Can welfare be measured with a preference-satisfaction index?

Welfare in economics is generally conceived of in terms of the satisfaction of preferences, but a general, comparable index measure of welfare is generally not taken to be possible. In recent years, in response to the usage of measures of subjective well-being as indices of welfare in economics, a number of economists have started to develop measures of welfare based on preference-satisfaction. In order to evaluate the success of such measures, I formulate criteria of policy-relevance and theoretical success in the context of preference-satisfaction measures of welfare. I present a detailed case study of the methodological choices put forward in a prominent generalized proposal for measuring welfare through preferences recently published in the American Economic Review. I contrast this with an alternative welfare measure which also uses preferences to weight aspects of welfare: the ICECAP-A measure. I assess the methodology of both approaches in detail and argue that the two goals of a preference measure of welfare can only be satisfied at the expense of making a measure prohibitively costly.     

Decision Utility and Anticipated Discrete Emotions: An Investment Decision Model

Integrating theories and findings from various disciplines, we develop a decision utility model to explain how anticipated discrete emotions mediate investment decisions. We illustrate the model with the anticipated discrete emotions of a hypothetical Ponzi scheme investor and suggest practical measures to manage financial risks, emotionally.     

风险度量的经济学理性与风险度量方法比较

本文引入风险度量的经济学理性概念:一种风险度量方法为经济学理性的是指,这种方法对风险的度量结果与经济学中理性人对风险的排序结果相一致,采用这种方法度量风险的决策者,其决策结果也是经济学理性的。本文从风险状态下的决策理论出发,论证了在银行监管问题上,经济学理性的风险度量方法需要满足的条件。结合银行资本充足率监管的演进趋势,比较了几种重要的风险度量方法,并提出了一种经济学理性的、符合银行监管需要的风险度量方法。     

基于效用成本风险异质性的消费资本资产定价模型

资产定价既是现代金融的核心,也是许多困惑之所在,其中最著名的就是股权溢价之谜和无风险利率之谜。本文对消费资本资产定价模型中的效用成本做了重新思考,引入"效用成本风险异质性"的概念,并将效用成本区分为"消费效用成本"和"风险效用成本"。在此基础上,本文提出了消费资本资产定价模型的新形式,并对股权溢价之谜和无风险利率之谜进行解释。     

Theories of choice under risk: Insights from financial markets

To date, the plausibility of theories of choice under risk hinges are mainly on experimental evidence. This paper devises and implements an approach amenable of assessing the performance of three families of models (expected utility, rank-dependent expected utility, and the cumulative prospect theory) using information from financial asset markets. Our findings unequivocally support reference-point dependence, diminishing marginal sensitivity, loss aversion, and nonlinear weighting of (gain and loss) physical probabilities. The empirical observations are found to be robust to, inter alia, the parameterization of the utility and probability weighting functions, “day-of-the-week effects”, the choice of a reference point, and the introduction of possible, low-probability market crashes (peso component).     

Conditional ordering extensions

We produce a solution to the problem of extending a quasiordering conditional on a finite list of ex-ante comparisons between pairs. This constitutes yet another extension of the classical Szpilrajn’s theorem. Some examples of use of our result follow.     

阻碍资本外流契约对区域经济的影响

阻碍资本外流契约不仅影响资本优化配置,也削弱代理人在优惠回报契约中的谈判力,从而使区域经济难以实现效用最大化.同时,在存在代理人道德风险的情况下,阻碍资本外流契约所规定的撤资高额违约金会妨碍区域经济总效用最大化的实现.应从制度上消除区域内外资本的等级差别,规定区域融资契约合理的法定有效期,并制定强有力的法律来制止区域融资主体迫使投资者与之签订只体现自己意愿的阻碍资本外流契约.     

边际效用递减规律的再发现

本文的成果主要体现在两个方面:第一,将时间维度导入效用函数,实现了对边际效用递减规律认识的一次真正的飞跃;第二,将需求在需求要素的层次上进行分解,使边际效用递减规律有了更为准确和牢靠的基础。在这两个成果的基础上,对效用的可测量性、商品的同质性假说等问题进生了前瞻性的探讨。     

国家效用、非国有制经济发展和前后阶段改革的划分

非国有经济与国有经济的相时比重不仅影响经济体制改革的成败,也决定作为现代经济核心的金融由计划向市场的转变,也制约着政治体制改革.根据非国有经济与国有经济的相对比重,可以2004～2005年为界,将中国的改革划分为前后两个阶段.     

Logarithmic quasi-homothetic preferences

We study a class of quasi-homothetic preferences, which result in demands that are logarithmic in own prices when these have a negligible impact on aggregate prices (as in monopolistic competition models). Thus marginal revenues are computationally friendly and well behaved.