The sufficiency strategy: Would rich-world frugality lower environmental impact?

One alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less. This sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs; the former would reduce the affluence factor in I = PAT, the latter the technology factor. That the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized. This paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered: The lower initial demand lowers prices, which in turn stimulates new demand by others. The strategy moreover addresses only the rich, raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy. Its proponents usually conflate frugality with the North-South dichotomy and intragenerational with intergenerational equity. Moreover, there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one’s own sake as well as for the environment, and that the rich should ‘lead the way’ to living more lightly. Personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts. Finally, since all changes in right-side factors of the I = PAT equation change other right-side factors, such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas.     

Information aggregation in financial markets with career concerns

What are the equilibrium features of a dynamic financial market in which traders care about their reputation for ability? We modify a standard sequential trading model to include traders with career concerns. We show that this market cannot be informationally efficient: there is no equilibrium in which prices converge to the true value, even after an infinite sequence of trades. We characterize the most revealing equilibrium of this game and show that an increase in the strength of the traders' reputational concerns has a negative effect on the extent of information that can be revealed in equilibrium but a positive effect on market liquidity.     

Tari–tax reforms and market access

Reducing taris and increasing consumption taxes is a standard IMF advice to countries that want to open up their economy without hurting government finances. Indeed, theoretical analysis of such a tari–tax reform shows an unambiguous increase in welfare and government revenues. The present paper examines whether the country that implements such a reform ends up opening up its markets to international trade, i.e. whether its market access improves. It is shown that this is not necessarily so. We also show that, comparing to the reform of only taris, the tari–tax reform is a less efficient proposal to follow both as far as it concerns market access and welfare.     

Self-interest, sympathy and the origin of endowments

We explore whether the recent laboratory findings that suggest the origin of endowment matters in simple bargaining games are actually due to contextual shifts of relative effort and deservingness. Results support previous findings of endowment origin yielding more self-interested behavior.     

考虑批量订货的易腐农产品配送中心选址方法

为提高物流管理绩效、降低物流运作成本,考虑到配送中心的批量订货和作业能力限制,建立了易腐农产品配送中心选址问题的0-1整数非线性规划模型,并利用Lingo 9.0软件进行了模型求解.利用该模型可以确定配送中心的位置和各配送中心与零售店之间的配送关系,并可得到配送中心的订货周期和订货批量.最后,通过算例验证了模型的有效性.     

Trajectories in human domination of ecosystems: Human appropriation of net primary production in the Philippines during the 20th century

The “human appropriation of net primary production” (HANPP) has been suggested as a comprehensive indicator to measure impacts of human land use on ecosystems. It accounts for (a) human-induced changes in biological productivity and (b) biomass harvest. This study presents an analysis of aboveground HANPP in the Philippines between 1910 and 2003, a period characterized by massive deforestation and increases in land use intensity and biomass extraction. Results show a steep increase of aboveground HANPP from just below 35% of potential productivity in 1910 to slightly above 60% in 1970 and constant values since then. Large-scale changes in land cover and agricultural practices were the main direct determinants of this trajectory in HANPP. Remarkably, HANPP grew at much slower pace than population did: While the amount of NPP appropriated by humans doubled throughout the period, population increased by a factor ten. Increasing efficiency in terms of biomass extraction per unit of area, relying on ever-increasing inputs, and changes in the nation's physical biomass trade balance were of major importance for this difference in growth rates. In the coming decades, the Philippines will have to face the challenge to meet increases in biomass demand without putting even higher strains on the ecosystems.     

关于“十五”计划的几个问题

《国民经济和社会发展第十个五年计划纲要》准确反映了党的十五届五中全会提出的大政方针、发展目标、重大任务和主要政策措施,充分体现了国家战略意图,是我国国民经济和社会发展的行动纲领。     

初选阶段知识联盟成员评价与选择模型

根据知识联盟成员选择与形成的实际过程,将知识联盟成员的选择分为初选和谈判(精选)两个阶段。在综合国外联盟实践经验及影响联盟成败的实证性研究结论的基础上,分析了知识联盟成员初选阶段影响联盟成败的关键变量,以此构建了知识联盟成员初选模型,并依据指标间的相互关系,提出了基于二值变量的初选阶段评价方法。     

The (Dis)Advantage of Friendship on Information Search and Satisfaction

Across four experiments, and focusing on consumer behaviour in a high uncertainty market (i.e., a used car market), this research shows that prior to a purchase, buyers are less motivated to search for information when they purchase a product from a friend (compared to someone they do not know). We also show that buyers are more willing to search for information after a transaction when sellers are their friends, a reversal in search behaviour due to the greater social risk that buyers bear when dealing with a friend. Finally, this research shows that both the transaction outcome (i.e., positive versus negative) and the buyer–seller relationship determine the degree to which people are satisfied or dissatisfied with a seller. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age‐Dependent Increasing Risk Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle

We introduce a new preference structure—age‐dependent increasing risk aversion (IRA)—in a three‐period overlapping generations model with borrowing constraints, and examine the behavior of equity premium in this framework. We find that IRA preferences generate results that are more consistent with U.S. data for the equity premium, level of savings and portfolio shares, without assuming unreasonable levels of risk aversion. We find that the relative difference between the two risk aversions (how much more risk‐averse old agents are relative to the middle‐aged) matters more than the average risk aversion in the economy (how much more risk‐averse both cohorts are). Our findings are robust with respect to a number of model generalizations.