Increasing returns: historiographic issues and path dependence

Writing a history of the analysis of increasing returns in economics is qualitatively different from the usual cumulative history of knowledge, as exemplified by the history of perfectly competitive analysis. The history of increasing returns is much less continuous. The reason for this irregular history lies, in my view, in the analytic nature of the subject. I concentrate on the recent history of the implications of increasing returns for path dependence in economic development. Foreshadowed by Veblen (1915) the topic was made explicit by Paul David in some theoretical analyses of topics in economic history (1971, 1975) and then by subsequent papers by David and by Brian Arthur in the 1980s. Contemporaneously, Farrell, Katz, Saloner, and Shapiro came to parallel conclusions in a very specific industrial organization context marked by network externalities.     

Bring your suppliers into your projects—Managing the design of work packages in product development

Early supplier involvement and integration is important in product development on strategic as well as on operational, project and team levels. Saab Aerospace intended to achieve early supplier involvement and high level of integration on all levels in the redesign of the aircraft JAS 39 Gripen. The research underlying this article shows that the intended strategy was only achieved on the strategic level and not on the operational project and team levels. One major reason for this was that the design of the work breakdown structure (WBS) and work packages (WP) in the product development followed the functional and departmental logic within each company resulting in incompatible structures and preventing communication and information exchange. This article intends to explore how prevailing functionally designed WBS and WP structures created barriers and to demonstrate how supplier integration can be improved by designing collaborative WBS and integrated WP. The Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM) is introduced in order to analyze, visualize and manage interdependencies and information exchange between Saab Aerospace and its supplier on different levels of the WBS and in different phases of the development process, following the logic of interdependencies and information flow, in order to support a strategy focusing on integration of suppliers on the project and team level.     

浮动利率债券久期和凸性的研究

本文首先推导了浮动利率债券的利差久期、利率久期、利差凸性和利率凸性的封闭式计算公式，适用于任意结算日。随后对久期的敏感性研究发现，浮动利率债券的利差久期总体上大于利率久期，且二者都是距离下一付息日时间的递增函数；利差久期是剩余付息次数的递增函数；在贴现利差大于（等于、小于）基本利差时，利率久期是剩余付息次数的递减（不变、递增）函数；利率久期和利差久期都是贴现利差的递减函数。最后使用封闭式公式计算四支浮动利率债券的久期和凸性，同时计算有效久期和有效凸性来检验，发现两种计算方法的结果很接近。     

Racial gaps in the transition to first-time homeownership: The role of residential location

Evidence suggests that African Americans wait longer to transition into first-time homeownership than white households with similar endowments. This paper relies on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine the contribution of residential location toward the black–white gap in first-time homeownership transitions. For a sample of young renters who first left their parents' home during the period 1978 through 1987, I estimate continuous time duration models that explain racial gaps in rental tenure durations prior to first-time homeownership as a function of individual, household, and location-specific covariates. I find that while several residential location characteristics, particularly those associated with the supply of affordable owner-occupied housing, impinge upon racial gaps in first-time homeownership transitions, most of the racial gap in homeownership transitions would be eliminated if blacks and whites had similar individual and household characteristics.     

The History of the Dirichlet and Liouville Distributions

The Dirichlet distributions have long been the subject of intense scrutiny in statistics and probability. Despite the enormous interest in, and wide-ranging applications of, these distributions, little appears to be known about their history. In this article we review the development of the Dirichlet distributions and their companions, the Liouville distributions. After reviewing some integral formulas of Dirichlet and Liouville, we survey the theory and applications of these distributions in statistics.     

日本规制改革最新进展评析——基于PMR综合指数的观察

日本自20世纪80年代末起展开了规制改革,至今仍在不断推进之中。为了跟踪并考察规制改革绩效,从1998年开始,OECD建立起了PMR综合指标评价体系,以评估各国的规制改革状况。利用OECD(经合组织)的PMR指数观察日本规制改革的最新进展,结果发现:日本的规制改革已初见成效,但是改革的速度在放慢,其路径依赖和选择性改革的特征比较明显。     

Rent control and tenancy duration

This paper investigates how rent control affects mobility in the Danish housing market. We apply a proportional hazard duration model, that encompasses both the presence of left truncated tenancy durations, right censored observations and allows for a very flexible specification of the time dependency of the hazard rate. Tenancy mobility is severely reduced by rent control. For a typical household in the private rental sector tenancy duration is found to be more than six years longer if the apartment belongs to the 10% most regulated units than if it belongs to the 10% least regulated units.     

资源型城市产业发展的路径依赖与产业转型研究——以唐山为例

实施经济转型是资源型城市实现可持续发展的必然选择。本文以唐山市为例,研究了资源型城市经济发展中会出现的各种问题,重点阐述了路径依赖的问题,并对资源型城市的经济转型路径进行了探讨。     

Law of large numbers and large deviations for dependent risks

We analyse the mathematical structure of models for large risk portfolios, especially for credit risk models. These risk portfolios are modelled using a multivariate mixture model for the dependence structure between the risks. The dependence structures are characterized by latent variables Θ, which play the role of systematic risks. We show that, depending on the choice of the distribution of Θ, there are different asymptotic behaviours for the aggregated risk portfolio, namely law of large numbers/central limit theorem behaviour and large deviation behaviour.