Concepts and practices of digital virtual consumption

Despite the popularity of online spaces that simulate aspects of consumption‐like experiences (online virtual worlds, video games and interactive functions on online retailers) conceptual tools that aim to comprehend such consumer practices are yet to emerge. In an effort to better understand them this paper puts forward a taxonomy that may help us capture emerging consumer behavior in the digital virtual terrain in relation to virtual and material consumption. This may be read as a fluid template that considers the movement between what resides in consumer imaginations as ideal or virtual, its actualization in material and now also digital virtual spaces. We then offer examples of the practices that are emerging, specifically the increase in imaginative resources that interactive media provide; practices that actualize probable, everyday commodities and experiences in the digital virtual and practices that actualize fantastic commodities and experiences in the digital virtual. Finally, we discuss the potential for these to produce new consumer subjectivities and new markets, and as a result we conclude with a discussion of the implications of such developments for consumer cultures, noting the potential for both liberatory/celebratory and critical discourse as well as avenues for future research.     

The Corporate Annual Report

This article develops the concept of customer com- mitment, and then deals with the frequency with which CEOs of publicly-held companies express commitment to customers in the president's letter section in their corporate annual reports. The au- thors' research findings show that only a small percentage of compa- nies take this opportunity to communicate customer commitment to customers and employees. While other CEOs thank customers or make incidental mention of customers, nearly one third fail to refer- ence the "customer(s)" at all. In addition to the benefit of promoting customer commitment to customers and prospects, the authors dis- cuss the opportunity for a company to promote customer commit- ment to its own employees in the context of internal marketing.     

Welfare-optimal trade and competition policies in small open oligopolistic economies

Standard trade theory claims that free trade is welfare-enhancing. We show that this is not the case if at least one sector of the economy is a Cournot oligopoly. In a simple small open economy with one oligopolistic and one competitive sector, welfare is an inverted U-shaped function of tariffs. Hence, an optimal tariff rate can be determined. The optimal rate depends on the number of firms in the oligopolistic sector. Below the optimal level, the competitive sector overproduces, i.e. oligopolistic good have a higher marginal effect on welfare. Increasing tariff rates stimulate the production of the oligopolistic sector by dampening imports. Under balanced trade, this reduces exports and production in the competitive sector, thus shifting resources to oligopolistic goods production. We also find that given certain levels of protection, perfect competition is not welfare maximal and, hence, not desirable. The finding explains why developing economies with imperfect competition are often reluctant to embrace trade liberalization and why, conversely, countries with high levels of external protection may be unenthusiastic about competition theory.     

Second chance offers versus sequential auctions: theory and behavior

Second chance offers in online marketplaces involve a seller conducting an auction for a single object and then using information from the auction to offer a losing bidder a take-it-or-leave-it price for another unit. We theoretically and experimentally investigate this practice and compare it to two sequential auctions. We show that the equilibrium bidding strategy in the second chance offer mechanism only exists in mixed strategies, and we observe that this mechanism generates more profit for the auctioneer than two sequential auctions. We also observe virtually no rejections of profitable offers in the ultimatum bargaining stage.      

Individual best response in the repeated Cournot model

We propose a particular style of punishments to support collusive behavior in an infinitely repeated Cournot oligopoly model for at least the same range of discount factors as Friedman’s trigger strategies. The punishment lasts for a finite number of periods and asymmetry is introduced in such a way that each punisher’s output is the individual best response.      

On choosing which game to play when ignorant of the rules

This paper suggests a theory of choice among strategic situations when the rules of play are not properly specified. We take the view that a “strategic situation” is adequately described by a TU game since it specifies what is feasible for each coalition but is silent on the procedures that are used to allocate the surplus. We model the choice problem facing a decision maker (DM) as having to choose from finitely many “actions”. The known “consequence” of the ith action is a coalition from game f _i over a fixed set of players \(N_i\cup\{d\}\) (where d stands for the DM). Axioms are imposed on her choice as the list of consequences (f ₁,..., f _m ) from the m actions varies. We characterize choice rules that are based on marginal contributions of the DM in general and on the Shapley Value in particular.     

大事件背景下的城市发展与更新——以巴塞罗那为例

文章分析了巴塞罗那如何以大事件为契机,在尊重历史文脉和市民权利的同时,实现城市建设的的跨越,成为具有国际视野的重要城市。     

Cournot outcomes under Bertrand–Edgeworth competition with demand uncertainty

We provide new results for two-stage games in which firms make capacity investments when demand is uncertain, then, when demand is realized, compete in prices. We consider games with demand rationing schemes ranging from efficient to proportional rationing. In all cases, there is a subgame perfect equilibrium outcome coinciding with the outcome of the Cournot game with demand uncertainty if and only if (i) the fluctuation in absolute market size is small relative to the cost of capacity, or (ii) uncertainty is such that with high probability the market demand is very large and with the remaining probability the market demand is extremely small. Otherwise, equilibria involve mixed strategies. Further, we show under efficient rationing that condition (i) is sufficient for the unique equilibrium outcome to be an equilibrium outcome of the Cournot game with demand uncertainty.     

Recurrent crises in global games

Global games have unique equilibria in which aggregate behavior changes sharply when an underlying random fundamental crosses some threshold. This property relies on the existence of dominance regions: all players have a highest and lowest action that, for some fundamentals, is strictly dominant. But if the fundamental follows a random walk, it eventually spends nearly all of its time in these regions: crises gradually disappear. We obtain recurring crises by adding a single large player who lacks dominance regions. We also show that in order to obtain recurring crises, one must either relax dominance regions or restrict to fundamentals that continually return to or cross over a fixed region.     

夏利与吉利的价格博弈论分析

以战略管理中的动态竞争思想为主线,利用博弈论工具对吉利汽车进入市场、通过与夏利进行价格战而占得一席之地这一互动过程进行了分析,从在位者角度指出了夏利汽车在战略上的不当之处,为企业进行战略决策提供参考。