A simple search model of money with heterogeneous agents and partial acceptability

Summary. Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously. This is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally and robustly. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0,1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity equilibria are fixed points in set space, and there is no method to reduce this to a problem in R¹.Received: 4 September 2002, Revised: 23 September 2002JEL Classification Numbers: C78, E40.A. Shevchenko, R. Wright: We thank seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Indiana University, Purdue University, University of Toronto, the 2002 Midwest Macroeconomics Conference at Vanderbilt University, and the 2001 Conference on Economic Dynamics at the University of Essex. The National Science Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland provided financial support. Braz Ministerio de Camargo and Gabriel Camera provided some helpful suggestions. Correspondence to: R. Wright     

Assessing the welfare effects of congestion charges in a real world setting

The standard textbook analysis shows that drivers as a group lose from congestion charges. However, it omits taste heterogeneity, shorter travel times far out in the larger network arising from less blocking back of upstream links and the possibility for drivers to reschedule. Taking account of these factors, using a dynamic scheduling model with heterogeneous users we find that all three add significantly to the benefit of the Stockholm congestion charges and that drivers as a group benefit from these charges even without recycling of revenues. This paper also provides an update on the consumer benefits of the Stockholm charges.     

论英语广告语篇翻译的"三性"原则

广告语篇翻译是一种跨语言、跨文化、目的性极强的交际活动。由于广告语篇是以文谋钱为创作目的,因此,指导英语广告语篇翻译的原则自然地与普通英语翻译的原则有所不同。从英语广告语篇翻译的性质和目的来看,它应当遵循三性原则:信息内容上的忠实性;语言形式上的吸引性;文化上的可接受性。以上三性原则是评价英语广告语篇翻译质量高低的重要标准。     

The ‘postcode lottery’ of the Italian public health bill analysed with the hierarchy Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis

Over the last two decades, due to strong decentralization and widespread budget constraints, the Italian co-payment for health care has become a way to finance public health. This phenomenon has provoked a continuous increase of private costs of public health and an evident regional heterogeneity. As a result, a pervasive spatial inequality of access to public health care is becoming increasingly clear. The aim of this paper is to measure this inequality, mainly determined by the differences among regional co-payment prices. Access, equity, and needs are all part of the phenomenon ‘inequality of access’, and they are difficult to define and measure in health care. For this reason, most of the previously proposed measurement methods have inherent limitations and have prompted us to use an innovative approach focused exclusively on the supply side. In particular, we focus only on the cost of health benefits (co-payment). From a methodological perspective, we use a recent new version of the Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis (SMAA), which is a methodology mainly used to build composite indicators of multidimensional phenomena out of the market. In order to deal with the hierarchical structure of the Italian health care system, we use the Hierarchy Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis (HSMAA), which takes into account the uncertainty with respect to the weights assigned to the considered criteria, as in the standard SMAA, but also the uncertainty with respect to the weights assigned to the considered sub-criteria. Applying for the first time HSMAA to measure inequality allows us to create a unique index for each region and then to make a classification among them. The results show that, since there are different prices for the same health benefits among different regions, there are strong spatial inequalities in the cost of the Essential Levels of health care in Italy.     

包容型领导在创新领域的双刃剑效应——违反规范可接受感知的中介和主动性人格的调节

应用社会信息加工理论,探索了包容型领导对创新的双刃剑效应。以375名员工为样本,运用层级回归方法分析数据。研究发现：包容型领导正向影响对创新有利的越轨创新行为、对创新不利的知识隐藏行为;违反规范可接受感知中介了包容型领导对越轨创新、知识隐藏的影响效应;主动性人格正向调节了包容型领导通过违反规范可接受感知对越轨创新的影响,但没有调节包容型领导通过违反规范可接受感知对知识隐藏的影响。     

Making urban road pricing acceptable and effective: searching for quality and equity in urban mobility

