城市交通问题的产权分析

通过对多个城市的观察,发现《中华人民共和国道路交通安全法》的许多条款形同虚设,得不到切实的执行。本文根据产权理论对这一现象进行了分析,解释当前城市交通问题的主要成因即：车辆的增多、无法识别、十字路口和交通意识。产权的主要作用是帮助人们形成与他人交流的信息的预期,有了清晰界定的产权,就可以减少城市交通中人与人之间的不确定性,减小冲突的发生。为此,本文提出了解决城市交通问题的政策建议,即限制行车数量、增强非机动车辆的识别能力和规范十字路口标识,提高公民城市交通意识。通过减少交易成本,清晰的界定产权等手段规范城市交通,从而帮助行人建立稳定的预期,保证道路畅通。     

A signaling model of environmental overcompliance

We present a theory of unilateral regulatory overcompliance as a signaling device. Firms that have a competitive advantage in the use of a cleaner but more costly technology overcomply in order to signal to an imperfectly informed, benevolent government that compliance costs are low, thereby triggering tougher regulation. We identify the conditions under which such an overcompliance signaling equilibrium arises, showing that there may be over-overcompliance in that firms may overcomply even when tougher regulation is not socially desirable. We also discuss the differential implications of the signaling theory as compared to other theories of unilateral regulatory overcompliance.     

A two-stage translog marginal cost pricing approach for Floridian hospital outputs

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, issues still remain regarding the mandated purchase of insurance to ensure more universal coverage. One such issue is the pricing of these insurance packages and whether or not the reimbursements will cover necessary services. Therefore, policy concerns exist that increasing the number of insured individuals may not curtail costs. Conversely, providers may not wish to treat patients covered by excessively frugal plans such as Medicaid; hence the trade-offs between access and cost control. In this article, we present findings from a cost function and a productivity approach to determine the marginal cost of providing inpatient hospital care for hospitals operating in Florida during 2005. Using these methodological approaches, we are able to use the marginal rate of transformation to determine the relative marginal costs while controlling for hospital technical and allocative inefficiency. Our work differs from earlier articles as we avoid the Greene problem for cross-sectional models through a two-step approach. By including both reimbursement rates under conditions of hospital efficiency, we can ascertain payment schemes that should, at least in theory, cover necessary costs for patient care without leading to excessive input usage.     

An environmental performance index for products reflecting damage costs

Several studies have demonstrated how to use DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) based techniques to estimate environmental performance indices. None of these studies, however, are taking information on the environmental damage costs of the pressure types considered into account. This study is bridging a gap between environmental indices founded in physical pressures and damage costs founded in welfare economics. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, to demonstrate how to implement the information on environmental damage costs within a DEA based environmental performance index, and second, to estimate these indices at product level by using Danish input-output data and environmental data from 1997.