Effects of price sorting display on extreme option choice aversion: The role of ease of comparison in multiple option displays

Due to the popularity of online travel agency (OTA) booking platforms, OTAs display diverse information, including features of products, on their websites. Based on choice architecture literature, this study aimed to examine the effect of product quality and price sorting (vs. non-sorting) on extreme option choice aversion and identify the moderating effect of displays that made it difficult to read information. The results of a series of four experimental studies (total n = 2838 online panel members) demonstrated that the tendency to choose the non-extreme or middle-attributed options was stronger when quality and price were displayed sorted (vs. non-sorted). It was theorized that easy comparison of multiple options leads to decision-making. The positive effect of quality and price sorting on extreme option choice aversion was significantly reduced when customers had difficulty reading the displayed information.     

使用基于组合的回归方法检验A股市场动量效应的存在性

本文引入基于组合的回归方法探讨A股市场个股动量效应的存在性。基于组合的回归方法可以允许同时考察个股动量效应、规模效应和价值效应。本文的实证研究结果表明A股市场存在个股动量效应,将价值效应和规模效应纳入对个股动量效应的考察并不改变这一结论,但选择同时属于赢者个股动量效应组合和赢者价值效应组合的个股可以获得更高的期望收益。     

The good,the bad and the ugly: agent behavior and efficiency in open and closed organizations

Current literature has largely ignored the fact that some organizations are highly selective when admitting new agents while others are more open. In addition, some organizations audit or sort agent behavior within the organization more aggressively than others. One might expect a priori that closed, highly selective, organizations would always be more efficient because they screen out the worst types, which could lead to better agent behavior. We show that this is not the case. Specifically, when agent behavior in equilibrium is uniform across organizations (i.e., when the number of agents behaving the same way is identical), closed organizations are inefficient. However, when agent behavior varies across organizations, closed organizations may or may not be inefficient, depending on net payoffs to the organization and the agents. Our analysis implies that organizations should choose the open type when screening or sorting costs are high, when there is a high frequency of good agent types in the population, when agent misbehavior does not reduce output significantly, and when penalties for misbehavior are large. The paper has benefitted from useful comments by David Flath, Charles Knoeber, Claudio Mezzetti, two anonymous referees and participants of the Spring 2005 Midwest Economic Theory meetings at Vanderbilt University, the 2005 meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory in Vigo, Spain, the 2005 conference on Research in Economic Theory and Econometrics in Syros, Greece, and workshops at North Carolina State University, Texas A&M University and McGill University.     

Performance pay and worker cooperation: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment

We report the results of an artefactual field experiment with bicycle messengers in Switzerland and the United States. Messenger work is individualized enough that firms can choose to condition pay on it, but significant externalities in messenger behavior nonetheless give their on-the-job interactions the character of a social dilemma. Second-mover behavior in our sequential prisoner's dilemma allows us to characterize the cooperativeness of our participants. Among messengers, we find that employees at firms that pay for performance are significantly less cooperative than those at firms that pay hourly wages or who are members of cooperatives. To examine whether the difference is the result of treatment or selection we exploit the fact that firm type is location-specific in Switzerland and that entering messengers must work in performance pay firms in the U.S.     

Voting on voting with the feet: a cross-county analysis of the Tennessee popular referenda to secede from the union

We analyze a unique case of voting on voting with the feet, when Tennessee twice considered secession from the Union in 1861 by popular referenda. The initial votes to hold a convention, and to send disunion delegates to a convention, failed, but after the Confederate states adopted a new constitution and the bombing of Fort Sumter took place, a second set of votes to separate from the union, and to join the confederacy, passed. Regression results support the importance of both economic interests and political tendencies, along with regional differences, in explaining the variation in votes across counties. Class distinctions were not found to be significant.

Selecting between batch and zone order picking strategies in a distribution center

An order picking strategy in a distribution center (DC) defines the manner in which pickers navigate the picking area to pick items from storage locations. We focus on the problem of selecting between a batch picking and a zone picking strategy. For this problem, we propose a cost model to estimate the cost of each type of picking strategy. In our cost model we consider the effects of pick-rate, picker blocking, workload-imbalance, and the sorting system requirement. Through an example problem, we show how system throughput, order sizes, item distribution in orders, and wavelength affect the picking strategy selection decision.     

城市房价与全要素生产率:“挤出效应”与“筛选效应”

本文主要关注城市房价对整体全要素生产率和企业个体全要素生产率影响的差异性,重点分析城市房价上涨对工业企业的"筛选效应"与"倒逼效应"。利用230个地级市数据和微观工业企业数据,采用工具变量法分别检验了房价对城市整体以及工业企业全要素生产率的差异性影响。实证结果表明,城市高房价显著抑制了城市全要素生产率水平的提升,这种抑制效应主要来自房地产投资对实体经济资金的"挤占效应"和"资源错配效应"。城市房价快速上涨对工业企业的"筛选效应",使房价快速增长城市工业企业的全要素生产率一般会较高。如果对留存企业的"倒逼效应"难以抵消房价上涨带来的效率损失时,房价快速上涨累积形成的高房价与工业企业生产率之间会存在一种"倒U型"曲线关系。城市房价快速上涨对服务业企业的"锁定效应"与生产率的"侵蚀效应",使房价快速上涨及高房价城市中工业企业全要素生产率较高,但城市整体生产率水平较低。稳健性分析也支持了以上研究结论。     

Identification in a model of sorting with social externalities and the causes of urban segregation

This paper discusses nonparametric identification in a model of sorting in which location choices depend on the location choices of other agents as well as prices and exogenous location characteristics. In this model, demand slopes and hence preferences are not identifiable without further restrictions because of the absence of independent variation of endogenous composition and exogenous location characteristics. Several solutions of this problem are presented and applied to data on neighborhoods in US cities. These solutions use exclusion restrictions, based on either subgroup demand shifters, the spatial structure of externalities, or the dynamics of prices and composition in response to an amenity shock. The empirical results consistently suggest the presence of strong social externalities, that is a dependence of location choices on neighborhood composition.     

O‐Ring production on U.S. hog farms: joint choices of farm size,technology, and compensation

We hypothesize that hog production can be characterized by complementarities between new technologies, worker skills, and farms size. Such production processes are consistent with Kremer's O‐ring production theory in which a single mistake in any one of several complementary tasks in a firm's production process can lead to catastrophic failure of the product's value. In hog production, mistakes that introduce disease or pathogens into the production facility can cause a total loss of the herd. Consistent with predictions derived from the O‐ring theory, we provide evidence that the most skilled workers concentrate in the largest and most technologically advanced farms and are paid more than comparable workers on smaller farms. These findings suggest that worker skills, new technologies, and farm size are complements in production. The complementarities create returns to scale to large hog confinements, consistent with the dramatic increase in market share of very large farms over the past 20 years.