A COMMENT ON MARKET FREE LUNCH AND FREE LUNCH

Frittelli (2004) introduced a market free lunch depending on the preferences of the agents in the market. He characterized no arbitrage and no free lunch with vanishing risk in terms of no market free lunch (the difference comes from the class of utility functions determining the market free lunch). In this note we complete the list of characterizations and show directly (using the theory of Orlicz spaces) that no free lunch is equivalent to the absence of market free lunch with respect to monotone concave utility functions.     

Levels of computer self-efficacy, computer use and earnings in China

Levels of self-efficacy in computer use were found to be positively related to computer use at work among a sample of workers in Shanghai. The simultaneous estimation of computer use and earnings indicated that an earnings premium for computer use accrues only to females, not to males.     

Industrial relations and society: the Hong Kong case

The transient character of Hong Kong has prevented a stable class structure from crystallising locally. This article examines the industrial relations implications of the structural and normative features, focusing on the future and how its political uncertainties have constrained both the labour administration and the union movement in their choice of policy.     

Equity, Efficiency and Financial Viability: Public-Utility Pricing with Special Reference to Water Supply

The pricing and investment policies of a public enterprise should be designed to achieve efficiency since equity is better pursued by general policy regarding income distribution. Short-run marginal-cost pricing does not generally lead to long-term deficit, but may involve price and surplus/deficit cycles for the case with lumpy investments and growing demand, where the price increases with demand but is reduced with capacity expansion. Taking account of the extra costs of government revenue collection and the likely average price/cost ratio in the economy, the third-best pricing policy is likely to result in long-term surplus, making the objectives of equity, efficiency and financial viability much more consistent with each other than is generally believed. This is particularly true for water with historically increasing costs of additional sources of supply.     

Dieter Roß 70 Jahre

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Reviews

DEPRIVATION IN THE OUTER CITY.

Barke, M. and Turnbull, G. 1992: Meadowell: The Biography of an “Estate with Problems”. Aldershot: Avebury, £32.00 cloth.

CHANGING BOUNDARIES OF RACE.

Jones, Trevor. 1993: Britain's Ethnic Minorities. PSI,

£15.

ENTERPRISE IN ARCADIA?

Curran, J. and Storey, D. (eds), 1993: Small Firms in Urban and Rural Locations, London and New York: Routledge, £40, hardback.

MAKING CONNECTIONS.

Turok, I. 1993: Loose connections? Foreign investment and local linkages in “Silicon Glen” Strathclyde Papers on Planning, 23. Centre for Planning, University of Strathclyde, 50 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XN. £4.00, paper.

COWLEY: THE END OF THE LINE?

Hayter, T. and Harvey, D. (eds) 1993: The Factory and the City: the Story of the Cowley Automobile Works in Oxford. London: Mansell, £40, hardback.

UPDATING SECTOR APPROACHES.

Geddes, M. and Benington, J. (eds) 1992: Restructuring the Local Economy. Harlow: Longman, £22.00, paper.

BORN AGAIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT?

Hodge, M. and Thompson, W. 1994: Beyond the Town Hall: Reinventing Local Government. Fabian Pamphlet, £3.90.     

Optimal Investment in Urban Drainage: A Framework for Cost-Benefit Analysis

This article addresses some basic issues (including distributional weights, discount rates, and the value of life) in the cost-benefit analysis of urban drainage and provides a framework for the estimation of the optimal amount of investment for flood mitigation. This involves: (i) estimating the expected total damage from flooding in present-value terms before flood mitigation; (ii) deriving the reduction in expected total damage as the average recurrent interval of flooding increases; (iii) estimating how this interval increases with the amount of investment in flood mitigation; and (iv) choosing the optimal investment by equating marginal benefit and marginal cost. The framework is also applicable to other accident or damage mitigation investments and some issues discussed are relevant to all types of cost-benefit analysis.