Learning buyers' valuation distribution in posted-price selling

Summary. For his proof of the existence of a general competitive equilibrium Abraham Wald assumed a strictly pseudomonotone inverse market demand function or, equivalently, that market demand satisfies the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference. It is well known that more recent existence theorems do not need this assumption. In order to clarify its role in Wald's proof, the question of existence of an equilibrium for a modified version of the Walras-Cassel model is reduced to the solvability of a related variational inequality problem. In general, the existence of a solution to such a problem can only be proved by advanced mathematical methods. We provide an elementary induction proof which demonstrates the essence of Abraham Wald's famous contribution. Received: July 22, 1997; revised version: December 11, 1997     

Perceptions of high‐involvement work practices and burnout: the mediating role of job demands

This study examined the impact of perceived high‐involvement work practices on job demands (role conflict, role overload and role ambiguity) and burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation). The study was conducted in a Canadian general hospital. Findings from structural equation modelling (N = 545) revealed that perceived HIWPs were significantly and negatively related to job demands and burnout. Role conflict and role overload have a significant positive association with emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. Finally, role conflict and role overload partially mediate the relationship between perceived HIWPs and burnout. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings for our understanding of how HIWPs influence the job demands and burnout of employees.     

The Best Teachers I Ever Had Were ... at the Unification Theological Seminary

Teaching Business Ethics -     

SOCIO‐ECONOMIC STUDIES ON SUICIDE: A SURVEY

Abstract In this paper, we review economic theories and empirical studies on the socio‐economic aspects of suicide. Through our survey, we would like to emphasize the importance of studying suicide by employing a ‘rational’ approach that complements the medical perspective on suicide. We first introduce major economic theories of suicide and then present a summary of a variety of empirical studies from the socio‐economic perspective. To shed light on the mixed empirical evidence, we employ a meta‐regression method to investigate how the existing empirical results vary. We have identified a publication bias, not highlighted previously, in the existing literature with respect to several commonly employed socio‐economic factors. Several characteristics of existing studies have been identified as influencing the qualitative outcome. We then discuss the recent developments in economic studies on suicide, on the basis of the authors’ ongoing project on suicide. In the concluding section, we point out some issues for further studies.     

Consistent price systems and arbitrage opportunities of?the?second kind in models with transaction costs

In contrast with the classical models of frictionless financial markets, market models with proportional transaction costs, even satisfying usual no-arbitrage properties, may admit arbitrage opportunities of the second kind. This means that there are self-financing portfolios with initial endowments lying outside the solvency region but ending inside. Such a phenomenon was discovered by M. Rásonyi in the discrete-time framework. In this note, we consider a rather abstract continuous-time setting and prove necessary and sufficient conditions for a property which we call no free lunch of the second kind, NFL2. We provide a number of equivalent conditions elucidating, in particular, the financial meaning of the property B which appeared as an indispensable “technical” hypothesis in previous papers on hedging (superreplication) of contingent claims under transaction costs. We show that it is equivalent to another condition on the “richness” of the set of consistent price systems, close to the condition PCE introduced by Rásonyi. In the last section, we deduce the Rásonyi theorem from our general result by using specific features of discrete-time models.     

A pseudo-panel data model of household electricity demand

We study the dynamic behaviour of household electricity consumption on the basis of four large independent surveys conducted in the province of Québec from 1989 to 2002. The latter region displays some rather unique features such as the very extensive use of electricity for space heating in a cold climate and the wide range of energy sources used to meet space heating requirements. We adopt Deaton (1985) approach to create 25 cohorts of households that form a pseudo-panel. The cohorts have on average 131 households. The model error terms allow for group heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. Short-run and long-run own and cross-price elasticities are statistically significant. Electricity and natural gas are estimated to be substitutes while electricity and fuel oil are complements, as it may occur in the Quebec context. The estimate of the income elasticity is not significant. Comparisons with related studies are provided.     

Forecasts in IPO Prospectuses: The Effect of Corporate Governance on Earnings Management

Prior research suggests that managers may use earnings management to meet voluntary earnings forecasts. We document the extent of earnings management undertaken within Canadian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and study the extent to which companies with better corporate governance systems are less likely to use earnings management to achieve their earnings forecasts. In addition, we test other factors that differentiate forecasting from non‐forecasting firms, and assess the impact of forecasting and corporate governance on future cash flow prediction. We find that firms with better corporate governance are less likely to include a voluntary earnings forecast in their IPO prospectus. In addition, we find that while IPO firms use accruals management to meet forecasts; the informativeness of the discretionary accruals depends on whether or not the firm would have missed its forecast without the use of discretionary accruals.     

Modeling the unethical intention of software piracy: a qualitative integration of network externalities and information cascades

Information cascades and network externalities have been increasingly influential in explaining the many market outcomes of information technology (IT), but their application to ethical issues of IT has been limited. This study proposes a conceptual model of unethical intention of software piracy by integrating information cascades and network externalities in terms of a theoretical perspective from the literature of economics. In the conceptual model, unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced by the network benefits of using pirated software, while the network benefits are proposed to be affected by the overall adopter base of pirated software directly and indirectly through the availability of pirated complementary software. Accordingly, whereas the perception of others’ piracy is proposed to be influenced by the overall adopter base of pirated software, the unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced indirectly by the perception of others’ piracy through the perceived signal that piracy seems a good idea. Finally, this study also provides the conclusion and limitation.