Banking with nominal deposits and inside money

Bank runs in the literature take the form of withdrawals of demand deposits payable in real goods, which deplete a fixed reserve of goods in the banking system. That framework describes traditional bank runs based on currency withdrawals as occurred historically in the US and more recently in developing countries. However, in a modern banking system, large withdrawals typically take the form of electronic payments of inside money, with no analog of a depletion of a scarce reserve from the banking system. In a new framework of nominal demand deposits repayable in inside money, pure liquidity-driven bank runs do not occur. If there were excessive early withdrawals, nominal deposits would hedge the bank and flexible monetary prices in the goods market would limit real consumption. The maturity mismatch of short term liabilities and long term assets is not sufficient for multiple equilibria bank runs without other frictions. A key role of the bank is to ensure optimal real liquidity, which allows markets to optimally distribute consumption goods through the price mechanism.     

Mixed up? that’s good for motivation

We show that career concerns can arise in the absence of ex ante uncertainty about an agent’s type, if his unobservable actions influence future productivity. Implementing effort in mixed strategies allows the principal to endogenously introduce uncertainty about the agent’s ex post productivity and generate reputational incentives. Creating such ambiguity can be optimal for the principal, even though this exposes the agent to additional risk and reduces output. This finding for an environment with imperfect commitment contrasts with standard agency models, where implementing mixed strategy actions typically is not optimal if pure strategies can also be implemented.     

The timeliness of performance information in determining executive compensation

We study whether boards of directors concentrate on performance near compensation decision times rather than providing consistent incentives for chief executive officers (CEO) throughout the fiscal year. We show empirically that managers can profit by moving sales revenue among fiscal quarters. Though this may suggest that boards use short-term trends when determining rewards, we find evidence consistent with boards tying pay to recent sales growth so as to use the best information about future performance. We also find that the timing of profits throughout the year does not affect CEO pay, which may suggest that smoothing firm income is important to CEOs.     

关系合约对网络组织经济效率的损害

关系合约为会损害网络组织的经济效率，因为多个关系舍约的相互嵌入可能在网络组织中形成低效率合作；同时，关系合约形成的交易封闭性，降低了网络组织的适应性效率，企业的创新动力被弱化，快速创新难以成为企业的最佳战略选择。网络组织如果过度依赖关系治理，就会抑制制度治理机制的作用，从而增加网络组织的交易成本。     

Procurement auctions with entry of bidders

In procurement auctions with a fixed number of bidders there is a tradeoff between cost efficiency and rent extraction. An optimal mechanism, therefore, entails distortions of effort (Laffont and Tirole, 1987). If potential suppliers must sink an entry investment before they can participate in the auction, then decreasing the firms' rent may imply reduced entry. We show that if potential bidders are uninformed before entry, commitment to a plain, nondistortive auction is optimal. In contrast, if potential bidders learn all their private information before entry, the optimal mechanism entails the same distortions as in Laffont and Tirole's static model.     

Financial Markets for Unknown Risks if Beliefs Differ

We consider a general equilibrium model with individual and collective risks. The article builds on a contribution by Chichilnisky and Heal, who show that contingent Arrow–Debreu equilibria can also be supported in economies with Arrow securities and mutual insurance contracts. However, they show this to be true in general only if beliefs are identical, a very restrictive assumption in the context of unknown risks. Moreover, they claim complete insurance in equilibrium to be impossible if beliefs are different. We show that even with different beliefs, firstly, complete insurance is possible in each statistical state, and secondly, contingent equilibrium can still be supported in economies with insurance and securities.     

论倒签提单的法律性质

倒签提单是海上贸易中常见的一种行为，因倒签提单引起的争议案件也常有发生，严重扰乱了正常的国际贸易秩序。虽然倒签提单在我国的司法实践中通常被认定为一种侵权行为，然而在学术界关于倒签提单的性质仍然存在不同的观点。通过对诸多观点的分析与评价，提出对倒签提单法律性质的看法。     

A comparative institutional analysis of agreements on product standards

The WTO and the EU have chosen two different agreements on product standards. While the WTO's approach is primarily based on a “National Treatment” (NT) principle, the EU's approach crucially relies on a principle of “Mutual Recognition” (MR). This paper offers a first look at the comparative performance of these two principles. We show that standards are imposed for levels of externalities that are too low under NT and too high under MR. This suggests that NT should be preferred to MR when the amount of trade in goods characterized by high levels of externalities is large.     

全球价值链中的最优生产组织决策模型研究

为探寻跨国公司对全球价值链实现协调与控制的最优生产组织安排,在不完全契约理论框架下,扩展并构建了基于全球价值链的生产组织决策模型,其中重点考查了跨国公司与产业链上下游企业之间的议价能力及股权决定。研究表明跨国公司在每一生产阶段的最优组织模式选择与其在价值链上所处的生产阶段密切相关,并受到投入品替代弹性、最终产品替代弹性以及总部服务密集度等因素的影响。     

Breaking the letter vs. spirit of the law: How the interpretation of contract violations affects trust and the management of relationships

Contract violations are ubiquitous. There has been little attention, however, dedicated to understanding the mechanisms involved in making sense of and addressing such occurrences. Two experimental studies investigated how people interpret contract violations and how these interpretations affect trust and the management of relationships. By drawing on the distinction between violations of the letter versus spirit of the law, we show that letter violations are more difficult to overcome than spirit violations, due to higher perceived intentionality. These effects generalized across different populations, levels of contracting experience, types of contracting contexts, levels of ambiguity within the contract, and degrees of contract complexity. The results yield important implications for understanding contract violations, trust, and organizational responses as a relationship management capability. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.