The relationship between supervisor and workers — The case of professional baseball in Japan

This paper analyzes the relationship between the workers' productivity and the supervisor from the point of view of the Matching Hypothesis using data from professional baseball in Japan. The main findings of this paper are the following three points. The first point is that the Matching Hypothesis is rejected in the case of pitchers and hitters. The second one is that the depreciation rate of the effect is about 10–15% per year and differs from zero significantly. Hence, the effect continues for a long time after the matching is broken. Lastly, we cannot find a learning curve for the managers' ability.     

On the evolution of comparative advantage in matching models

This paper examines whether comparative advantage is the long-run outcome of an evolutionary process in the open economy. It formalizes the notion that natural selection eliminates inefficient firms and thus leads to stable and perhaps efficient patterns of world trade. Instead of assuming the existence of a Walrasian auctioneer, we study two simple matching processes that coordinate trade between firms. Our central result is that specialization according to comparative advantage, with the larger country possibly incompletely specialized, is the unique evolutionarily stable state of the world economy.     

项目申请者“头衔”更有利于科研绩效提升吗——一个面向国家社科基金教育学项目产出的倒序评估

如何预判项目申请者的科研绩效是科研资助中的焦点问题。不同于传统做法，以已结题的国家社科基金教育学项目产出为既定绩效，利用倾向得分匹配方法，倒序评估项目申请者既有“头衔”对产出绩效的因果效应，结果发现：项目申请者“头衔”显著提升了科研绩效，较行政职务头衔，学术荣誉头衔带来的科研绩效提升更显著。但并非所有类型头衔都显著作用于科研绩效，确切地讲，教育部新世纪人才、国务院特殊津贴专家、校长、院长、研究所所长及副所长等头衔更有利于科研绩效提升。对此，基金主管部门可通过适当增加对有“头衔”者的资助，构建以成果为导向的资助方式，倡导以结项为依据的评价体系，开放以质量为核心的结题通道等途径改善科研项目绩效。     

Incentives in decentralized random matching markets

Decentralized markets are modeled by means of a sequential game where, starting from any matching situation, firms are randomly given the opportunity to make job offers. In this random context, we prove the existence of ordinal subgame perfect equilibria where firms act according to a list of preferences. Moreover, every such equilibrium preserves stability for a particular profile of preferences. In particular, when firms best reply by acting truthfully, every equilibrium outcome is stable for the true preferences. Conversely, when the initial matching is the empty matching, every stable matching can be reached as the outcome of an ordinal equilibrium play of the game.     

Does population density matter in the process of matching heterogeneous job seekers and vacancies?

This paper studies the matching of job seekers and vacant jobs using data on local labour markets. We estimate differences in the ability of the local markets to form new matches and trace whether these differences can be explained by the differing population densities across markets or by the heterogeneity of job seekers measured by the distribution of their education level. We find that high-density areas are more efficient in forming matches than other areas despite frictions caused by the wider heterogeneity of job seekers in those areas than elsewhere.

城市住房价格指数编制方法的拓展设计及实证检验

科学监测城市房价走势,在当前环境下尤为重要。为拓展国际通行方法编制国内单一城市房价指数的适用性,引入样本匹配重复交易法构建房价指数,以提高样本容量与可比性。基于上海数据的实证结果表明,相较于传统重复交易法和特征价格法,样本匹配重复交易法能更准确地反映住房价格变动,结果异常波动性更小,噪声影响程度更低,在克服样本代表性误差和变量缺失误差方面效果更显著,对编制国内城市房价指数具有较好应用价值。     

Treatment effects in sample selection models and their nonparametric estimation

In a sample-selection model with the ‘selection’ variable Q$Q$ and the ‘outcome’ variable Y^∗$Y^{\ast }$, Y^∗$Y^{\ast }$ is observed only when Q=1$Q=1$. For a treatment D$D$ affecting both Q$Q$ and Y^∗$Y^{\ast }$, three effects are of interest: ‘participation  ’ (i.e., the selection) effect of D$D$ on Q$Q$, ‘visible performance  ’ (i.e., the observed outcome) effect of D$D$ on Y≡QY^∗$Y\equiv Q{Y}^{\ast }$, and ‘invisible performance  ’ (i.e., the latent outcome) effect of D$D$ on Y^∗$Y^{\ast }$. This paper shows the conditions under which the three effects are identified, respectively, by the three corresponding mean differences of Q$Q$, Y$Y$, and Y|Q=1$Y|Q=1$ (i.e., Y^∗|Q=1$Y^{\ast }|Q=1$) across the control (D=0$D=0$) and treatment (D=1$D=1$) groups. Our nonparametric estimators for those effects adopt a two-sample framework and have several advantages over the usual matching methods. First, there is no need to select the number of matched observations. Second, the asymptotic distribution is easily obtained. Third, over-sampling the control/treatment group is allowed. Fourth, there is a built-in mechanism that takes into account the ‘non-overlapping support problem’, which the usual matching deals with by choosing a ‘caliper’. Fifth, a sensitivity analysis to gauge the presence of unobserved confounders is available. A simulation study is conducted to compare the proposed methods with matching methods, and a real data illustration is provided.     

双边市场理论对商业银行发卡业务的启示

银行卡业具有典型的双边市场特征和复杂的网络外部性。我国银行卡发卡市场发展迅速,但活卡率较低。文章以双边市场理论为基础,从充分运用外部客户资源、挖掘网络价值、营销高价值客户、采取差异化发展策略等方面分析了如何发展有效的持卡客户,减少睡眠卡,对商业银行发卡业务的发展策略具有一定的借鉴意义。     

城镇居民的大学教育收益率估计:倾向指数匹配方法

本文利用全国综合社会调查数据(CGSS2003),首先使用Probit模型估计了个体上大学的概率,然后运用倾向指数匹配方法估计了2002年我国城镇居民的大学教育收益率.Probit估计结果表明家庭背景及地区对个人上大学的概率具有显著影响.匹配方法估计结果显示,大学毕业相对于高中毕业的教育收益率在79.1%以上,年均超过19.8%.传统的OLS方法估计的大学教育收益率仅为56.1%,低于匹配方法的估计结果.另外,高中组个体的潜在大学教育收益率可能高于大学组的大学教育收益率.     

Cooperative behavior and the frequency of social interaction

We report results from an experiment that examines play in an indefinitely repeated, two-player Prisoner's Dilemma game. Each experimental session involves N subjects and a sequence of indefinitely repeated games. The main treatment consists of whether agents are matched in fixed pairings or matched randomly in each indefinitely repeated game. Within the random matching treatment, we elicit player's strategies and beliefs or vary the information that players have about their opponents. Contrary to a theoretical possibility suggested by Kandori [1992. Social norms and community enforcement. Rev. Econ. Stud. 59, 63–80], a cooperative norm does not emerge in the treatments where players are matched randomly. On the other hand, in the fixed pairings treatment, the evidence suggests that a cooperative norm does emerge as players gain more experience.