Are we nice(r) to nice(r) people?—An experimental analysis

We experimentally investigate whether individuals can reliably detect cooperators (the nice(r) people) in an anonymous decision environment involving “connected games.” Participants can condition their choices in an asymmetric prisoners’ dilemma and a trust game on past individual (their partner’s donation share to a self-selected charity) and social (whether their partner belongs to a group with high or low average donations) information. Thus, the two measures of niceness are the individual donation share in the donation task, and the cooperativeness of one’s choice in the two games. We find that high donors achieve a higher-than-average expected payoff by cooperating predominantly with other high donors. Group affiliation proved to be irrelevant. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C91, C72, D3     

Variable labour supply, specialisation-based external economies, and capital inflow

This paper examines the impact of exogenous capital inflow on prices, production, labour supply, and welfare in the presence of specialisation-based externalities. The paper utilises a simple model of an economy that produces one-final good by means of capital, labour, and a large number of varieties of an intermediate good. The intermediate good is produced by means of capital and labour. The supply of capital is exogenous but the supply of labour is endogenous. The presence of internal economies of scale in the intermediate good industry gives rise to specialisation-based external economies in the production of the final good. Perfect competition prevails in the final good industry whereas the intermediate good industry operates under Chamberlinian monopolistic competition. It is shown that exogenous capital inflow decreases labour supply and increases welfare only if the elasticity of substitution between leisure and the final good is equal to or less than unity. The paper also shows that, if trade opens up between two otherwise similar economies, a capital rich country would be a net importer of varieties of the intermediate good.     

Winner-take-all price competition

Summary. We analyze an oligopoly model of homogeneous product price competition that allows for discontinuities in demand and/or costs. Conditions under which only zero profit equilibrium outcomes obtain in such settings are provided. We then illustrate through a series of examples that the conditions provided are “tight” in the sense that their relaxation leads to positive profit outcomes. Received: April 7, 2000; revised version: September 14, 2000     

Delegation and polarization of platforms in political competition

Summary. We consider a model of political competition among two ideological parties who are uncertain about the distribution of voters. The distinguishing feature of the model is that parties can delegate electoral decisions to candidates by nomination. It is shown that if the credible platform commitments of the candidates is feasible, then at least one of the parties nominates in equilibrium to a candidate who has an ideology that is more radical than the delegating party's ideology. In a variety of circumstances, this, in turn, yields a polarization of equilibrium policy choices of the candidates. It is thus argued formally here that strategic nomination of the candidates may well be one of the major reasons behind the well documented observation that the platforms associated with the political parties in two-party democracies are often surprisingly polarized. Received: January 10, 2002; revised version: May 8, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We thank Alberto Alesina, Levent Ko?kesen, Antonio Merlo, Ronny Razin, Vijay Krishna, Alessandro Lizzeri, and seminar participants at Alicante, Columbia, Copenhagen, and NYU for helpful comments. We also thank an anonymous referee for its useful suggestions. A good fraction of this research was conducted while Ok was a visitor in the Department of Economics at University of Alicante; he thanks for the kind hospitality of this institution. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant CICYT BEC2001-0535 (Faulí-Oller) and BEC2001-0980 (Ortu?o-Ortín). Correspondence to:I. Ortu?o-Ortin     

Bandwagon mergers,international competitiveness,and government policy

This paper suggests that while the static welfare losses of merger predilections among Western firms may not be dramatic, they may lead to substantial dynamic losses when merger-prone firms need to compete with firms which instead focus on equipment investment and investments in R&D. It is suggested that such diverging investment priorities have been the real cause of the deteriorating competitiveness of many of the largest Western enterprises vis-à-vis their Japanese rivals. While mergers are generally taken to be determined by either efficiency or monopoly considerations, this paper argues that Western merger predilections are likely to be generated by a combination of imitative and defensive routines as well. That would make it difficult for firms to unilaterally break away from these competitiveness-threatening investments. If correct, this would imply that competition policies would need to be refocused. However, it is also suggested that the implications for international competitiveness should make merger questions a subject of industrial policies too. In that respect, the paper suggests some basic attitudinal changes.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a Global Forum for Competition and Trade Policy conference in Vienna and at a EUNIP workshop at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (contract nos. 54473 and 57305) and the European Commission (contract no. ERB CHRX CT94-0454), research assistance from Michel Renirie and Chee-Wai Chan, and helpful comments from the conference and workshop participants, especially Kurt Bayer and Keith Cowling, are gratefully acknowledged. Only the author is responsible for the contents of, and any flaws in the paper.     

Estimating Willingness to Pay for Improved Drinking Water Quality Using Averting Behavior Method with Perception Measure

This paper suggests an application of an averting behaviormethod to reconcile inconsistent public activity with objectiveenvironmental risk. In Korea, an historically polluted watersupply has created citizen resistance to using tap water. Koreansperceive low quality levels for tap water, although objectivelymeasured data show that the pollution levels are lower than theacceptable risk. We hypothesized that the irrational aversion tousing tap water is a consequence of inconsistencies between theobjectively measured and perceived pollution levels. We introducethe perception averting behavior method, in which we add aperception measure unit to the conventional averting behaviormethod. We found that the perception measure provided a validexplanation for citizens' aversion to using tap water in Korea.     

基于协同平台的高校教师科研绩效评价体系

在研究组织人员行为绩效评价体系的基础上,分析了传统的KPI(key performance indicator)评价方式所面临的主要问题,提出针对高校教师科研绩效进行分类建模,并设计相应的绩效指标、绩效算法及评价体系来解决问题。最后,用某院教职工2015—2019年在协同信息管理平台上的行为数据,检验了该体系的有效性及合理性,并针对基于协同平台的高校教师科研绩效评价体系的结果分析,提出高校科研管理及绩效激励方案。     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

绿色财务管理的短期均衡分析

当前,生态问题日趋严重,这种状况的形成主要是人类自身行为造成的,人们虽然已经越来越多地认识到其危害性,但是在经济利益的驱使下,人类的这种破坏行为并没有真正停止或减少。作为微观经济主体的企业,它的行为对生态问题的影响非常重要,所以必须改变企业的经济行为。作为经济主体其目标就是为了获取经济利益,只有保证其有一定经济利益的情况下,来改变其行为以利于解决生态问题才是可行的。鉴于此,本文从市场上各类企业的经济行为特点入手,来探讨解决问题的途径。     

Cost Structures and Nash Play in Repeated Cournot Games

This paper reports an experiment designed to assess the effects of a rotation in the marginal cost curve on convergence in a repeated Cournot triopoly. Increasing the cost curve's slope both reduces the serially-undominated set to the Nash prediction, and increases the peakedness of earnings. We observe higher rates of Nash equilibrium play in the design with the steeper marginal cost schedule, but only when participants are also rematched after each decision. Examination of response patterns suggests that the treatment with a steeper marginal cost curve and with a re-matching of participants across periods induces the selection of Nash Consistent responses.