A Sealed-Bid Two-Attribute Yardstick Auction Without Prior Scoring

We analyze a two-attribute single item procurement auction that uses yardstick competition to settle prices. The auction simplifies the procurement process by reducing the principal’s articulation of preferences to simply choosing the most preferred offer as if it was a market with posted prices. This is done simply by replacing the submitted sealed bids by yardstick bids, computed by a linear weighting of the other participants’ bids. We show that there is only one type of Nash equilibria where some agents may win the auction by submitting a zero price-bid. Using a simulation study we demonstrate that following this type of equilibrium behavior often leads to winner’s curse. The simulations show that in auctions with more than 12 participants the chance of facing winner’s curse is around 95 %. Truthful reporting, on the other hand, does not constitute a Nash equilibrium but it is ex post individually rational. Using a simulation study we demonstrate that truthful bidding may indeed represent some kind of focal point.     

Reforming Social Security in a Transition Economy: The Case of Lithuania

This paper points out a number of problems associated with the existing pension system in Lithuania. Reforms are proposed, including (i) a substantial increase in the basic pension benefit rate, financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, provided universally, and regulated according to wage/price indexation; (ii) a significant cut in the tax contribution rate to the public pension system matched by a rise in the VAT; (iii) a rise in the retirement age to 65 for both men and women; and (iv) a gradual conversion to a private, funded, mandatory pension system to replace the earnings-related part of the current pension system.     

The European economy at the cross roads: Structural reforms, fiscal constraints, and the Lisbon Agenda

This paper studies the incentives to sustain and extend a monetary union under alternative assumptions about the extent of market reform within the union and accession countries. Lack of labour mobility, or wage/price flexibility, or fiscal reform, brings costs for both new entrants and in the existing union. Countries will therefore want a union where there has been sufficient reform, and also one where markets are more flexible than their own. But existing members will want the same properties of their partners. Fiscal restrictions may exaggerate this incentive mismatch and could therefore delay the necessary reforms. Similarly, too large costs up front may also delay those reforms.     

Nonlinear regression and curved exponential families. Improvement of the approximation to the asymptotic distribution

Inference in nonlinear models is usually based on the asymptotic normal distribution, based on linearizing the model. The accuracy of this approximation can in many cases be improved by a reparametrization. Systematic methods for doing this will be described. Sometimes a saddlepoint approximation can be used, and this offers several advantages compared to the asymptotic distribution and the Edgeworth expansion. The improved methods are unfortunately not commonly used. It will be discussed why this is so. The methods will be illustrated by a series of examples.     

Stable and enforceable: a new fiscal framework for the Euro area

Since the great financial crash, the need for new fiscal rules to prevent unsustainable fiscal policies is universally recognised. In practice such rules, including those in the Stability and Growth Pact, have proved to be impossible to enforce. Thus, to avoid unsustainable fiscal policies reappearing, and to prevent monetary policy from being undermined by undisciplined governments, there is a need for a framework capable of imposing fiscal discipline. This paper considers an intertemporal assignment, where fiscal policy focuses on long-term objectives and monetary policy on short-term stabilisation. We argue for public sector debt targets as a practical way to achieve such a set up, and an excess debt protocol is constructed to give enforceable form to those targets. The ideas of “fiscal space” and optimal debt levels are used to provide a mechanism for identifying a stable region within which the debt targeting regime should operate. Making these factors explicit would both improve the credibility of planned fiscal policies and reduce risk premia on borrowing costs. We finally show how Europe’s competitiveness pact, and debt restructuring operations, can be used to maximise the available fiscal space.     

Multi-directional program efficiency: the case of Lithuanian family farms

The present paper analyses both managerial and program efficiencies of Lithuanian family farms, in the tradition of Charnes et al. (Manag Sci 27(6):668–697, 1981) but with the important difference that multi-directional efficiency analysis rather than the traditional data envelopment analysis approach is used to estimate efficiency. This enables a consideration of input-specific efficiencies. The study shows clear differences between the efficiency scores on the different inputs as well as between the farm types of crop, livestock and mixed farms respectively. We furthermore find that crop farms have the highest program efficiency, but the lowest managerial efficiency and that the mixed farms have the lowest program efficiency (yet not the highest managerial efficiency).     

New model valuating for life assurances with invalidity benefits

Abstract

In a paper in this journal 1977, pp. 106–109 I described a technique splitting the risk element of a life assurance from the saving element. This technique can be extended to assurances with invalidity benefits. In Denmark, life assurances often include exemption of premium payment in case of invalidity caused by accident or disease.     

The Fiscal Framework in a Currency Union: Lessons from a Comparison between the Euro Area and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union

This paper draws out lessons from the euro area (EA) that are transferable to the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) and other Caribbean economies with fixed exchange rates. Based on observations from both the EA and the ECCU, we present a new policy framework which is capable of imposing fiscal discipline, with the aim of avoiding the risk of unsustainable fiscal policies reappearing and of preventing monetary policy from being undermined by undisciplined national governments. In the ECCU case, we find that fiscal deficits are more a result of financial and trade imbalances than fiscal indiscipline per se. Consequently, constraints on overall debt, public and private, rather than direct limits on endogenous public deficits, appear to be the appropriate response.     

Decentralized pricing in minimum cost spanning trees

In the minimum cost spanning tree model we consider decentralized pricing rules, i.e., rules that cover at least the efficient cost while the price charged to each user only depends upon his own connection costs. We define a canonical pricing rule and provide two axiomatic characterizations. First, the canonical pricing rule is the smallest among those that improve upon the Stand Alone bound, and are either superadditive or piece-wise linear in connection costs. Our second, direct characterization relies on two simple properties highlighting the special role of the source cost.