博弈论的目标

本文分两个部分探讨了博弈论的核心任务.第一部分先对博弈论的科学属性进行了思辨性的探讨.作者认为,不能简单用“正确”或“错误”来评价博弈论;一个科学理论不应该试图去得到事实或者接近事实,而是要努力将人们的思想和观察用一种简约的方式进行统一,从这个角度说博弈论不失为符合规范的科学理论.第二部分讨论了博弈论中若干“解”的概念,包括纳什均衡、核和夏普利值等等.作者认为这些概念必须根据它们的应用去加以理解,并且从它们应用的广泛程度和结果的质量进行评判.不同的“解”有不同的应用,每一种解都从某一侧面统一了交互性决策过程中的理性行为.正是基于这种对博弈解的理解,尽管博弈论是基于“理性人”的理论,但这并不妨碍它在解释“社会人”或“现代人”行为上取得引人注目的成功.     

The Economic Impact of SFAS NO. 157

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 157, “Fair Value Measurements,” (SFAS 157) defines fair value, establishes a three tiered framework for measuring fair value and expands the required disclosures about fair value measurements. The objective of this study is to examine and evaluate the benefits of the information disclosed by SFAS 157. The results of our study indicated that a large majority of the inputs are observable in that 93.5% of the sample financial assets and 93.1% of the sample financial liabilities were measured by level 1 or 2 criteria. However, we found a mismatch between assets and liabilities subject to the three tiers of fair value measurements. The companies in our sample disclosed $18.8 trillion in total assets, with 51%, or $18.8 trillion in total assets, with 51%, or 9.5 trillion reported at fair value. Whereas, sample company liabilities totaled 16.1 trillion with only16.1 trillion with only 3.7 trillion or 23% reported at fair value.     

Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany

We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker's altruism, and increases or decreases with a worker's laziness depending on his altruism. Using questionnaire data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study, we find that public sector employees are significantly more altruistic and lazy than observationally equivalent private sector employees. A series of robustness checks show that these patterns are stronger among higher educated workers; that the sorting of altruistic people to the public sector takes place only within the caring industries; and that the difference in altruism is already present at the start of people's career, while the difference in laziness is only present for employees with sufficiently long work experience.     

The determinants of trade credit use: the case of the Tanzanian rice market

Most small businesses in the developing economies suffer from a lack of access to formal external finance. One important alternative source of finance for these entrepreneurs is trade credit. Applying a unique data-set containing data on specific trade relations between rice wholesalers and rice retailers in Tanzania, we analyse the determinants of trade credit demand and supply in this market, using a simultaneous equation modelling approach. The analysis shows that while the demand for trade credit is primarily determined by the extent to which retailers need external funds, supply is mainly driven by wholesalers’ incentives to attract and keep clients. Moreover, wholesalers’ willingness to provide credit increases if they have better information about the possibility that the customer will fail to repay the credit.     

Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place

Although there is growing interest in themed brandstores, we still know very little about the source of these retail environments’ power to affect consumers profoundly. Utilizing an ethnographic study of American Girl Place, a culturally rich and highly successful retail environment, we find that effective retailing in these contexts is an intensely ideological affair. In our participant-observation of, and on-site interviews with, consumers at American Girl Place we find that the ideology of the brand manifests powerfully through a variety of different and distinct areas within the store: the Museum, the Library, the Café, the Salon, the Theater, and the Photo Studio. Ideological expression is central to each of these places. Tracking the influence of brand ideology through consumers’ retail experiences, we theorize about the centrality of retail place in ideological branding. Although the confluence of ideology and retailing has been referenced in prior research, this paper focuses on and systematically develops the theoretical interconnection between the two. The physical immediacy of themed brandstore experience acts as a quilting point that links together related cultural concepts into a strong retail brand ideology. The implications of this theory draw our attention to ideological and morally-bound retail brand expressions, emphasize the importance of a variety of retail formats within a single store, and provide practical guidelines for retailers eager to build successful brands of their own.     

AN ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATIONS AND THEIR EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES

This research examined how operational outcomes, relational outcomes and business performance are affected by a collaboration project between buyers and suppliers in a supply chain. It is hypothesized that interdependence of knowledge and process, supply chain partner insight, and the level of collaboration between the firms affect the outcomes of a collaboration project. Survey data from buyers and suppliers from a wide range of industries and organizations were used in this analysis. Among these participants, higher levels of collaboration led to improvements in operational and relational outcomes, which together led to improvements in asset utilization, competitive position, organizational performance, and profitability.     

Regional integration in Asia and its effects on the EU and North America

Consequences of free-trade agreements (FTAs) among the ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6 countries are explored using a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Quantitative assessments of intra- and extra-regional effects on welfare, trade and output are offered. When both trade facilitation and endogenously determined productivity are included in the FTA scenarios, Singapore, other ASEAN countries and China would be able to realize relatively large welfare gains, while the welfare effects on the EU and North America are negligible. The trade and output effects on the latter two regions are also relatively small, with the notable exception of crops, other than rice, in North America.     

On Nudging: A Review of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health,Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

This paper reviews the case for libertarian paternalism presented by Thaler and Sunstein in Nudge. Thaler and Sunstein argue that individuals’ preferences are often incoherent, making paternalism is unavoidable; however, paternalistic interventions should ‘nudge’ individuals without restricting their choices, and should nudge them towards what they would have chosen had they not been subject to specific limitations of rationality. I argue that the latter criterion provides inadequate guidance to nudgers. It is inescapably normative, and so allows nudgers’ conceptions of well‐being to override those of nudgees. Even if nudgees’ rationality were unbounded, their revealed preferences might still be incoherent.     

Measuring a boom and bust: The Sydney housing market 2001–2006

The Sydney housing market peaked in 2003. The period 2001–2006 is, therefore, of particular interest since it captures a boom and bust in the housing market. We compute hedonic, repeat-sales and median price indexes for five regions in Sydney over this period. While the three approaches are in broad agreement regarding the timing of the turning point in the housing market, some important differences also emerge. In particular, we find evidence of sample selection bias in our hedonic and repeat-sales data sets (with the former focusing more on better quality dwellings and the latter more on lower quality dwellings). These sample selection biases could in turn cause bias (in opposite directions) in our hedonic and repeat-sales indexes. Median indexes may likewise be biased as a result of an apparent decline in the average quality of dwellings sold in the latter part of the sample. We also find evidence of convergence in prices across regions during the boom and divergence in the subsequent bust.