随机预定需求下的客房分配:酒店收益管理博弈

本文研究具有两个不同消费级别的两家酒店在完全信息条件下收益管理的单期静态博弈。讨论了酒店分别在竞争与合作两种情况下,对于低价房间预留数目的设定策略。在竞争情况下,证明了纳什均衡唯一解的存在性。在合作情况下,分析了两酒店的节省成本及目标函数的凹性。在合作情况下,提出了使两酒店总收益大幅度提高的条件。最后,用一些算例(假设客房预定需求变量服从截断正态分布)分析了在每种情况下的酒店最优管理方案。     

Sending Vietnamese Rice Farmers Back to School: Further Evidence on the Impacts of Farmer Field Schools

This study evaluates the impact of farmer field schools (FFS) on knowledge, insecticide use, and yield using a nonconsecutive, two‐year panel data that allows one to control for nonrandom selection. Regression analysis using a difference‐in‐difference approach indicates FFS training did not result in statistically significant impacts on insecticide use and yield over the period of time examined. However, there is some evidence that FFS had an “initial” knowledge impact, but it was not sustained over time. Retraining FFS graduates may be an attractive option to help maintain knowledge and improve performance over time, but we do not find empirical evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy based on a small sample of retrained farmers. La présente étude examine l’impact du programme Champ‐École‐Paysan (CEP) (Farmer Field Schools – FFS) sur l’acquisition des connaissances, l’utilisation d’insecticides et le rendement, à l’aide de données de panel non consécutives recueillies sur une période de deux ans et permettant de maîtriser la sélection non aléatoire. Une analyse de régression utilisant la méthode de différence de différences a révélé que la formation offerte dans le cadre du programme CEP n’a pas eu d’impact statistiquement significatif sur l’utilisation d’insecticides ni sur le rendement au cours de la période visée par l’étude. Toutefois, il semble que le programme CEP a eu un impact sur l’acquisition des connaissances au début, mais que cet impact n’a pas été soutenu au fil du temps. Le recyclage des participants au programme CEP peut constituer une option intéressante pour le maintien des connaissances et l’amélioration du rendement au fil du temps. Par contre, l’étude d’un petit échantillon de producteurs recyclés n’a pas fourni de preuve empirique permettant de croire à l’efficacité de cette stratégie.     

Bilateral trade impacts of temporary foreign visitor policy

Using country-level panel data from 1950 to 2003, this paper critically examines the impact of the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) on bilateral trade levels. Our empirical analysis uses a variety of specifications, estimators, and robustness checks, including a ??random growth?? specification that controls for selection bias from both time-varying and time-invariant unobserved country-specific characteristics. The results indicate that a temporary foreign visitor policy with less requirements, such as the US VWP, tends to increase the bilateral trade levels between the US and the selected VWP countries, especially for US exports. This suggests that VWP may have encouraged business travel and commerce enough such that there are export benefits from this less restrictive temporary foreign visitor policy of about 10?C20% (~2?C4% in tariff equivalent terms).     

Firm performance and knowledge spillovers from academic, industrial and foreign linkages: the case of China

Firm performance may be enhanced by linkages with academic institutions, other firms, and foreign markets that confer knowledge spillovers as well as internal R&D that creates firm-specific knowledge. In particular, firm productivity and innovation may be enhanced by positive externalities from knowledge and technology produced by universities and research institutions (URIs) and diffused to the domestic economy. Productive contributions from such linkages might be particularly expected in China, where policy measures have explicitly supported and facilitated connections between URIs and firms to stimulate economic development and competitiveness. In this paper, we measure the performance impact of such knowledge spillovers in Chinese firms by using a variety of specifications, estimators, and robustness checks, including an ??instrumental variable?? specification that controls for endogeneity. We find more patent activity in Chinese firms with URI connections and enhanced firm productivity particularly from linkages with research institutions (RIs). Introduction of new products, processes, and new businesses is also positively associated with linkages with research institutions, as well as with linkages with other firms.     

