An Empirical Analysis of Entrant and Incumbent Bidding in Road Construction Auctions

This paper explores differences in the bidding patterns of entrants and incumbents in road construction auctions. We find that entrants bid more aggressively and win auctions with significantly lower bids than incumbents. The differences in their bidding patterns are consistent with a model of auctions in which the distribution of an entrant's costs exhibits greater dispersion than that of an incumbent's and relations of stochastic dominance in the distributions do not persist for the entire range of estimated costs. We also find that more efficient firms bid, on average, more aggressively and firms with greater backlogs bid less aggressively.     

The New Growth Theory and Coasean economics: Institutions to capture externalities

The New Growth Theory and Coasean Economics: Institutions to Capture Externalities. — This paper presents the main theoretical arguments which lead many adherents of the New Growth Theory to the conclusion that externalities in research and development are important for economic growth and warrant government subsidies. In contrast, the authors point to private institutions like associations, company structures and industry clusters which can capture such externalities. An international comparison of private R&;D investment and special features of institutions in Switzerland and Japan are in line with this hypothesis. Thus, the argument for R&;D subsidies made by the New Growth Theory is considerably reduced.     

Contemporary Extensions of the Rasch Model

This paper will introduce, discuss and illustrate two contemporary extensions of theRasch model: the one parameter logistic model (Verhelst and Glas, 1995) and theMultidimensional Rasch model (Hoijtink et al., 1999). Using data with respect tothe measurement of schizotypy (Vollema and Hoijtink, 2000) the most importantfeatures of both models will be illustrated. For the one parameter logistic modelthese include: a (discrete) discrimination parameter for each item; a test for itembias; and, estimation of the location of a person on the (latent) trait that is beingmeasured. For the multidimensional Rasch model these include: specification ofthe model; and, model selection. All analyses presented in this paper can be executedusing either OPLM (Verhelst et al., 1995), TESTFACT (Wilson et al.,1984) or ConQuest (Wu et al., 1998). At the end of the paper some features ofmodels and software that have not been discussed will be summarized.     

Promise and peril in implementing pay‐for‐performance

Why would managers abandon pay‐for‐performance plans they initiated with great hopes? Why would employees celebrate this decision? This article explores why managers made their decisions in 12 of 13 pay‐for‐performance “experiments” at Hewlett‐Packard in the mid‐1990s. We find that managers thought the costs of these programs to be higher than the benefits. Alternative managerial practices such as effective leadership, clear objectives, coaching, or training were thought a better investment. Despite the undisputed instrumentality of pay‐for‐performance to motivate, little attention has been given to whether the benefits outweigh the costs or the “fit” of these programs with high‐commitment cultures like Hewlett‐Packard was at the time. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Complex solutions of nonconcave dynamic optimization models

Summary In this paper we consider a class of time discrete intertemporal optimization models in one dimension. We present a technique to construct intertemporal optimization models with nonconcave objective functions, such that the optimal policy function coincides with any pre-specifiedC ² function. Our result is a variant of the approach presented in a seminal paper by Boldrin and Montrucchio (1986). Whereas they solved the inverse problem for the reduced form models, we address the different question of how to construct both reduced and primitive form models. Using our technique one can guarantee required qualitative properties not only in reduced, but also in primitive form. The fact that our constructed model has a single valued and continuous optimal policy is very important as, in general, nonconcave problems yield set valued optimal policy correspondences which are typically hard to analyze. To illustrate our constructive approach we apply it to a simple nonconcave model.We are grateful for the helpful comments of L. Montrucchio, K. Nishimura, T. Mitra and an anonymous referee. Financial support of the Austrian Science Foundation under contract No. P7783-PHY and No. J01003-SOZ is gratefully acknowledged. This paper was written while M. Kopel was visiting the Department of Economics, Cornell University.     

Learning of cycles and sunspot equilibria by Genetic Algorithms

We analyze the learning behaviour of a Simple Genetic Algorithm in an overlapping generations model with one consumption good and fiat money. It is shown by simulations, that in cases where periodic equilibria exist the equilibrium of period two is learned by a Genetic Algorithm and not the monetary steady state. We further show that proper coding leads to convergence of the GA towards the sunspot equilibrium. If individuals who believe in the impact of sunspots are brought together with individuals who ignore the sunspots, the sunspot believes will in most cases drive the other individuals out of the population.     

小国得益于货币联盟

本文回顾了适用于严格固定货币汇率的技术方法，并从对货币联盟通过货币汇率严格固定所获得的利益与付出的代价的研究中给出证明。事实上，丧失货币主权而付出的代价由于有效资本市场和劳动力市场的形成而降低了。本文还讨论了一个被忽略的实行严格货币固定的好处，即小国因此而事受到更好的货币政策。完善的货币政策得以形成是因为小国将其货币主权交托于大型机构（大国央行或是货币联盟央行）后，其货币政策将免受政治因素的影响；另外部分原因在于大型机构拥有更多的金融和人力资源去设计和执行最佳的货币政策。由于在联盟内部实行区内贸易和资本流动，因此即便太央行的货币政策出错。对于它所服务的成员国来说，造成的影响也较小。     

Operational performance of U.S. public rail transit and implications for public policy

In today's tough economic environment, governments at all levels face significant budget shortfalls and public rail transit systems must compete with other public services for government subsidies. It is critical that public rail transit systems be concerned with their operational performance and efficient use of resources. In this paper, we develop a methodology that measures a rail transit system's performance relative to that of other rail transit systems, compares its performance to an appropriate efficient benchmark system, and identifies the sources of its inefficiency. We analyze the relationship between public subsidies and operational performance of public rail systems and show an inverse relationship between subsidization and efficiency.     

Identifying export opportunities for Greece

A decision support model (DSM) is presented and implemented in order to identify probable and realistic export opportunities for Greece. The aim of the model is to select those combinations of products and countries of destination (markets) that are attractive based on widely recognized criteria (such as country risk indicators, macroeconomic data, market shares, accessibility of destination country, degree of market concentration, etc.). The DSM consists of a filtering process during which the less attractive export opportunities are successively eliminated in order to focus on those markets that have the desired characteristics. International trade data at the HS six-digit level up to 2011 where used. The results indicate that there exist significant export opportunities for Greece. Export opportunities are listed and categorized according to criteria such as the market characteristics of the destination country and Greece’s market share.