Costly Information Disclosure in Oligopoly

We examine the effect of competition on the incentive of firms to disclose quality to consumers before trade when information disclosure is not costless. We demonstrate that no firm will disclose information in the limit, no matter how small the disclosure cost is; that is, the market outcome converges to complete concealment of information as the number of competing firms becomes larger. Nonetheless, it can be shown that under a mild condition, the equilibrium amount of information disclosure is socially excessive for any number of firms, so discouraging information disclosure by levying a tax may increase social welfare.     

Pensions and poverty traps: Is saving worthwhile for women?

Present policy means that a private pension, unless it is substantial, may fail to bring financial gain in retirement due to means testing: the pensions poverty trap. This paper examines women's acquisition of private (occupational and personal) pensions and their risk of facing this trap. Because of the loosening link between marriage and motherhood, previous patterns of pension advantage according to marital status are shifting. The employment and pension impact of motherhood varies with socio-economic status but the pension prospects of the majority of women are poor. It is concluded that women's need for financial advice to avoid the pensions poverty trap is greater than men's. An improved basic pension, indexed to national income, would reduce the risk of mis-selling and restore confidence that saving for a pension is worthwhile.     

Thought leadership in investment banking: The beginning of a new era

The paper argues that although considerations such as industry consolidation, the role of lending and the effects of technology are still important in shaping the future of investment banking, sustainable competitive advantage necessitates that emphasis is also placed on thought leadership. This entails quite a radical change in terms of the way in which the industry approaches the problem of competition and requires emphasis on value creation for all the constituent parts of the industry: corporations, investors, the banks themselves and research departments. Accordingly, the paper provides a rationale for this change and provides inter alia a range of examples to illustrate how thought leadership could lead to a fundamental change in the future of the investment banking industry.     

A play-the-winner-type urn design with reduced variability

We propose a new adaptive allocation rule, the drop-the-loser, that randomizes subjects in the course of a trial comparing treatments with dichotomous outcomes. The rule tends to assign more patients to better treatments with the same limiting proportion as the randomized play-the-winner rule. The new design has significantly less variable allocation proportion than the randomized play-the-winner rule. Decrease in variability translates into a gain in statistical power. For some values of success probabilities the drop-the-loser rule has a double advantage over conventional equal allocation in that it has better power and assigns more subjects to the better treatment. Acknowledgments. I thank Stephen Durham, the associate editor, and the referees for their helpful suggestions.     

浅谈我国中小企业信用担保体系的问题及对策

以信用担保为中介的中小企业信用担保机构主要发展和成熟于欧美、日本等国家。20世纪90年代以来,我国各地迅速涌现各有特色的中小企业信用担保机构,创造了一定效益,但由于多种原因,也制约着其本身的进一步发展。究其原因,主要是我国信用担保体系建设尚不完善,还存在着这样那样的问题。本文从我国中小企业信用担保体系发展的现状入手,全面分析在建设信用担保体系中出现的各种问题,具体地指出完善我国中小企业信用担保体系建设措施,以此促进我国中小企业信用担保体系的不断完善与健康发展。