the assets available to the agents do not span the space of future contingencies. In that case, competitive equilibria on the markets for assets and commodities fail (generically) to be constrained efficient. Pareto‐superior allocations can be implemented through price/wage rigidities and quantity constraints. However, nominal rigidities are conducive to multiple equilibria, implying endogenous macroeconomic uncertainties that compound the primitive (exogenous) uncertainties. This paper defines a temporary general equilibrium for which there exists a set of equilibria defining an inflation – unemployment locus. Various policy implications are drawn, with relevance to the current crisis.     

Ordinal Variables and the Measurement of Upward and Downward Intergenerational Educational Mobility in European Countries

This article proposes a new approach to the measurement of intergenerational mobility in education. Borrowing the concept of inequality-sensitive and additive achievement measure axiomatically developed by Apouey et al., we derive new indices of upward, downward, and total mobility, using a “movement approach.” It turns out that the Prais-Bibby and Bartholomew mobility indices are particular cases of the mobility indices we introduce. We then present an empirical illustration based on the 2016 European Social Survey. Particular attention is given to within country differences between fathers to children and mothers to children educational mobility. When comparing two countries, we also make a distinction between gross and net mobility, the latter referring to the case where country differences in the educational structure of parents and children are neutralized.