Impacts of protected areas on local livelihoods: Evidence of giant panda biosphere reserves in Sichuan Province,China

Given the debates about whether Protected Areas (PAs) exacerbate local poverty or might contribute to poverty alleviation, there is a critical need for evidence to examine the impacts. In this study, we have conducted a household investigation of 560 rural households in 7 PAs of Sichuan province of China. We used matching method to value impacts of PAs on local livelihoods. The results showed that compared to the Average Treatment Effect, the results of traditional regression model exaggerate the negative impacts of the PAs. However, we should notice that the overall impact of PAs on local household wealth was still negative. Households inside the PAs had more Non-timber Forest Products gathering income and compensation, but fewer crop production income and forestry income. Better conservation policies need to be initiated to realize the harmonious and concurrent development of ecological objectives and livelihood objectives.     

A one-sided many-to-many matching problem

This study discusses a one-sided many-to-many matching model wherein agents may not be divided into two disjoint sets. Moreover, each agent is allowed to have multiple partnerships in our model. We restrict our attention to the case where the preference of each agent is single-peaked over: (i) the total number of partnerships with all other agents, and (ii) the number of partnerships that the agent has with each of the other agents. We represent a matching as a multigraph, and characterize a matching that is stable and constrained efficient. Finally, we show that any direct mechanism for selecting a stable and constrained efficient matching is not strategy-proof.     

Equilibrium unemployment and retirement

We first propose some new empirical evidence on the fact that the labor market conditions matter for the retirement decision at the individual level: we investigate whether unemployed workers retire before employed workers, other things being equal. Our main objective in this paper is then to propose an equilibrium unemployment approach to retirement decisions that allows us to derive the positive and normative features of retirement decisions when search and matching frictions are considered. Two main conclusions emerge: the retirement decision of unemployed workers depends on the labor-market frictions whereas that of employed workers does not; the existence of search externalities makes the retirement age of unemployed workers intrinsically suboptimal. Considering Social Security policy issues, we show that the complete elimination of the implicit tax on continued activity is not necessarily welfare-optimizing in a second best world where the labor market equilibrium suffers from distortions.     

Revisiting the matching function

There is strong empirical evidence for Cobb–Douglas matching functions. We show in this paper that this widely found relation between matches on the one hand and unemployment and vacancies on the other hand can be the result of different underlying mechanisms. Obviously, it can be generated by assuming a Cobb–Douglas matching function. Less obvious, the same relationship results from a vacancy free-entry condition and idiosyncratic productivity shocks. A positive aggregate productivity shock leads to more vacancy posting, a shift of the idiosyncratic selection cutoff and thereby more hiring. We calibrate a model with both mechanisms to administrative German labor market data and show that idiosyncratic productivity for new contacts is an important driver of the elasticity of the job-finding rate with respect to the market tightness. Accounting for idiosyncratic productivity can explain the observed negative time trend in estimated matching efficiency and asymmetric business cycle responses to large aggregate shocks.     

Imperfect competition in two-sided matching markets

This paper considers a simple equilibrium model of an imperfectly competitive two-sided matching market. Firms and workers may have heterogeneous preferences over matches on the other side, and the model allows for both uniform and personalized wages or contracts. To make the model tractable, I use the Azevedo and Leshno (2013) framework, in which a finite number of firms is matched to a continuum of workers.In equilibrium, even if wages are exogenous and fixed, firms have incentives to strategically reduce their capacity, to increase the quality of their worker pool. The intensity of incentives to reduce capacity is given by a simple formula, analogous to the classic Cournot model, but depends on different moments of the distribution of preferences. I compare markets with uniform and personalized wages. For fixed quantities, markets with personalized wages always yield higher efficiency than markets with uniform wages, but may be less efficient if firms reduce capacity to avoid bidding too much for star workers.     

Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand

We study resource allocation with multi-unit demand, such as the allocation of courses to students. In contrast to the case of single-unit demand, no stable mechanism, not even the (student-proposing) deferred acceptance algorithm, achieves desirable properties: it is not strategy-proof and the resulting allocation is not even weakly efficient under submitted preferences. We characterize the priority structure of courses over students under which stability is consistent with strategy-proofness or efficiency. We show that stability is compatible with strategy-proofness or efficiency if and only if the priority structure is essentially homogeneous. This result suggests that efficient allocation under multi-unit demand is difficult and that the use of stable mechanisms may not deliver desirable outcomes.     

An empirical investigation of director selection in movie preproduction: A two-sided matching approach

This paper examines how movie producers recruit directors in the preproduction phase as mutual choices in a two-sided matching model. It conceptualizes that movie attributes and filmmaker characteristics determine the matching outcomes (“who directed which movie”) and in turn indirectly affect movie box office. We exploit a dataset of 4,807 feature films from 1990 to 2010 to examine empirically the complementarities between the movie/producer side and the director side in terms of movie budget, filmmaker track records and social relations. A series of simulations suggest that social relations facilitate positive assortative matching. Further simulation analyses are conducted to quantify the financial implications of movie–director mismatches, as well as the indirect effects of production budget and producer characteristics. The simulation results show that: a) the financial implications of having a mismatched director can be substantial; and b) the indirect effect of production budget and producer characteristics affect movie box office in an interactive manner. These findings can help filmmakers to better understand the financial impacts of movie–director choices and make more informed decisions at the early phase of preproduction.     

Designing the content of advertising in a differentiated market

In many markets, consumers use attribute information to assess the value they expect from purchasing a product or service. This includes many low involvement experience goods including take-out food, many packaged good categories and restaurants. In these markets, quality differences exist but many differences are horizontal in nature: the consumer is interested in finding a product that meets her unique tastes. Beyond ensuring that consumers know the brand, the category and the price; it seems advertising should provide consumers with attribute information. However, a significant proportion of advertising does not provide it. In fact, within the same category, competitors respond to messages that emphasize detailed attribute information with messages that are devoid of attribute information. These messages are uninformative about product attributes. We explore how competition in a differentiated market is affected by the ability of a firm has to choose uninformative messages. We construct a model to investigate the factors that affect a firm’s decision to use advertising with detailed attribute information or advertising that does not provide it. The model demonstrates that content decisions about advertising are affected by the differences between products, the range of heterogeneity in consumer tastes and the degree to which costs increase as a function of the quantity of information in advertising. Surprisingly, even when the cost to increase the quantity of information in advertising is low, uninformative campaigns can be more profitable than campaigns with attribute information. The analysis also demonstrates that firms can be more likely to provide attribute information when there are less consumers that are attribute-sensitive. Finally, the model shows that uninformative messages can create “artificial differentiation” in some situations.     

研发模式对制造业企业创新绩效的影响

将企业研发模式分为自主研发、合作研发和双重研发三种,使用世界银行对中国制造业企业的调查数据,通过倾向得分匹配方法探究不同研发模式对企业创新绩效的作用效果及其在异质性企业中的差异情况。全样本研究结果表明：企业双重研发对创新绩效的激励效果最好,合作研发的激励效果次之,自主研发的激励效果最弱。企业异质性研究结果显示：自主研发对高成长性企业创新绩效的激励效果最显著,合作研发对低成长性企业和小微企业的激励效果最显著;对于无融资约束的企业,双重研发模式是提升创新绩效的最佳选择,但是对有融资约束的企业,其提升效果最弱。