Oblivious equilibrium for concentrated industries

This article explores the application of oblivious equilibrium (OE) to highly concentrated markets. We define a natural extended notion of OE, called partially oblivious equilibrium (POE), that allows for there to be a set of strategically important firms (the “dominant” firms), whose firm states are always monitored by every other firm in the market. We perform computational experiments that explore the characteristics of POE, OE, and Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE), and find that POE generally performs well in highly concentrated markets. We also derive error bounds for evaluating the performance of POE for cases where MPE cannot be computed.     

What Plato Knew About Enron

This paper applies Plato’s cave allegory to Enron’s success and downfall. Plato’s famous tale of cave dwellers illustrates the different levels of truth and understanding. These levels include images, the sources of images, and the ultimate reality behind both. The paper first describes these levels of perception as they apply to Plato’s cave dwellers and then provides a brief history of the rise of Enron. Then we apply Plato’s levels of understanding to Enron, showing how the company created its image and presented information to support that image, and how the public eventually emerged from the cave to realize the truth about Enron’s actual accounting practices and financial state, which led to the corporation’s downfall. We find Plato’s allegory both useful in analyzing the relationship between Enron and the public and instructive about the power and moral responsibility of Enron’s executives.     

Institutionelle Unabhängigkeit als Freiheit vom Recht?

Die politische Unabh?ngigkeit der Europ?ischen Zentralbank wurde in den entsprechenden Vertr?gen gesichert. Wie sieht es aber mit ihrer Rechtsbindung aus? Wer kann die EZB vor Gericht aufgrund von Pfl ichtverletzungen verklagen und ist dies grunds?tzlich überhaupt m?glich? Diesen Fragen geht der Autor hier nach. Er widmet den Beitrag Ernst-Joachim Mestm?cker zu seinem 85. Geburtstag am 25. September.     

国际制裁缘何难以奏效?——“非故意后果”的视角

国际制裁一直面临着有效性不足的困境。既有研究将之归因于制裁有效性发挥的三大必要条件——足够的制裁强度、准确的承受主体和可信的制裁承诺——得不到满足,但忽视了制裁的非故意后果的作用。非故意后果是制约国际制裁有效性的重要因素之一,它削弱了制裁方的意志,却增强了被制裁方的抵抗决心;增加了制裁持续时长和制裁成本,却阻碍了主要制裁目标的实现。在既有研究基础上,作者首先提出了一个探讨制裁的非故意后果的分析框架,其次对非故意后果影响制裁有效性的作用机制进行了分析,最后以联合国为例探讨了制裁方在应对非故意后果问题上的尝试。     

Why do employees keep choosing the high-premium health care plan? An investigation of the financial consequences and logic of employee health care plan selections

In 1991, Dannon employees had the choice to stay with their current health care plan or switch to a new plan which offered a lower premium and less hospital cost coverage that better fit the needs of most employees. Both plans were the same in all other respects. Only 25% of employees chose the new lower-premium plan over the old plan. This article reports a collaborative effort between The Dannon Company and Cornell University's Center for Advanced HR Studies to identify the patterns of employee choices, and the effects of those choices on the actual costs that employees incurred. The actual decisions of 287 Dannon employees were examined, and the out-of-pocket costs that they actually incurred in the two years after the plan was introduced were calculated. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The new-breed approach to 21st century human resources

When the CEO for one of the country's large telecommunications companies selected Bonnie C. Hathcock as chief human resources officer almost six years ago, she had not spent day one in a personnel or human resources assignment. At that time, her career spanned 15 years and included a decade in sales and marketing with a Fortune 50 corporation and two training and development assignments with large multinationals. Now after 20 years of corporate life, Bonnie says, “I love this dynamic profession and have discovered my perfect fit in corporate America.” Bonnie and her team of human resource professionals at Siemens Rolm Communications Inc. in California's Silicon Valley, have launched a progressive human resource strategy and a creative organizational design. In this article, Bonnie shares her approach to 21st century human resources that is newbreed, strategic, and refreshingly unconventional. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.