ON THE EMERGENCE OF NON‐PROFIT FIRMS AS ALTERNATIVES TO THE GOVERNMENT*

It is well known that many non‐profit firms coexist with government firms in industries that provide collectively consumed goods and services, such as education, healthcare, social services, and art and culture. This paper explores the specific circumstances under which non‐profit firms can emerge as alternatives to the government. We show that a non‐profit firm emerges only when the residents’ median preference for a collective good is significantly low. This finding implies that, somewhat paradoxically, a non‐profit firm emerges to replace the government and provide a collective good only when the majority of residents consider the good non‐essential.     

HETEROGENEOUS COMPUTATION OF RAINBOW OPTION PRICES USING FOURIER COSINE SERIES EXPANSION UNDER A MIXED CPU–GPU COMPUTATION FRAMEWORK

This paper focuses on comparing different heterogeneous computational designs for the calculation of rainbow options prices using the Fourier‐cosine series expansion (COS) method. We also propose a simple enough way to automatically decide the ratio of load balancing at runtime. A general‐purpose computing on graphic processing unit implementation of the two‐dimensional composite Simpson rule free of conditional statements with some degree of loop unrolling is also introduced. We will also show how to reduce the integration domain of coefficients appearing in the option pricing and by doing so achieve a substantial speed‐up and improve accuracy when compared with a straightforward implementation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal degree of privatization and the environmental problem

We determine the optimal degree of privatization in a mixed duopoly when the environmental problem exists. With regard to the ownership of the private firms, we analyze two cases: (h) the private firm is owned by domestic private investors and (f) it is owned by foreign private investors. A comparison of the two cases presents the following results. Partial privatization is always desirable in (h), and the optimal degree of privatization is independent of the degree of environmental damage. However, in (f), whether partial privatization is desirable or not depends on the degree of environmental damage: there are cases where full privatization or full nationalization is optimal.     

Technology Transfer with Capital Constraints and Environmental Protections: Models and Applications to the Philippines

An efficient technology transfer from advanced to developing countries is explored by extending dynamic input-output optimization models. We include capital investments for the transferred technologies that affect the structural change and the welfare streams of consumption and the environmental state in the developing country. This technology transfer model is then linearized to solve larger problems. The linearized model was estimated and applied to assess the optimal technology transfer schedule from Japan to the Philippines.     

Introduction of New Technology with a Sound Transition of the Input-Output Structure

We examine the general equilibrium repercussions associated with the introduction of new technologies, using the generalized Leontief system that allows technological substitutions. We show that an untested introduction of cost-increasing technologies in any industry may result in creating a non-productive technological structure that does not satisfy the Hawkins-Simon condition, following the autonomous dynamic adjustment process with structural transitions in the economic system. Therefore, we propose a practicable control scheme of introducing cost-increasing technologies that strictly avoids the creation of non-productive structures in all periods of structural transition, using the available information on the ex ante technological structure.     

Can Allowing to Trade Permits Enhance Welfare in Mixed Oligopoly?

We compare the effects of tradable emission permits (TEP) and non-tradable emission permits (NTEP) in a mixed oligopoly, where public firms and private firms compete in a product market. If all technologies and initial endowments of emission permits are symmetric among public and private firms and if the emission constraint is exogenous and binding, social welfare is greater (resp. smaller) under TEP than under NTEP when the weight of social welfare in each public firm's objective function and the degree of convexity of the production cost function and that of the abatement cost function are small (resp. large).     

Design for a technology: Assessment of coal

The objective of the coal technology assessment is to compare the environmental, social, economic, and institutional consequences that may arise from development of various mixes of coal-based energy technologies to the year 2030. This article presents the assumptions behind the method, the experience from two forums with interested parties, the three scenarios constructed for the study, and the result of one issue analysis, namely the effects of global carbon-dioxide buildup from coal combustion.     

Lewis Growth Model and China's Industrialization*

This paper examines China's industrialization in the light of the Lewis growth model. It begins with a perusal of Lewis's own writings and those of Fei and Ranis to clarify certain assumptions and predictions of the Lewis model. The paper then reviews previous applications of the Lewis model in studying industrialization of other countries, and notes the methodological problems that arise in this regard. In applying the Lewis model to study China's industrialization, the paper focuses on the dynamic relationship between wage and marginal product of labor in the traditional sector. For this purpose, the paper estimates a production function for China's agricultural sector using province level data and compares the estimated marginal product of labor with the corresponding wage of the sector. The results show that the marginal product has been increasing (from below) at a faster pace than the wage, as is predicted by the Lewis model. The results indicate that China as a whole is steadily moving toward the Lewis Turning Point.