Discounting long run average growth in stochastic dynamic programs

Summary. Finding solutions to the Bellman equation often relies on restrictive boundedness assumptions. In this paper we develop a method of proof that allows to dispense with the assumption that returns are bounded from above. In applications our assumptions only imply that long run average (expected) growth is sufficiently discounted, in sharp contrast with classical assumptions either absolutely bounding growth or bounding each period (instead of long run) maximum (instead of average) growth. We discuss our work in relation to the literature and provide several examples. Received: July 26, 2000; revised version: July 10, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I am specially grateful to Cuong Le Van and to anonymous referee for detecting an error in a previous version of this paper and for suggestions that sensibly improved the paper. Comments and suggestions are also acknowledged to Michele Boldrin, Raouf Boucekkine, Fabrice Collard, Tim Kehoe, Omar Licandro, and Luis Puch. I am also indebted to participants to the III Summer School on Economic Theory held at the Universidade de Vigo, the Macroeconomics Workshop at the Universitat Autò}noma de Barcelona, and the Econometrics Seminar at Tilburg University. Financial support from the Belgian government, under project PAI P4/01, at the IRES-UCL, from a European Marie Curie fellowship, Grant HPMF-CT-1999-00410, at the CEPREMAP, and from IVIE and Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER, under project BEC2001-0535, at the Universidad de Alicante, is gratefully acknowledged.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

An algebraic theory of portfolio allocation

Summary. Using group and majorization theory, we explore what can be established about allocation of funds among assets when asymmetries in the returns vector are carefully controlled. The key insight is that preferences over allocations can be partially ordered via majorized convex hulls that have been generated by a permutation group. Group transitivity suffices to ensure complete portfolio diversification. Point-wise stabilizer subgroups admit sectoral separability in fund allocations. We also bound the admissible allocation vector by a set of linear constraints the coefficients of which are determined by group operations on location and scale asymmetries in the rate of returns vector. For a distribution that is symmetric under a reflection group, the linear constraints may be further strengthened whenever there exists an hyperplane that separates convex sets. Received: May 15, 2001; revised version: March 20, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Journal paper No. J-19797 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa. Project No. 3463, and supported by Hatch Act and State of Iowa funds. Correspondence to: D. A. Hennessy     

An axiomatic approach to \boldsymbol{\varepsilon}-contamination

Summary.  Suppose that an economic agent is 100% certain that uncertainty she faces is characterized by a particular probability measure, but that she has a fear that, with 100% chance, her conviction is completely wrong and she is left perfectly ignorant about the true measure in the present as well as in the future. This situation is often called -contamination of confidence. The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple set of behavioral axioms under which the decision-makers preference is represented by the Choquet expected utility with the -contamination of confidence.Received: 25 November 2002, Revised: 15 November 2004, JEL Classification Numbers:   D81. Correspondence to: Hiroyuki OzakiWe are grateful to an anonymous referee. The referees comments greatly improved the exposition of the paper. The work reported here is partially supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Insitute, the Cabinet Office, the Government of Japan.     

Inequality and Income Distribution in Global Value Chains

Global value chains (GVCs), led by transnational corporations (TNCs), have reshaped the world division of labor over the past two decades. GVCs are pervasive in low technology manufacturing, such as textile and apparel, as well as in more advanced industries like automobiles, electronics, and machines. This hierarchical division of labor generates wild competition at the lower value-added stages of production, where low wages and low profit margins prevail for workers and contract manufacturers in developing countries. At the top of the hierarchy another kind of competition prevails, centered on the ability to monitor and control intellectual property rights related to innovation, finance, and marketing. We argue that GVCs have had crucial effects on income inequality and the appropriation of rents in modern capitalism.     

借贷合同案件的证明责任分配

民事案件证明责任分配不统一的问题引起学术界与司法实务界的关注。与侵权诉讼中的证明责任分配相比,合同纠纷案件的证明责任分配的争议不大。但是对同一案件或同一类案件的证明责任分配,合议庭每个成员或一审和二审或各个法院的判决持己见已经屡见不鲜。尤其是看似简单的借贷合同等案件的证明责任分配意见很难统一。运用具体诉讼具体分析、参考国外先进诉讼制度的方法探究与论证：合同案件中,客观证明责任分配不是考虑分配给原告还是被告,而是以诉讼请求为单位,在债权人和债务人之间分配的。通过验证：以上证明责任分配基准通用于各类合同案件。     

应税所得视角:所得税法与民法之有机结合

所得税中的“所得”是纳税人依民事活动所获得的各项财产,因此所得税的征收实际上会影响到纳税人的财产所有权。因而作为公法的所得税法与确认和保护私人财产的民法之间存在密切的联系。长期以来人们认为所得税法是关系国家财政收入的法律制度,而民法是调整私人主体的财产关系的法律,二者之间没有必然的联系,然而如果没有民法对财产关系的调整,那么所得税的纳税主体、征税对象等问题将无法确定,因而,探讨二者之间的关系在研究税法的过程中尤为显得重要。     

新创企业早期成长中的异质性资源的塑造与整合分析——以阿里巴巴公司的早期创业成长为例

新创企业早期成长中都会遇到创业团队的资质、创业机运、创业资源及创业盈利模式等四大关键成功要素(KSF)的制约,其中,异质性资源的塑造和整合是竞争优势的的基础。本文通过分析阿里巴巴在创建及早期成长过程中四大关键要素之间的匹配和协同规律,围绕异质性资源的塑造与开发的动态过程,总结出阿里巴巴持续竞争优势的实现基础,最后给出了有效促进中国新创企业早期顺利成长的三点启示。