Comment on God and Oedipus in Oedipus the King

By analyzing the two popular sayings about Oedipus the King on the internet, this paper aims to explore the relationship be- tween God and human being, combined with the artistic theory of Aristotle about the power of a successful drama, and the theme of prophecy, oracles, and predestination.     

Beliefs, Bailouts and Spread of Bank Panics

This article highlights the spread of bank panics across countries, as the public reassesses governments' propensity to bailouts. Policymakers decide whether to save collapsing banking systems by weighing social costs of crises against the costs associated with raising taxes to finance rescue packages. Policymakers know those social costs of bank liquidation whereas the public does not. In this setup, financial crises may result from the public's self‐fulfilling prophecies about equilibrium outcomes, as lenders' expectations impinge on the taxation cost of bailouts. It follows that a banking crisis in a country leads creditors to reexamine policymakers' willingness to bailouts in other countries, which eventually makes their banks more vulnerable to self‐confirming depositors' runs.     

资产价格波动的通货膨胀预期效应——基于房地产市场的实证分析

通过对房地产市场的实证研究,证实了资产市场资产价格的变化会影响到人们对未来经济形势的判断,进而影响到公众对未来消费品市场价格的判断,根据“预期自我实现”的原理,会对实际的通货膨胀或者通货紧缩产生影响。研究表明,房地产市场价格走势对通货膨胀预期的影响,要大于房地产市场资金变化对通胀预期的影响,所以监管层要管理好通货膨胀和通货膨胀预期,就要加强对资产市场尤其是房地产市场的监控,防止房价的大起大落。     

Correcting for survey effects in pre‐election polls

Pre‐election polls can suffer from survey effects, causing biases in forecasted election outcomes. We advocate a simple methodology to estimate the magnitude of survey effects, by collecting data both before and after the election. This method is illustrated by means of a field study with data concerning the 2009 European Parliament elections in the Netherlands. Our study provides empirical evidence of significant positive survey effects with respect to voter participation, especially for individuals with low intention to vote. For our data, the overall survey effect on party shares is small. This effect can be more substantial, for example, if political orientation and voting intention are correlated in the sample.     

Ethical Behaviour in the U.K. Audit Profession: The Case of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Under Going-Concern Uncertainties

External auditors owe a professional duty to the company's stockholders and to society in general. However their remuneration is determined by management. The resulting conflicts of interest are particularly acute in distressed companies where the auditors are required to disclose uncertainties regarding future survival. We focus on the consequentialist self-fulfilling prophecy argument whereby auditors may fail to disclose such uncertainties due to the belief that the disclosure itself would precipitate the company's bankruptcy. We find no empirical support for such beliefs for a sample of distressed U.K. companies with audit reports published between 1986 and 1993. Companies whose auditors disclose going concern uncertainties are no more likely to fail than those without such disclosures; indeed three out of four reports containing going concern uncertaintiesare not followed by failure before publication of a subsequent set of accounts. Instead we find that it is the degree of financial distress that drives both bankruptcy and the auditor's going concern disclosure rather than that the disclosure itself causes failure. Belief in the self-fulfilling prophecy effect nevertheless persists, and this despite the profession's clear ethical guidelines that audit opinions should provide an objectively true and fair view, paying no regard to possible consequences. It may be that the continued attractiveness of the self-fulfilling prophecy belief is due to its providing a means of resolving intense auditor/management conflict in what is a particularly complex decision situation. We argue that, if the profession's clear ethical guidelines are to play a greater role in this area, issues such as enforcement will need to be addressed.     

新制度经济学视角下的心理契约:内涵与自我履行机制

心理契约问题近年来愈发引起企业组织与员工的重视,但以往的研究多是从心理学、社会学的视角研究心理契约。文章借鉴新制度经济学对契约的相关研究成果,将组织中的心理契约与新制度经济学结合起来,对心理契约的内涵与特征重新进行界定,认为心理契约应当是平等互惠的、非正式的、不完全的以及自我履行的契约,最后对心理契约的自我履约机制进行了详细的分析。     

关系型契约的特征、内容及履约机制

关系型契约是由未来契约关系的价值所维持的非正式安排。它是一种长期契约和隐含契约，并具有动态性和不断完善的特性。从内容上看，它包含了一般交易所无法包括而存在于科层企业中的指挥、管理和协调等因素。而且，这种关系型契约通过声誉效用机制、信任机制及违约的机会成本来实现自我履约。     

History and Coordination Failure

An extensive literature discusses the existence of a virtuous circle of expectations that might lead communities to Pareto-superior states among multiple potential equilibria. It is generally accepted that such multiplicity stems fundamentally from the presence of positive agglomeration externalities. We examine a two-sector model in this class and look for intertemporal perfect foresight equilibria. It turns out that under some plausible conditions, positive externalities must coexist with external diseconomies elsewhere in the model, for there to exist equilibria that break free of historical initial conditions. Our main distinguishing assumption is that the positive agglomeration externalities appear with a time lag (that can be made vanishingly small). Then, in the absence of external diseconomies elsewhere, the long-run behaviour of the economy resembles that predicted by myopic adjustment. This finding is independent of the degree of forward-looking behavior exhibited by the agents.     

Self-fulfilling Currency Crises and Central Bank Independence

We develop a model of a fixed exchange rate peg arrangement derived from the Barro–Gordon model of rules versus discretion. It is shown that the fixed peg is vulnerable to self-fulfilling currency crises in which the unemployment rate increases, the credibility of the rule decreases, but, paradoxically, the reputation of the policy-maker improves. Delegating monetary policy to an independent central banker does not prevent this type of crisis from arising, and can even make it more costly.
JEL Classification: F 3; F 4