Free Riding on Altruism and Group Size

It is shown that altruism does not affect the equilibrium provision of public goods although altruism takes the form of unconditional commitment to contribute. The reason is that altruistic contributions completely crowd out selfish voluntary contributions. That is, egoists free ride on altruism. It is also shown that public goods are less likely to be provided in larger groups. The only qualification to our results is when the probability of altruism is so high that it is a dominant strategy for all egoistic players to free ride. In this case, actually, both altruism and the larger group facilitate public good provision.     

Social evaluations when populations differ in size

Assessments of “social welfare” do not usually take into account population sizes. This can lead to serious social evaluation flaws, particularly in contexts in which policies can affect demographic growth. We develop in this paper a little‐known though ethically attractive approach to correcting the flaws of traditional social evaluations, an approach that is sensitive to population sizes and that is based on critical‐level generalized utilitarianism (CLGU). Traditional CLGU is extended by considering arbitrary orders of welfare dominance and ranges of “poverty lines,” as well as values for the “critical level” of how much a life must be minimally worth to contribute to social welfare. We apply these social evaluation methods to rank Canada across 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2006 and to estimate normatively and statistically robust lower and upper bounds of critical levels over which these rankings can be made.     

About “strategy” and “strategies” in supply management

This article addresses the context and content of a generic supply strategy and discusses its strategy-making process. Building mostly on fundamental strategic management theories, the authors explain the role of supply strategy in its managerial context. In so doing, some light is shed on the meaning and use of the terms “strategy” and “strategies”. Also, a practical conceptual framework for supply strategy formulation is provided. The generic checklist, built by segmenting supply management decisions, is intended to guide supply professionals in addressing strategic issues to create value to customers, avoiding confusion and optimising resource allocation.     

Programming and Advertising Competition in the Broadcasting Industry

We analyze competition between two private television channels that derive their profits from advertising receipts. These profits are shown to be proportional to total population advertising attendance. The channels play a sequential game in which they first select their profiles (program mixes) and then their advertising ratios . We show that these ratios play the same role as prices in usual horizontal differentiation models. We prove that whenever ads' interruptions are costly for viewers the program mixes of the channels never converge but that the niche strategies are less effective and that the channel "profiles" are closer as advertising aversion becomes stronger.     

Increasing returns,entrepreneurship and imperfect competition

We study a simple bilateral oligopoly model in which individual agents, who are initially endowed with capital, decide sequentially (1) whether they want to act as producers (entrepreneurs) or as capital lenders (rentiers) and, then (2) which quantity of capital they would like to borrow or lend, though exchange of capital units against units of the produced good. Production takes place under increasing returns to scale. We show the existence of “natural equilibria”, at which wealthier capital owners become entrepreneurs while the remaining ones decide to be rentiers. We also study the efficiency of equilibria which is shown to increase by replication of the economy, but sometimes to decrease as a consequence of wealth redistribution.We thank an anonymous referee for his insightful comments     

A two-pillar DSGE monetary policy model for the euro area

The current financial crisis has revived the interest for monitoring both monetary and credit developments. Over the past two decades, consistent with the adoption of inflation targeting strategies by a growing number of central banks and the development of New Keynesian models for which monetary aggregates are largely irrelevant, money and credit have been progressively neglected in the conduct of monetary policy. A striking exception has been the Eurosystem, which has implemented a strategy known as the “two-pillar monetary policy strategy” giving a prominent role for money. In this paper, we develop a small optimizing model based on Ireland (2004), estimated on euro area data and featuring this two-pillar strategy. We evaluate an ECB-style cross-checking policy rule in a DSGE model with real balance effects of money. We find some evidence that indeed money plays a non-trivial role in explaining the euro area business cycle. This provides a rationale for the central bank to factor in monetary developments but also raises some issues regarding the reliability of M3 as an appropriate monetary indicator. We find some evidence that the ECB has systematically reacted to a filtered measure of money growth but weak evidence it has reacted more aggressively during excess money growth periods.     

Optimal privatization of vertical public utilities

Abstract We examine restructuring, divestiture, and deregulation of a vertically integrated public utility, (e.g., electricity), from a public finance perspective. How an optimal restructuring plan for the utility depends on the cost of public funds and on the X‐efficiency gains from privatization, how the optimal degree of competition in the upstream and downstream segments are connected, and implications of privatization for consumer prices are examined. The higher the cost of public funds, the more likely the post‐privatization price will exceed the regulated public utility price. The greater the X‐efficiency gains from privatization, the more likely the post‐privatization price will fall.     

全球国际收支失衡的可持续性、调整时机与对策建议

全球国际收支失衡是我们讨论的一个出发点,对此我们有着明显不同的观点.总的来说,我们没有考虑到美国国际收支失衡的可持续性.我们提到了有关解决全球国际收支失衡的一些问题和概念,比如美国的资产回报率可能比较高等问题;前面的讨论主要是考虑到亚洲的顺差,特别是中国的顺差;有时候政策制订者会对危机做出过度反应;余永定也提到中国实际上并不想拥有太多的外汇储备.     

La participation des populations au financement des soins de santé: Synthèse des expériences et perspectives pour la santé publique

Résumé: Les pays en développement, notamment au lendemain des indépendances, ont presque toujours adopté la gratuité des soins de santé comme principe de fonctionnement des structures publiques de sané. L'Etat était supposé financer ces soins. Le niveau du financement était relativement modeste, mais on avait l'espoir que la situation allait s'améliorer. La crise économique, au milieu des années 70, est apparue, engendrant une réduction des finances publiques dans ces pays. Des ressources additionnelles s'avéraient nécessaires pour soutenir le développement des systémes de sané. L'aide extérieure n'étant qu'une solution partielle, il fallait par conséquent trouver d'autres sources de financement. La participation des populations au financement des soins de santé apparaît alors comme un palliatif. C'est la pénurie des ressources financitéres de l'Etat qui entraîne son adoption et elle est généralement jugée à I'aulne de ce seul objectif. Cet article vise deux objectifs. Premiérement, un schéma d'analyse économique est présenté pour mieux comprendre I'impact de I'introduction d'une participation financière des populations sur la demande de soins de santé. Deuxièmement, il cherche à montrer comment un système de partage des coûts peut être utilisé par I'Etat pour mettre en place une politique de santé publique. Cet article est basé sur un rapport élaboré par le Bureau de la Coopération Internationale de I'Organisation Mondiale de la Santéà Genéve. Ce rapport est destiné surtout à ceux qui sont impliqués dans la prise de décision et le suivi quotidien des actions dans les pays les plus démunis, notamment ceux de I'Afrique au Sud du Sahara. Abstract: In almost all developing countries, especially during the post-independence period, free medical care was adopted as the fundamental principle of operation of the public health services. The governments were required to finance this care and the level of financing was relatively modest, though it was hoped that the situation would improve. The economic crisis emerging in the mid-70's had the effect of reducing these countries' public finances. Additional resources because necessary to support the development of health systems. Since external aid provided only a partial solution, other sources of financing had to be sought. The population's involvement in health financing was thus seen as a palliative measure. It was adopted in view of the scarcity of public funds, and is generally judged from that sole standpoint. This article has two objectives. Firstly, it presents an economic analysis, for a clearer understanding of the impact of the populations' financial participation on the demand for health care. Secondly, it seeks to show how governments can use a shared-cost system in putting in place a public health policy. This article draws from a report prepared by the International Cooperation Bureau of the World Health Organization, Geneva. The report particularly addresses persons involved in decision-making and day-to-day monitoring of action taken in the poorer countries, such as those of sub-Saharan Africa.