China's health care reform: A tentative assessment

China has recently unveiled an ambitious new health-care reform plan, entailing a doubling of government health spending as well as a number of concrete reforms. While the details of the plan have not yet been completely announced, we offer a preliminary assessment of how well the reform is likely to achieve its stated goal of assuring every citizen equal access to affordable basic health care. The reform is based on three fundamental tenets: strong role of government in health, commitment to equity, and willingness to experiment with regulated market approaches. Within this framework, the reform offers a number of laudable changes to the health system, including an increase in public health financing, an expansion of primary health facilities and an increase in subsidies to achieve universal insurance coverage. However, it fails to address the root causes of the wastes and inefficiencies plaguing China's health care system, such as a fragmented delivery system and provider incentives to over-provide expensive tests and services. We conclude that China should consider changing the provider payment method from fee-for-service to a prospective payment method such as DRG or capitation with pay-for-performance, and to develop purchasing agencies that represent the interests of the population so as to enhance competition.     

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.     

国企锦标赛激励效应与制约因素研究

本文尝试从锦标赛的角度为国企竞争理论提供信息经济学模型解释和实证支持。为了达到这一目的,本文从政府干预和共同代理的角度对经典的锦标赛模型进行细化和拓展,以揭示出国企锦标赛激励效应与制约因素,并收集2451家地方国有上市公司披露的薪酬差距数据对理论模型进行实证检验。理论模型表明,薪酬差距的扩大和国企经营者赢得经济锦标赛激励的强化会增加国企经营者的努力水平,因而有利于公司绩效的提升。不过,国企经营者赢得经济锦标赛的激励却受到政府行政干预和共同代理问题的制约。实证结果表明,我国地方国有上市公司薪酬差距与公司绩效显著正相关,而与地方政府行政干预和共同代理问题的严重程度显著负相关,从而支持了理论模型。     

基于激励机制下的高校科研管理研究

高校的科研管理工作关系到一个学校的生存和发展,也是衡量学校创新水平的重要标志之一。本文采取激励机制这样一个视角,通过对其内涵的阐述,分析了当前高校科研管理存在的现状。作者将激励机制同高校科研管理部门和人员的团队建设、考核和物质以及精神激励相结合,为科研管理的持续有序的发展提供途径。     

Real wages,inflation and labour productivity in Australia

This article presents an analysis of real wages, inflation and labour productivity interrelationships using cointegration, Granger causality and, most importantly, structural change tests. Applications of tests to Australian data over the 1965 to 2007 period corroborate the presence of a structural break in 1985 and show that a 1% increase in manufacturing sector real wages led to an increase in manufacturing sector productivity of between 0.5% and 0.8%. Comparable estimates for the effect of inflation on manufacturing sector productivity have limited statistical significance. Granger causality test results suggest that real wages and inflation both Granger cause productivity in the long run.     

基于计算实验方法的地铁工程成本管控行为激励机理研究

发展城市地铁是城市轨道交通建设的主导方向,也是地铁建设企业实现可持续发展的重要保障。大规模地铁建设需要对成本管控行为的机理、规律有进一步认识和研究。基于激励视角,识别了我国地铁工程成本管控行为激励因素,运用计算实验方法建立模型,设计实验情景,设置实验参数,研究了激励因素对地铁工程成本管控行为的作用机理。实验结果表明：环境、工作、回报、管理因素对地铁工程成本管控行为变化具有显著影响。其中,环境因素具有调节作用,工作因素具有推动作用,回报因素具有促进作用,管理因素具有引领作用。实验结果可为地铁工程成本管控提供启示与借鉴。     

REFRIGERATION AND DISTRIBUTION: NEW ZEALAND LAND PRICES AND REAL WAGES 1873–1939

The responses in New Zealand to the opportunities of refrigeration transformed farming in the Dominion during the half-century from 1890. Closer settlement and the extension of the cultivated area combined with more intensive farming methods to increase land productivity and real gross domestic product capita to the extent that living standards in New Zealand measured by the Human Development Index ranked first in the world by 1913. In contrast, real wages in the Dominion stagnated. The refrigeration-related trade boom had powerful income distribution effects that increased sharply the land rental–wage ratio during the years to 1920. Widely diffuse land ownership in New Zealand tempered the rise in income inequality, to set the Dominion apart from other land-abundant economies of the periphery.     

Bargaining, binding contracts, and competitive wages

In a model where many workers bargain with one firm and sign binding contracts, we show existence of a stationary subgame perfect equilibrium. If the production function satisfies decreasing returns, each worker receives a share of his marginal product (treating all other workers as employed) in equilibrium. Thus, wages are competitive. This is in contrast to Stole and Zweibel (1996, Rev. Econ. Stud. 63, 375–410), who assume that contracts are non-binding and find that the payoff of a worker is a weighted average of the inframarginal contributions. Hence, binding contracts imply lower wages than non-binding contracts.