Technology adoption and accumulation in a vintage-capital model

We present a model of capital accumulation and technology adoption in a vintage-capital framework. The model is an infinite-horizon/infinite-dimensional optimal control model: the firm employs a continuum of technologies (a continuum of heterogeneous capital goods). Capital goods are technology specific, their technology is related to vintage and technology progress. The entrepreneur maximizes the profits obtained by employing a continuum of technologies under the assumption of constant returns to scale and bearing adjustment costs for gross investments. The diffusion of a new technology is established by allowing the entrepreneur to invest in vintage capital goods.     

Conditional Cooperation and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods

We compare a partners condition , where the same small group of subjects plays a repeated public good game, to a strangers condition , where subjects play this game in changing group formations. From the first period onward, subjects in the partners condition contribute significantly more to the public good than subjects in the strangers condition. Strangers' contributions show continual decay, while partners' contributions fluctuate on a high level prior to decreasing in the final periods. We interpret subjects' behaviour in terms of conditional cooperation which is characterized by both future-oriented and reactive behaviour.
JEL classifications: C 91; C 92; H 41     

双边市场视角下的中国特大型城市展览馆定价行为和机制研究

展览市场具有双边市场的性质：以展览馆作为平台企业,连接参展商和参观者两类市场顾客,来进行交易性的或展示性的活动。本文在双边市场理论模型的基础上,结合满足中国展览业国情,尤其是特大型城市展览馆的运营特征,从非对称条件的角度构建了3种展览馆定价机制模型：（1）参展商可以识别不同类型观众;（2）参展商不可以识别各种类型的观众;（3）展览馆对不同类型观众进行参观时段限制。通过三种模型的推理与演算,我们对特大型城市展览馆的定价行为和机制进行了定量研究,在得出最优解的同时我们还结合实际对模型的结构进行了深入分析,使得本论文不仅在理论和研究方法上有所突破,更具有实践上的指导意义。     

Contracting with capacity constrained suppliers

This paper characterizes the optimal and efficient mechanisms to allocate simultaneously two substitute tasks to two suppliers. Two main results emerge from this analysis. First, even under some regularity conditions efficiency and optimality do not systematically coincide. Efficiency can always be achieved using some second price auctions which are optimal when both suppliers compete for the same task. When there is competition for different tasks the optimal production is distorted from efficiency over a nondegenerate interval of types so as to extract the full surplus over that interval. Second, full extraction of the surplus may still guarantee incentive compatibility. Received: November 2, 1998; revised version: March 2, 2000     

基于高速公路客运网络的小物件配送新方法研究

针对现有利用高速公路客运车辆捎带小件货物的现象,以基于高速公路网络的小物件配送作为研究对象,将这种点对点的捎货方式扩展为遍布山东省内整个客运网络的小物件配送研究,在阐述基本思想的同时提出可行方案,并建立数学模型进行求解,从而有效减少配送时间和配送费用,为小件货物运送提供新方式并为物流配送系统研究提供新思想。     

Reviewing Oates' insights in a repeated game setting

This paper analyzes the optimal assignment of public good policies to layers of a federal system in a repeated game setting. Under a centralized regime, public goods are financed jointly across regions, and a federal legislature decides on the regional quantities. Under a decentralized regime, public goods are financed locally, and governments play a non-cooperative provision game. We find that a centralized (decentralized) regime is more likely to provide the efficient public good policies in case spillovers are small (large). Received: September 2003, Accepted: October 2004 JEL Classification: H11, H41 I wish to thank Clemens Fuest, Anke Kessler, Christoph Lülfesmann, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on this paper. Financial support by the DFG (SPP 1142) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Spatial externalities and agglomeration in a competitive industry

We introduce spatial spillovers as an externality in the production function of competitive firms operating within a finite spatial domain under adjustment costs. Spillovers may attenuate with distance and the overall externality could contain positive and negative components with the overall effect being positive. We show that when the spatial externality is not internalized by firms, spatial agglomerations may emerge endogenously in a competitive equilibrium. The result does not require increasing returns at the private or the social level, increasing marginal productivity of private capital with respect to the externality, or location advantages. In fact agglomerations may emerge with decreasing returns to scale, declining marginal productivity of private capital with respect to the externality, and no location advantage. The result depends on the interactions between the structures of production technology and spatial effects as shown in the paper. No agglomerations emerge at the social optimum when spillovers are internalized and diminishing returns both from the private and the social point of view prevail. Numerical experiments with Cobb–Douglas and CES technologies and an isoelastic demand confirm our theoretical predictions.     

Public goods provision: Unit-by-unit cost-sharing rules and the core

In a simple model of one public good producible from one input, we show that unit-by-unit cost-sharing rules have two properties. First, a unit-by-unit cost-sharing rulealways chooses a core allocation. Second, every allocation in the core will be chosen by at least one unit-by-unit cost-shring rule. We argue that costs should be shared on a unit-by-unit basis. We propose a simple mechanism to implement the family of unit-by-unit rules. Received: 18 May 2005, Accepted: 6 December 2005 JEL Classification: H41, C72, D78 I thank Hervé Moulin for helpful comments and discussions. All errors are mine. Financial support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council under grant RGC-DAG99/00.BM52 is gratefully acknowledged.     

双边市场、不完全信息与二级价格歧视

本文研究了双边市场二级价格歧视问题。本文构建了包括广告商、消费者、垄断平台在内的两阶段博弈模型,研究了在最优与次优情况下平台的定价机制,分析了二级价格歧视对平台利润、社会福利等的影响。研究表明:(1)"顶部无扭曲"或"底部无扭曲"并不严格成立;(2)平台对观众提供的节目质量、广告插播量均可能出现类型逆转的情况;(3)二级价格歧视会增加社会总福利;(4)"会员制"是平台可能的占优定价机制之一。     

Crowdfunding and social influence: an empirical investigation

The literature so far provides no in-depth investigation of the determinants of decisions to contribute to crowdfunding platforms. The present article draws on work measuring the decisions and prosocial behaviours of individuals in relation to public goods, and uses survey data on crowdfunding behaviour. We surveyed an original sample of individuals in France to explore individual decisions and amounts of funding chosen to support a creative project. We show that in non-equity crowdfunding contributing money is associated with altruism. Our findings suggest that the ‘warm glow’ effect influences the level of the contribution; we show also those monetary incentives could ‘crowd out’ the decisions to contribute of crowdfunders. Our study has some implications for business strategy since understanding why people contribute adds to our knowledge about the incentives that might encourage them to increase their contributions, and allows predictions about how changes to how crowdfunding platforms are managed might affect individual incentives to give.