The willingness to pay–willingness to accept gap: A failed replication of Plott and Zeiler

The well-known willingness to pay–willingness to accept (WTP–WTA) gap refers to the observation that individuals attach a higher value to objects they own (WTA) than to objects they do not own (WTP). We report on experiments to re-investigate the possibility that the WTP–WTA gap arises from subject misconceptions due to experimental procedures as suggested by Plott and Zeiler (2005). The contribution of this paper is two-fold: first, we attempt to replicate the findings by Plott and Zeiler that the WTP–WTA gap disappears when using procedures that are aimed at reducing misconceptions, such as extensive training and practice rounds for the BDM mechanism. However, we fail to do so as the WTP–WTA gap persists in the main task where subjects state their WTA or WTP for a mug. Second, we use the paid practice rounds to identify subjects without apparent misconceptions and find that also for those subjects who never make dominated choices in the lottery tasks, the WTP–WTA gap in the mug task exists. Thus, we find no evidence of the idea that subject misconceptions are the main source of the WTP–WTA gap.     

Consideration of technological and environmental heterogeneity in cost efficiency analysis

In order to evaluate and compare the efficiency levels across banking industries, we adopt the meta-frontier model that can assess the technological difference among countries. Given the importance of country specific conditions, we include in our analysis the different specificities of each country to incorporate the technological as the environmental differences in the evaluation of banking efficiencies. Using data on the banking industries of several countries in the MENA region, over the period 1991–2011, the results of the efficiency scores corrected by the technological and environmental gap led us to conclude that Egyptian banks are the most efficient in terms of cost compared with banks in other countries. Egyptian banks enjoy a very favourable banking technology. Our results support the hypothesis that traditional techniques of efficiency analysis based on the efficiency scores of a specific and pooled frontier tend to mystify efficiency levels and may incorrectly identify efficient banks. This paper contributes to the efficiency literature by incorporating technological and environmental heterogeneities in the evaluation of efficiency. This helps to characterize the production process of a bank and provides common standards by which the efficiencies of banks in different countries can be compared in a meaningful way with each other.     

Policy‐related implementational fluidity in subsistence marketplaces

This paper sheds light on policy‐related implementational fluidity—a context‐dependent adaptation of policies—adopted by policy implementers to address heterogeneous needs of subsistence consumer‐merchants (SCMs). In subsistence research, despite the emphasis on bottom‐up policymaking, implementational fluidity persists because of institutional and sociocultural factors that hinder policy implementers’ from effectively and accurately implementing the policies. To enrich the current bottom‐up policy process, this paper shares insights from an ethnographic study of Fijian market traders and marketplace personnel (policy implementers) and shares insights on how implementational fluidity manifests in subsistence marketplaces. Analysis reveals the interplay amongst sociohistorical context, marketplace relational dynamics and policies leading to policy adjustments and re‐negotiation by marketplace personnel and perceived injustices amongst the SCMs. The paper provides policy recommendations and practice ideas for subsistence researchers and policy practitioners to examine policy implementation gaps and the role of policy implementers in subsistence marketplaces.     

What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.     

How much is the gap?—Efficient jump risk-adjusted valuation of leveraged certificates

This paper develops a novel and highly efficient numerical algorithm for the gap risk-adjusted valuation of leveraged certificates. The existing literature relies on Monte Carlo simulations, which are not fast enough to be used in a market-making environment. This is because issuers need to compute thousands of price updates per second. By valuing leveraged certificates as multi-window barrier options, we explicitly model random jumps that occur at known times, such as between the exchange closing and re-opening. Our algorithm combines the one-day transition probability with Simpson’s numerical integration rule. This yields a backward induction scheme which requires a significantly coarser spatial and time grid than finite-difference methods. We confirm its robustness and accuracy through Monte Carlo simulations.     

经济增长与不平等对我国农村脱贫时间的影响

选择FGT贫困指数和脱贫时间指数，利用世界银行公布的我国农村贫困线和收入分配分组数据。对比分析了1981年-2005年以来的农村贫困变化趋势。研究发现，农村贫困状况虽然总体上呈缓解趋势，但在脱贫时间指数的构成中，由于不平等所延长的脱贫时间，无论从绝对量还是相对量上都明显提高，这说明收入分配的恶化已经成为反贫困的严重障碍，这种变化趋势值得高度关注。     

当代中国收入分化的现状及主要原因

中国在现代化进程中面临着一些现代性问题的困扰,其中,贫富分化成为社会矛盾的焦点之一。改革开放以来,中国居民生活水平得到整体提升,但也出现了结构上的分化。造成贫富差距的原因是复杂多重的。其中,城乡二元体制造成了城乡资源分配不公和收入差距,垄断行业的存在则使得资源在少部分群体中集聚,加深了贫富之间的鸿沟。此外,中国的社会保障制度没能充分发挥其调节作用,使得部分底层群体无法解决温饱问题,造成"极贫"群体的出现。值得关注的是,单位体制下的既得利益者,在住房制度改革后又获得福利性住房,住房不公平由此产生财产不公平。国家对于不断拉大的收入差距主要采取宏观政策加以调控,改革财税制度和完善社会保障同时进行,但这并不能因此改变由城乡二元体制和垄断等所带来的必然结果,因而只能起到局部调节收入差距的效果,不能实现真正的社会公正。     

To each his own: Matching different entrepreneurial models to the academic scientist's individual needs

This paper presents a comparative case study of academic group leaders, active in three different scientific fields at a leading Swiss technical university. It examines the obstacles that prevent scientists from commercializing their technologies and how they can be reduced. Traditional models of technology transfer assume that scientists prefer either to 'go it alone' and become entrepreneurs (the inventor entrepreneur model) or to let go of their technologies to people interested in their commercialization (the surrogate entrepreneur model). The results of qualitative research suggest that these two models capture the extremes of a continuum populated by a variety of intermediate situations where scientists are unwilling completely to let go of their findings, but also do not want to become full time entrepreneurs. This results in considerable commercial potential that is unexploited. The Founding Angels approach might be a solution to this problem; it is designed for academics in these intermediate situations. The study contributes to the literature on university-industry technology transfer and should be useful for practitioners and scientists interested in maximizing the synergies between academia and industry.     

外资进入、竞争与性别就业差异

在中国性别就业差异持续扩大的背景下，文章基于2004-2007年的中国工业企业数据库检验了外资进入是如何通过竞争效应对企业性别就业差异产生影响的。结果显示，外资进入程度越高的地区与行业具有越低的性别就业差异，外资进入程度每增加1%，我国内资企业女性就业份额将会增加0.0407%，且这一结果在考虑了抽样偏倚、不同外资范围的界定、使用不同外资进入程度衡量标准和控制内生性后依然十分稳健。进一步的研究显示，外资进入通过提高企业面临的竞争程度来促使以利润最大化为目标的企业雇佣更多成本较低的女性劳动力，进而降低性别就业差异。更为重要的是，外资进入产生的竞争效应对于性别差异的影响在不同受教育群体之间存在差异，其对受过高等教育，特别是受过研究生以上教育的群体影响最大。文章结论表明，在经济全球化背景下完善市场竞争机制和提高女性受教育程度将有利于减少性别就业差异。此外，文章也为研究外资进入的社会经济影响提供了不一样的思路。