Interactive Role of Consumer Discrimination and Branding against Counterfeiting: A Study of Multinational Managers’ Perception of Global Brands in China

Prior research has examined consumer intentions to purchase fakes, branding strategies and anti-counterfeiting actions, but little attention seems to have been paid to the role of consumers’ ability to discern fakes and branding strategies against counterfeiting. This article, thus, based on a study of 128 multinational managers’ experience in China, examines these inter-relationships. As a result, we address how knowledgeable and experienced managers in branding, consumer consumption and anti-counterfeiting effort perceive consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes from originals interacts with branding strategies, and how such relationship influences the effectiveness of anti-counterfeiting effort. Our findings suggest that consumer discrimination itself has no significant effect on anti-counterfeiting success. However, it significantly interacts with branding strategies to predict a means to mitigate brand damage. That is, consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes from originals appears to undermine efforts to mitigate brand damage from counterfeiting, at least in China when branding is based on improving product features or advertising and promotion. However, if branding emphasises after sales service, consumers’ ability to discriminate was found to enhance firms’ ability to limit counterfeiting damage to brands. Such interactions, however, did not help stop counterfeiting, except that branding based on reliability appears to have such a positive effect.     

Political Influence of Firms in the Tradables and Non‐Tradables Sectors: A Cross‐Country Analysis

Recent theoretical studies have shown that firms lobby government agencies to influence the structure of trade policies. This article empirically examines whether firms classified as either exporting or import‐competing (i.e. firms in the tradables sector) have differential levels of political influence relative to domestic firms that only produce non‐traded goods (i.e. firms in the non‐tradables sector). We use a rich firm‐level, cross‐sectional dataset from the World Business Environment Survey to achieve this objective. Results from the analysis reveal that exporting or import‐competing firms do have more political influence relative to domestic firms that neither export nor produce import‐competing goods. Market structure, firm age, firm size, government ownership, and dependence on public infrastructure also affect the extent of political influence that firms have.     

A Comparison of Multiple‐Unit All‐Pay and Winner‐Pay Auctions Under Incomplete Information*

This article examines the properties of independent‐private‐value all‐pay and winner‐pay auctions when there are multiple units sold. We study bidding behavior, efficiency, and revenue in a set of 23 experimental sessions. Our data show that the all‐pay auction and the winner‐pay auction are empirically revenue equivalent, though both yield higher revenue than the risk neutral Bayesian equilibrium. Our evidence also suggests that the winner‐pay auction is more likely to lead to a Pareto‐efficient allocation than the all‐pay auction.     

The impact of IQ and EQ on pre-eminent achievement in organizations: implications for the hiring decisions of HRM specialists

In this study, IQ and EQ determinants of pre-eminent achievement in organizations were explored to help HRM specialists in selecting more appropriate job applicants, having potential for outstanding performance in their career paths. Several EQ elements were proved the most important in the achievement. However, IQ elements still play a very important role in superior performance. Results also exhibit that correlation of IQ and EQ levels of superior performers is significant and strong. In conclusion, HRM specialists have to test both IQ and EQ in the hiring process, to create a high-performing workforce in their organizations.     

Comments

The marginal-products-of-labour (MPL) wage gap is studied in the early-reform Chinese economy, using the Olley-Pakes estimation technique to estimate the production function, based on micro data including different categories of labour. From this measurement of MPL-wage gaps and econometric analyses, several conclusions are drawn. First, the MPL-wage gap was anomalously large for managers in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) compared with other categories of labour. Second, the large MPL-wage gap of managers raised the average MPL-wage gap across various categories of labour, resulting in higher than the average wage MPL throughout the entire workforce, which is regarded as homogeneous. Third, the large MPL-wage gap, or, in other words, the under-employment of managers, occurred not only because the state still centrally employed and allocated labour to SOEs, but because the economy faced a labour-supply constraint of managers in early-reform China. This observation supports a modified version of the state labour-monopsony hypothesis.     

The effects of occupational stress on burnout and life satisfaction: a study in accountants

The aim of this study is to determine the impact of occupational stress on burnout and life satisfaction in accountants. The study deals with burnout from three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, lack of personal accomplishment and depersonalization. Certain hypotheses were developed according to a model. These hypotheses mainly measure the negative impact of occupational stress on life satisfaction and its positive impact on burnout. In order to test these hypotheses, a study was conducted in 217 accountants in the city of Kayseri in Turkey. On the research revealed that occupational stress has a negative impact on life satisfaction, while it has a positive impact on the three dimensions of burnout listed above. Based on these results, the study argues that occupational stress is an important factor in determining the life satisfaction and burnout levels of accountants. Finally in this study, some limitations and recommendations are presented for the researchers of future studies.