Strategic Firm Behavior Under Average-Revenue-Lagged Regulation

Price caps have been shown to have incentive properties superior to traditional rate of return regulation. Average-revenue-lagged regulation (ARL) is attractive in that steady-state prices are known to be efficient. We show that the ARL scheme can be manipulated by the firm so as to yield the unregulated global profit maximum. While tests exist that can provide the regulator with evidence of this strategic behavior, we also demonstrate that the unregulated global profit maximum will not be attainable if Laspeyres (L) regulation is employed.Jel classification: L43, L51I would like to thank Michael Crew and an anonymous referee for their extremely helpful suggestions.     

试论财政优化资源配置的作用

资源配置客观上包含宏观、中观、微观三个层次。尽管市场在资源配置中应发挥基础性作用，但为了实现三个层次的资源配置的优化，政府财政都应发挥重要的调节作用。     

县级财政的现状与创新

县级财政是按照“一级政权、一级财政”的原则构建起来的,在基层政权建设,为保证经济发展和社会稳定提供财力支持方面发挥着重要的作用。目前,随着改革的深入,县级财政也面临着一些困难,诸如收入总额偏低,赤字面大,负债多,风险大,部分地区存在财政空转现象等。造成这些困难的因素有很多,既有体制上的,又有管理上的,还有历史原因。为解决县级财政的困难,要理顺机制,培养财源,加强支出管理,构建符合公共财政要求的框架体系。     

股票价格对物价水平的影响

股票价格作为最重要的金融资产价格，会通过“财富效应”、“替代效应”、“预期效应”、“新产品效应”和“工资效应”等途径影响投资和消费等宏观经济变量，进而影响包括商品劳务价格在内的一般物价水平。在发达国家和发展中国家，股票价格影响物价水平的方向和程度有着重大区别。     

论中国期货市场价格操纵行为监控体系的构建

为防范我国期货市场的价格操纵行为，在详细剖析期货市场价格操纵行为的具体表现形式及其成因的基础上，采用定性与定量相结合的方法系统构建了防范期货市场价格操纵行为的监控体系，包括监控组织机构、监控数据库系统、价格和仓单自动监控系统、大户监控报告系统、不当交易举报系统和监控反应机制六个部余对扼制我国期货市场的价格操纵行为给出具体的对策建议。     

如何界定反倾销调查中的"生产成本"概念

“生产成本”是反倾销调查中的核心问题。该文通过国际反倾销法“生产成本”概念的界定，分析了反倾销调查中企业“生产成本”的差异，提出了按照国际惯例进行调整的方法，以及为反倾销调查取证提供的承诺。     

Investor efficiency in the face of takings

Governmental entities at all levels are empowered to acquire private property for the public's benefit, provided that just compensation is paid. The level of compensation typically viewed by courts as just is market value, but questions arise as to whether market value compensation motivates the private owner of land, potentially subject to a taking, to improve the property to a degree that is socially efficient. Earlier works have found market value to be a compensation level too high to promote efficiency. The present paper offers an analysis, based on a simple model of investor profit maximization, that provides a unified view of models presented in some important earlier works. In a special application of the general case, it is shown that market value can be too low a level of compensation to promote efficient behavior by the land owner.     

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.