Achieving efficiency with manipulative bargainers

Two agents bargain over the allocation of a bundle of divisible commodities. After strategically reporting utility functions to a neutral arbitrator, the outcome is decided by using a bargaining solution concept chosen from a family that includes the Nash and the Raiffa–Kalai–Smorodinsky solutions. When reports are restricted to be continuous, strictly increasing and concave, it has been shown that this kind of “distortion game” leads to inefficient outcomes. We study the distortion game originated when agents are also allowed to claim non-concave utility functions. Contrasting with the previous literature, any interior equilibrium outcome is efficient and any efficient allocation can be supported as an equilibrium outcome of the distortion game. In a similar fashion to the Nash demand game we consider some uncertainty about the opponent's features to virtually implement the Nash bargaining solution.     

公司增发与市值管理——基于中国A股上市公司的实证研究

采用2005—2014年中国A股有增发股份记录的上市公司的市场数据,检验了被广泛讨论的\"市值管理\"现象。结果表明:所有权性质、增发目的、增发对象、经营状况以及市值存在差异的上市公司,在其增发股份前后及期间的超额收益率和股价信息含量存在很大差异,这些差异与不同公司进行增发的诉求一致。这说明,中国A股市场广泛存在服务于公司控制人的市值管理行为。由于这些市值管理行为可能包括控制股价和侵害其他投资人,因此监管层应制定更为严格的法规来规范市值管理行为。     

Loan price modelling for local governments using risk premium analysis

Previous studies have highlighted the question of government loan interest as one of great current importance. Government borrowing levels are high, and reducing interest payments would generate savings to meet other spending needs and/or to lower taxation, thus supporting the sustainability of public finances. However, no previous study has presented a method for a local government to calculate its own credit risk and thus be in a position to negotiate lower interest rates on its borrowing. This article defines a financial model that enables local governments to estimate the interest rate payable on a bank loan, based on their credit risk premium, in accordance with the Basel II rules and the findings of our empirical study of large local governments.     

Twin-killing in some traditional societies: an economic perspective

Historically, some societies around the world killed newborn twins, though the practice was forsaken in the early twentieth century. Anthropologists have proposed different theses: (1) the delivery of twins occurred when the mother cheated on her husband, or committed a great sin, and killing the twins was the penalty, (2) twin-killing was done to assert that human beings were different from animals among which multiple births in the same delivery were seen, (3) twins brought a dilemma to the kinship structure of societies and to cope with it different rules were adopted, twin-killing being the extreme one, (4) twin-killing was a means to face resource stress. We argue that although those interpretations are useful, we can improve the understanding of that phenomenon by adding an identity economics model, where twins are a taboo. Identity economics helps us explain the persistence of the practice and its eventual decline. We make our case with examples from the Igbo of Nigeria.