Imitators and optimizers in Cournot oligopoly

We analyze a symmetric n-firm Cournot oligopoly with a heterogeneous population of optimizers and imitators. Imitators mimic the output decision of the most successful firms of the previous round à la Vega-Redondo, F., [1997. The evolution of Walrasian behavior. Econometrica 65, 375–384]. Optimizers play a myopic best response to the opponents’ previous output. Firms make mistakes and deviate from their decision rules with a small probability. Applying stochastic stability analysis, we find that the long run distribution converges to a recurrent set of states in which imitators are better off than are optimizers.     

Pricing policies for services by facilities with Weibull lifetimes

To make good profits, pricing is a competitive weapon of service firms. This paper is concerned with pricing strategies for services with substantial facility maintenance costs. To address the problem, a mathematical framework that incorporates service demand and facility deterioration is proposed. The facility and customers constitute a service system driven by Poisson arrivals and exponential service times. The most common log-linear customer demand and Weibull-distributed facility lifetime are also adopted. By examining the linkage between customer demand and facility deterioration in profit model, pricing policies of the service are investigated. Then analytical conditions of customer demand and facility lifetime are derived to achieve a unique optimal pricing policy. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effects of parameter variations on the optimal pricing policy.     

Productivity at the post: its drivers and its distribution

We study the productivity, financial and distributional performance of the United States Postal Service subsequent to its 1971 reorganization. We investigate the magnitude and the economic drivers of productivity change (technical change, change in cost efficiency, and scale economies), and we investigate the distribution of the financial benefits of productivity change (among consumers of postal services, postal employees and other resource suppliers, and residual claimants). We find improvements in technology to have been the main driver of, and diseconomies of scale to have been the main drag on, productivity change. We find labor to have been the main beneficiary, and consumers of postal services the main losers, from postal reorganization.      

Political pressures and the credibility of regulation: can profit sharing mitigate regulatory risk?

When price-cap rules determine the structure of prices for a long period, they suffer a credibility problem and introduce an element of risk especially if a firm’s profits are “too large”. Profit sharing may be seen as a device to pre-determine price adjustments and thus to decrease regulatory risk. We analyse the effects of profit sharing on the incentives to invest, using a real option approach. Absent credibility issues, a well designed profit sharing system may be neutral relative to a pure price cap. With regulatory risk, profit sharing is preferable to a pure price-cap one, if it intervenes for high enough profit levels.

A statistical equilibrium model of competitive firms

We find that the empirical density of firm profit rates, measured as returns on assets, is markedly non-Gaussian and reasonably well described by an exponential power (or Subbotin) distribution. We start from a statistical equilibrium model that leads to a stationary Subbotin density in the presence of complex interactions among competitive heterogeneous firms. To investigate the dynamics of firm profitability, we construct a diffusion process that has the Subbotin distribution as its stationary probability density. This leads to a phenomenologically inspired interpretation of variations in the shape parameter of the Subbotin distribution, which essentially measures the competitive pressure in and across industries. Our findings have profound implications both for the previous literature on the ‘persistence of profits’ as well as for understanding competition as a dynamic process. Our main formal finding is that firms' idiosyncratic efforts and the tendency for competition to equalize profit rates are two sides of the same coin, and that a ratio of these two effects ultimately determines the dispersion of the equilibrium distribution.     

中国制造业的“成本上涨与利润增长并存”之谜

2002~2007年间,中国制造业的原材料、工资等成本出现大幅度上涨,但与此同时,制造业的利润总额与利润率仍然呈增长趋势。本文利用投入-产出方法对中国制造业的“成本上涨与利润增长并存”之谜给予解释。本文的研究表明,投入（特别是原材料）价格与工资上涨造成制造业利润的减少,但通过提高产出的价格以及调整投入的结构、提高投入的使用效率能够消化成本上涨的影响,从而保持利润的增长。对成本上涨做出调整的过程也是产业升级的过程,2002-2007年间,中国制造业绝大多数行业的资本劳动比、全员劳动生产率与全要素生产率都有了显著提高。由于应对成本上涨空间的有限性,应进一步加快中国制造业产业升级的步伐。     

FDI的利润汇出、出口创汇能力对我国国际收支的影响及趋势分析

本文运用1985-2006年的相关数据,通过区分和考虑不同类型外国直接投资对国际收支的影响渠道,分析了外国直接投资的利润汇出和出口创汇能力对我国国际收支特别是经常账户差额的影响。结果表明,外国直接投资是形成我国当前双顺差的主要因素。但是未来这种趋势将会发生变化。本文以2006年为基期进行预测,未来10年内,外国直接投资的出口创汇能力将由于外国直接投资从出口导向型更多地转向市场寻求型而下降,而利润汇出趋势将增强。因而,应加强对外国直接投资的动态监管,减少外国直接投资对我国国际收支的负面影响,避免可能由外国直接投资引起的经常账户危机。     

适度富余——企业人力资源供求管理的目标选择

无论是理论工作者还是企业实际管理者,都将供求平衡作为企业人力资源供求管理的目标.可事实上企业人力资源供求具有不平衡性.一方面,企业人力资源供求始终处于变动之中,要实现供求平衡存在许多不可消除的客观障碍;另一方面,在内外劳动力市场并不充分有效的条件下,实现供求平衡所需付出的成本远远高于保持人力资源适度富余所带来的损失.因此,企业人力资源供求管理的目标应当是适度富余,而不是供求平衡.     

税收影响下的创业投资组合规模的决策模型研究

为分散投资风险,创业投资家通常为多个创业企业提供资金和管理支持,从而形成创业投资组合。限于精力,创业投资家必然面临着投资组合规模和管理支持二者间的平衡。税收政策影响着创业投资家对于创业企业权益份额的获取,因而影响着其对创业企业的管理支持力度,进而影响其投资组合规模。