MIMICKING THE WINNER LEADS TO WAR: AN EVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT AND COOPERATION*

This note applies an evolutionary analysis to Skaperdas's (1992) static model of conflict and cooperation, in which agents are faced with trade‐offs between joint production and share competition. We adopt the stochastic evolution approach, and assume that each agent occasionally mimics the action of the winner of the stage. In contrast to Skaperdas's results that justify full or partial cooperation in productive activity, the long‐run equilibrium must exhibit total conflict; nobody engages in production at all.     

INCOMPLETE FINANCIAL MARKETS,IRREVERSIBILITY OF INVESTMENTS AND FISCAL AND MONETARY POLICY INSTRUMENTS*

In this paper, we analyse the use of fiscal and monetary instruments to improve long‐run welfare when productive investment is irreversible and uncollateralizable and there is no insurance. Only fiat money or government issued bonds provide self‐insurance. We demonstrate that an increase in precautionary savings reduces irreversible productive investment. Hence, subsidies to promote productive but irreversible investment should be financed in such a way that they do not reduce insurance capability. When lump‐sum subsidies are high, a consumption tax is likely to be more redistributive and thus more consumption smoothing than are the other sets of instruments analysed in our model.     

WELFARE LOSSES FROM NON‐TARIFF BARRIERS: THE JAPANESE BEEF QUOTA CASE*

A standard method of estimating deadweight losses caused by import quotas is to estimate a utility function by data over a period in which the quota is not imposed, and to use the estimated utility function to evaluate the virtual price of quota‐laden imports. This method, however, is not applicable if preferences are different between quota and non‐quota periods. In order to overcome this difficulty, the present study introduces a method of estimating a utility function directly from data in a quota period. This method is applied to the estimation of deadweight losses attributable to the Japanese beef quota.     

白领阶层的职务意识及其决定的主要原因

本文的主要目的是研究和阐明20世纪90年代后期中国工业企业中白领阶层的地位和特点。文中的数据来自于我们在武汉市所作的问卷调查以及由此所进行的统计判别分析。通过分析我们指出：尽管白领阶层的工资收入与普通工人没有什么差别，但他们的职务意识，特别是他们在对待市场化等问题的态度上更接近于管理人员。这种状况被认为主要是源于白领所拥有的较高的文化程度。这些分析结果意味着职务意识可能与工资等劳动条件没有太大关联。     

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PUBLIC EXPENDITURE COMPOSITION: OPTIMAL ADJUSTMENT USING THE GRADIENT METHOD

Previous studies have looked at how the components of fiscal spending affect economic growth. However, we explicitly enquire into how to adjust the components in order to achieve the highest rate of economic growth starting from the present shares of components, by introducing a gradient method. The resulting optimal adjustment shares are proportional to the deviations from the average over elements of a gradient vector. The optimal adjustment share is completely estimated by using linear regression with any choice of omitted variable. The paper also provides an illustrative example taken from the annual panel data for the Japanese prefectural governments.     

Endogenous Cycles in Collateralized Credit

This paper presents a simple and tractable equilibrium model, where collateralized credit emerges under limited commitment. We show that even if there is no time variation in fundamentals, credit trade can fluctuate endogenously over time. In our theory, credit fragilities are associated with endogenous fluctuations in trade probabilities, collateral values, and lending volumes.     

(S,s) inventory dynamics and self-organized criticality

This paper proposes a new model of self-organized criticality in order to explain large fluctuations of aggregate production in an (S,s) economy. It is shown that the inventory distribution in an (S,s) economy always converges to a unique steady state, and that aggregate production exhibits a peculiar instability at the steady state: the propagation effect of a demand shock on aggregate production follows a power law.The model differs from previous models of self-organized criticality in that it incorporates a global interaction in the network. The global interaction is interpreted as a representation of market transactions with which economists are familiar. The other novelty of the paper is that an intrinsic instability of (S,s) economies is found. Many small non-linearities in the (S,s) economy may not be cancelled out in aggregation. Instead, they play a key role in organizing the fluctuations of aggregate production.     

EARTHQUAKE RISKS AND LAND PRICES: EVIDENCE FROM THE TOKYO METROPOLITAN AREA*

The current paper empirically addresses risk aversion of households and firms toward earthquake risks using a hazard map compiled for the entire region by the Tokyo metropolitan government in 1998. It finds strong evidence for the impact of earthquake risks on land pricing; land prices have been substantially lower in risky areas than in safe areas. That impact became more evident in the 1990s than in the 1980s, indicating that households and firms were becoming more sensitive to earthquake risks. In addition, this paper carefully examines the consistency of the estimated magnitude of earthquake risk premiums within a framework of the expected utility hypothesis.