The Effects of Megamergers on Efficiency and Prices: Evidence from a Bank Profit Function

This paper examines the efficiency and price effects of mergers by applying a frontier profit function to data on bank megamergers. We find that merged banks experience a statistically significant 16 percentage point average increase in profit efficiency rank relative to other large banks. Most of the improvement is from increasing revenues, including a shift in outputs from securities to loans, a higher-valued product. Improvements were greatest for the banks with the lowest efficiencies prior to merging, who therefore had the greatest capacity for improvement. By comparison, the effects on profits from merger-related changes in prices were found to be very small.     

Strategic Price Discrimination in Compulsory Insurance Markets

This paper considers price discrimination when competing firms do not observe a customer’s type but only some other variable correlated to it. This is a typical situation in many insurance markets—such as motor insurance—where it is also often the case that insurance is compulsory. We characterise the equilibria and their welfare properties under various price regimes. We show that discrimination based on immutable characteristics such as gender is a dominant strategy, either when firms offer policies at a fixed price or when they charge according to some consumption variable that is correlated to costs. In the latter case, gender discrimination can be an outcome of strategic interaction alone in situations where it would not be adopted by a monopolist. Strategic price discrimination may also increase cross subsidies between types, contrary to expectations.JEL Classification No.: L13, G22     

Hedging Housing Risk*

An unusually rich source of data on housing prices in Stockholm is used to analyze the investment implications of housing choices. This empirical analysis derives market-wide price and return series for housing investment during a 13-year period, and it also provides estimates of the individual-specific, idiosyncratic, variation in housing returns. Because the idiosyncratic component follows an autocorrelated process, the analysis of portfolio choice is dependent upon the holding period. We analyze the composition of household investment portfolios containing housing, common stocks, stocks in real estate holding companies, bonds, and t-bills. For short holding periods, the efficient portfolio contains essentially no housing. For longer periods, low-risk portfolios contain 15 to 50 percent housing. These results suggest that there are large potential gains from policies or institutions that would permit households to hedge their lumpy investments in housing. We estimate the potential value of hedges in reducing risk to households, yet yielding the same investment returns. The value is surprisingly large, especially to poorer homeowners.     

证券监管的有效性研究

本文对中国证券业的价格规制和进入规制的实施效果进行分析 ,指出现行监管措施并没有达到监管的目标 ,并据此提出了提高证券监管有效性的对策思路     

从博弈的角度看中小股东解决纠纷的过程--从一个流行模型的残缺谈起

经研究发现 ,张维迎教授在 2 0 0 1年第五版的《博弈论与信息经济学》中所借用的承诺要胁诉讼博弈例子中对诉讼费用的处理有点不妥 ,便作出了适当的调整 ,但却得出了令人沮丧的结论 :承诺要胁诉讼不成立 !继续研究发现只有打破这种败诉风险由当事人承担的机制 ,才能传递出有力量的信号 ,才能做到真正的威胁 ,那就是建立“生死与共”的竞争性的律师定价机制和保费率真正是胜诉率信号的诉讼费用保险机制与最经济的诉讼程序与非诉讼程序、保障其实现的机制和可供的备选机制。本文论证了其合理性     

地区物价指数的编制方法研究

地区物价指数是反映不同地区价格水平的差异程度的综合指标。本文研究了建立地区物价指数及遵循的原则 ,同时给出了两种建立地区物价指数的方法     

审计市场中的合并、产业专用化投资和价格竞争

本文从产业组织的角度，分析了审计市场的合并、产业专用化和价格竞争等竞争行为，并进一步探讨了这些行为对审计质量和社会福利的影响。本文认为，审计质量的信号传递机制推动了产业中的合并行为，而审计产业的专用化投资行为在于策略性地阻止进入。由于审计产品的异质性、信任品特性以及强大的买方谈判能力使得审计市场存在激烈的价格竞争，而合并和产业专用化投资有助于事务所降低成本。因而，审计市场的竞争提高了社会福利。     

项目管理中影子价格的作用

章阐述了影子价格的微观含义，指出了影子价格在项目管理中具有的宏观作用与广泛的用途。     

The survivorship bias, share price effect, and small firm effect in Canadian markets

After controlling for survivorship bias, we examine the relation between average returns, firm size, and price levels for Canadian stocks during the 1975-1994 period. Our findings indicate that there is a significant inverse share price level effect in Canadian markets. When we compare the results of the overall sample with the groups of surviving firms and delisted stocks, the latter group shows strong performance for large-size, high-priced stocks. Evidence that supports an independent size effect is less clear for Canadian stocks. A small size effect exists only among the higher share price denominations, which suggests a confounded size-price effect. Although the delisted group returns are statistically different from those of the survivor and the overall groups, which implies some evidence of survivorship bias, the difference between the survivor group and the overall group is weak at best.     

Behavioral Public Finance: Tax Design as Price Presentation

In this essay we review the evidence from marketing research about price presentation of consumer products and discuss how these lessons have been applied—consciously or unconsciously—in the design of the U.S. tax system. Our perspective is that, in most situations, the designers of the tax system attempt to minimize the perceived burden of any given amount of tax collections. We allow, though, that in certain situations an additional goal is to maximize the perceived burden of others. We also investigate how, when the objective is to encourage a particular activity, price presentation may enhance the achievement of that goal for a given amount of tax subsidy. We conclude by addressing the ethical and normative implications of price presentation in the tax system.