Strategic Bidding for Multiple Units in Simultaneous and Sequential Auctions

A buyer in an electronic marketplace may be interested in buying a bundle of items, where any one item in the bundle may not be of particular interest. The emergence of online auctions allow such users to obtain bundles by bidding on different simultaneous or sequentially run auctions. Because the number of auctions and the number of combinations to form the bundles may be large, the bundle bidding problem becomes intractable and the user is likely to make sub-optimal decision given time constraints and information overload. We believe that an automated agent that takes user preferences and budgetary constraints and can strategically bid on behalf of a user can significantly enhance user profit and satisfaction. Our first step to developing such an agent is to consider bundles containing many units of a single item to be bought from auctions that sell only multiple units of one item type. We assume that users obtain goods over several days. Expectations of auctions and their outcome in the future allow the agent to bid strategically on currently open auctions. We present an expected utility based strategy to decide how many items to bid for in the current auctions, and the maximum price to bid for each item. We evaluate our proposed strategy in different configurations by varying the number of items sold per auction, number of concurrently running auctions, expected closing prices, etc. We simulate several multiple unit English auctions per day, over multiple days, where most of the bidders bid their true utilities drawn from a distribution. The strategic bidding agent has knowledge of this distribution and uses it to determine its bids. A strategic agent who looks farther ahead into the future produces larger returns when there are few strategic bidders. We also evaluate the effect of risk attitudes on the relative performance of the bidders.     

文化产品品牌属性对消费者购买意愿的影响研究

文化产品的品牌属性属于消费者在购买和消费文化产品的过程中所隐含的成分,体现为产品价格、品牌个性、使用者形象等内、外在属性。消费者通常依据品牌属性来判断和评价文化产品满足自己需求的程度。进一步的实证研究证明,消费者文化产品购买意愿受品牌个性、使用者形象等品牌属性的影响较为显著,而在一定的价格范围内产品价格对消费者文化产品的购买意愿的影响并不显著。     

Finance Constraints and Firm Transition in the Informal Sector: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing

This paper focuses on the role of finance constraints in determining the lack of transition of firms in India from very small family firms, which are the predominant type of firms in the informal sector, into larger informal firms that employ non-family labour. Using a rich firm-level data-set drawn from nationally representative surveys of the Indian informal manufacturing sector, this paper tests for the role played by finance constraints in firm transition in the informal sector at the firm and district level. There is evidence that the difficulty that firms face in accessing external finance acts as a significant constraint to small firm growth in the informal sector. Looking at data from India's districts, it is found that the financial development in a given district increases the likelihood that firms in the district will make the transition from household enterprises into non-household enterprises.     

荷兰税务绩效管理的借鉴与思考

某一国家或地区的税收在一定程度上取决于税收管理的效率和效益.尽管人们已经意识到卓有成效的税收管理对国家发展具有重要意义,但对于如何提高税务管理绩效,依然没有达成共识.通过总结借鉴荷兰税务绩效管理的先进经验,同时对比分析中荷两国税务绩效管理的异同,寻找差距,提出在税务绩效管理实践中要坚持战略目标不动摇,在严管善待中更加突出以人为本,优化考评指标体系,注重深化绩效沟通,强化绩效文化建设.     

The Ethical Backlash of Corporate Branding

Past decades have witnessed the growing success of branding as a corporate activity as well as a rise in anti-brand activism. While appearing to be contradictory, both trends have emerged from common sources – the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, and the advent of globalization – the examination of which might lead to a socially grounded understanding of why brand success in the future is likely to demand more than superior product performance, placing increasing demand on corporations with regard to a broader envelop of socially responsible behavior. Directions for strategic and managerial options are suggested. Guido Palazzo is Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at the University of Lausanne. He graduated in Business Administration at the University of Bamberg and earned his Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the University of Marburg. His research interests are in Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Branding, Democratic Theory, and Organizational Ethics. Kunal Basu is a University Reader in Marketing at Said Business School, University of Oxford. He earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Florida. His research interests are in Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Brand Management.     

论我国乡镇财政困境的症结与出路——从财政体制角度进行的考察

我国以流转税为主体的税制使乡镇政府在政府间收入的初次分配中居于不利地位,而乡镇政府的决策者难以反映居民的愿望和要求以及“用脚投票”机制难以发挥作用又使乡镇政府难以获得足够的转移支付,这是乡镇财政陷入困境的症结所在。因此,解决乡镇财政困境问题必须针对问题的症结采取治本的对策:乡镇政府决策者要由辖区居民直接选举产生,在此基础上逐步实现“乡镇政府有限自治”,以建立真正的分级财政;鼓励农村居民由农村进入城市,并享受城市的各项公共服务,使处于城市的上级政府为减轻自身压力而增加对乡镇财政的转移支付。     

Earnings surprise and sophisticated investor preferences in India

In this paper, I examine the existence of earnings surprise anomaly for a sample of actively traded stocks in the Bombay Stock Exchange during 2001–2006. I also examine if sophisticated institutional investors, in particular transient investors, exploit the earnings surprise anomaly. My results indicate that using a standard time series model to forecast earnings, there is clear evidence of a post-earnings announcement drift in the Indian market, even after controlling for common factors that affect risk and transaction costs. However, I find very little evidence that indicates transient investors exploit the earnings surprise mispricing. Attribution analysis of hedge portfolio returns based on increases in ownership by transient investors indicates that earnings surprise does not play a role; risk and liquidity does. A direct test of what causes increase in ownership by transient investors provides little support for the role of earnings surprise. Robustness tests also indicate that while earnings surprise is mispriced by the market, the level of transient investor ownership does not mitigate this effect.     

State Abortion Restrictions and Child Fatal-Injury: An Exploratory Study

This paper tests the hypothesis that state-level restrictions on abortion access are linked to increases in child fatal-injury rates. The rationale is that such restrictions may disproportionately increase births of “unwanted” children as well as births to young, single, and low socioeconomic-status mothers, which in turn may lead to more adverse child outcomes—including more child fatal injury deaths. The paper uses state-level data on child fatal injuries in the 0-4 age group for 1981-2002, and estimates count-data models with state and year effects separately for white and black children. The abortion restrictions considered are enforced parental consent and notification laws, no public funding, and mandatory delays. Many of the restrictions are found to be significantly associated with increased homicide-resultant fatal injuries for white and black children, and increased unintentional fatal injuries for white children. Results for unintentional fatal injuries for black children are mixed.     

东盟五国服务贸易壁垒的测度分析

近年东盟五国加快了服务贸易自由化的进程，但仍存在种类繁多的服务贸易壁垒。本文拟通过对东盟服务贸易主要行业的具体研究，从总体和部门两个方面对其服务贸易壁垒的设立情况进行分析。     

财政分权改革与国有企业改革的比较分析——对中央财政集中度提高的一个理论解释

我国的财政分权改革与国有企业改革在改革的起因、内容及最初结果等方面有很大程度的相似性,但国有企业改革最终进行得比较彻底,而财政分权改革却走了"回头路",这体现为中央财政集中度的提高。笔者通过对比分析,对这一现象的成因给出理论解释并进行实证检验。