Selling to strategic customers with cost uncertainty

Production cost can be influenced by previous sales in an uncertain way. In reality, production cost may decrease in the number of initial buyers due to the learning effect, or increase in the number of initial buyers due to the quality-improving pressure from negative comments of unhappy users. Taking this uncertainty into account, this paper studies the optimal intertemporal pricing strategies of a firm when selling to strategic customers in two periods where production cost in the second period randomly changes with the number of buyers in the first period. Our results suggest how firms should adjust their optimal pricing strategies under different market circumstances.     

On the optimality of social status seeking

We present an endogenous growth model in which households display their social status by holding not only capital but also bonds. According to conventional wisdom, the quest for social status provides an incentive for individuals to accumulate wealth, which stimulates economic growth and elevates it to a socially optimal level. Instead, we show that portfolio allocation is crucial to the growth-enhancing effect of the quest for social status. If households exhibit their social status by accumulating physical capital and holding government bonds, the quest for social status may not increase economic growth. As a result, social status seeking cannot achieve the social optimum. Calibrating our model to data, we find that if government bonds constitute part of the wealth for households’ quest for social status, the quest for social status decreases economic growth.     

Exact parametric restrictions for 3-cycles in the RSS model: A complete and comprehensive characterization

This paper presents necessary and sufficient conditions for 3-period cycles in the two-sector Robinson–Solow–Srinivasan (RSS) model, taking as its point of departure an independently-(and simultaneously-) discovered exact discount-factor restriction for a general class of growth models by Mitra and Nishimura–Yano (MNY) in 1996. Our investigation of this remarkable result in the specificity of the RSS model enables a broadened inquiry that goes beyond the discount factor to parameters of labor-productivity and capital-depreciation. Since the RSS model, despite its concrete simplicity, is not covered by the general MNY model, the exact discount-factor restriction presented here does not follow from the MNY theorem, and necessitates new argumentation. Furthermore, we present a novel exact parametric region as our second result.     

The optimal tax on antebellum US cotton exports

The US produced about 80% of the world’s cotton in the decades prior to the Civil War. How much monopoly power did the US possess in the world cotton market and what would have been the effect of an optimal export tax? This paper estimates the elasticity of foreign demand for US cotton exports and uses the elasticity in a simple partial equilibrium model to calculate the optimal export tax and its effect on prices, trade, and welfare. The results indicate that the export demand elasticity for US cotton was about −1.7 and that the optimal export tax of about 50% would have raised US welfare by about $10 million, about 0.3% of US GDP or about 1% of the South’s GDP.     

A portfolio approach to endogenous growth: equilibrium and optimal policy

This paper develops a portfolio approach to modeling endogenous growth in continuous time that is especially suitable for addressing fiscal and financial issues in policy design. The analysis focuses on the equilibrium relationship between fiscal and financial policy, rates of return and wealth allocation. We analyze two models. The first is based on the Arrow-Romer model with increasing returns and an external effect of capital on labor productivity. The second draws on Barro's analysis of government spending and endogenous growth. In both models, we study the equilibrium allocation and discuss the optimal fiscal and financial policy.     

Confidence intervals of the premiums of optimal bonus malus systems

In view of the economic importance of motor third-party liability insurance in developed countries the construction of optimal BMS has been given considerable interest. However, a major drawback in the construction of optimal BMS is that they fail to account for the variability on premium calculations which are treated as point estimates. The present study addresses this issue. Specifically, nonparametric mixtures of Poisson laws are used to construct an optimal BMS with a finite number of classes. The mixing distribution is estimated by nonparametric maximum likelihood (NPML). The main contribution of this paper is the use of the NPML estimator for the construction of confidence intervals for the premium rates derived by updating the posterior mean claim frequency. Furthermore, we advance one step further by improving the performance of the confidence intervals based on a bootstrap procedure where the estimated mixture is used for resampling. The construction of confidence intervals for the individual premiums based on the asymptotic maximum likelihood theory is beneficial for the insurance company as it can result in accurate and effective adjustments to the premium rating policies from a practical point of view.     

Optimal interest rate stabilization in a basic sticky-price model

This paper studies optimal monetary policy with the nominal interest rate as the single policy instrument. Firms set prices in a staggered way without indexation and real money balances contribute separately to households’ utility. The optimal deterministic steady state under commitment is the Friedman rule—even if the importance assigned to the utility of money is small relative to consumption and leisure. We approximate the model around the optimal steady state as the long-run policy target. Optimal monetary policy is characterized by stabilization of the nominal interest rate instead of inflation stabilization as the predominant principle.     

Integration, agglomeration and welfare

This paper studies the social desirability of agglomeration, and the efficiency arguments for policy intervention in a simple, analytically tractable new economic geography model. The location pattern emerging as market equilibrium is ‘bubble-shaped’, i.e. it features dispersion both at high and low trade costs and stable equilibria with partial and full agglomeration for intermediate levels of trade costs. We show that the market equilibrium is characterized by over-agglomeration for high trade costs and under-agglomeration for low trade costs, and we work out analytically that a net pecuniary externality is the underlying cause of this market failure. One particularly noteworthy result is that the net pecuniary externality is positive at high levels of trade freeness. However, there is no market under-agglomeration unless this positive net pecuniary externality interacts with an additional congestion force originating in the (per se efficient) competitive housing market.     

绿色PPP项目组合的最优契约:经济与环境效应的福利视角

绿色PPP搭配高收益项目的激励方式是吸引社会资本参与环境治理的举措之一。本文基于经济与环境的双重福利效应,从理论上研究了该激励方式的契约设计问题,阐释了博弈均衡的存在性以及最优特许期的形成逻辑和关键决定因素。研究表明:第一,绿色PPP搭配高收益项目能够提高企业利润,激发社会资本参与环境治理来应对环境风险。第二,政企双方博弈决策模式决定了契约能否订立。如果独立决策,使企业利润最大的特许期也能够带来最高的环境效益,但此时博弈结果展现为“刀刃上的均衡”,契约难以建立;如果合作博弈,双方最优特许期选择达成一致,契约得以订立,政府向企业让渡经济利润而收获环境效益,最终实现经济与环境福利的双赢。第三,绿色PPP搭配高收益项目优于传统政府补贴的激励方式,在收获同等环境效益的基础上,能够带动社会总福利的提升。研究结论为绿色PPP搭配高收益项目激励方式的推广实施、从而助力实现碳达峰和碳中和战略目标提供了契约设计理论依据和相关框架。     

Capital Structure and Assets: Effects of an Implicit Collateral

This paper analyses a firm's capital structure choice when assets have outside value. Valuable assets implicitly provide a collateral and increase tax shield exploitation. The key feature in this paper is asset value uncertainty, implying that it is unknown ex ante whether the equity holders ex post optimally sell the assets or re‐optimise the capital structure. Ex ante, more uncertain asset value decreases leverage, but not firm value, and selling the assets becomes less likely. Firms should tend to invest in assets whose value is less correlated to changes in earnings and, in addition, asset sales are less likely when this correlation is low.