Urban Road Pricing has been proposed many times as a powerful instrument to fight congestion in urban traffic, but has systematically faced a hostile political envirionment, due to lack of confidence on its promised (traffic) results and fear of its political consequences. Lack of action in this front is contributing to stable or even growing congestion problems in most large cities.This paper tries to address the problem with a fresh look at the objectives of road pricing and at the reasons for that political hostility. For managing and developing the urban mobility system, efficiency and equity are normally taken as the basic economic objectives. Sustainability objectives may be integrated in the efficiency objective if we are able to represent adequately the costs of the resources consumed in the process. Political hostility is normally based on having to pay for what was freely available, and on the risk of exclusion for those with little revenue available for the extra cost of driving into the city.Pursuit of efficency leads to suggestion of marginal social cost pricing but this is hard to explain to the public and application of this principle is fraught with pitfalls since some components of that cost get smaller as traffic grows (noise related costs for example). Pricing is still a good option but the objective has to be something easier to understand and to serve as a target for mobility managers. That “new” objective is quality of the mobility system, with a meaning similar to that of “level of service” in traffic engineering, and prices should be managed to across space, time and transport modes in such a way that provision of service is made with good quality in all components.Pursuit of equity leads to some form of rationing, which has often been associated with high transaction costs and abuse by the administrators. But the use of electronic road pricing should allow easy ways to address the rationing process without such high costs. The basic proposition is that all local taxpayers receive as a direct restitution of their tax contribution a certain amount of “mobility rights”, which can be used both for private car driving in the tolled areas and for riding public transport.These principles are easily applicable with a variety of technical solutions for road pricing, from the simplest cordon pricing to the more sophisticated “pay-as-you-go” schemes. The paper addresses this question of implementation and argues for increasingly sophisticated schemes, as people get accustomed to the principles and finer targeting of demand segments may be needed.     

Viewpoint: Beyond carrots and sticks: Europeans support health nudges

All over the world, nations are using “health nudges” to promote healthier food choices and to reduce the health care costs of obesity and non-communicable diseases. In some circles, the relevant reforms are controversial. On the basis of nationally representative online surveys, we examine whether Europeans favour such nudges. The simplest answer is that majorities in six European nations (Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the UK) do so. We find majority approval for a series of nudges, including educational messages in movie theaters, calorie and warning labels, store placement promoting healthier food, sweet-free supermarket cashiers and meat-free days in cafeterias. At the same time, we find somewhat lower approval rates in Hungary and Denmark. An implication for policymakers is that citizens are highly likely to support health nudges. An implication for further research is the importance of identifying the reasons for cross-national differences, where they exist.     

Dynamic road lane management study: A Smart City application

Our Smart City contribution is transportation-oriented in that it proposes a dynamic road lane management system in order to share appropriately the space devoted to traffic. After a historical view of a series of solutions from physical to ICT supported, we present our proposal extensively supported by up-to-date ICT. Following a main presentation, we describe the system architecture and its working conditions. Then, we present the proposed simulator designed to study operating and driver’s conditions with respect to the new traffic signs proposed. We also describe a Mock-up technology validation and give preliminary information on in-the-field deployment.     

环渤海地区高新技术产业同构合意性分析

本文在系统分析产业同构及其合意性分析方法的基础上,基于偏离-份额法构建了产业同构合意性判断的改进模型,并利用该模型研究了2005~2010年间环渤海地区高新技术产业的同构性问题,并针对产业同构的非合意性,提出了促进环渤海地区高新技术产业协同发展的相关建议。     

How exposure to policy tools transforms the mechanisms behind public acceptability and acceptance—The case of the Gothenburg congestion tax

An increasing body of literature suggests that acceptance of environmental policy instruments tends to change along with increased experience of the same. Among the more popular examples of this is the growing number of congestion pricing initiatives emerging around the world. In several cases, the acceptability of these projects among the public has been relatively low before implementation, but then acceptance has increased as experience of the project has grown. The question is just how, and in particular, why? That is, what is it really that experience does to people's propensity to accept initially quite unpopular measures? In this article, we analyze how the relationship between political trust, policy-specific beliefs (PSBs), and public support for policy tools is moderated or affected by people's personal experiences of those policy tools. On the basis of the experience of previous research, we test the way in which PSBs, institutional trust, and the legitimacy of the political decision-making process affect public attitudes toward a policy tool. In addition—and consistent with other studies—we expect these effects to be significantly reduced post-implementation, as people gain first-hand experience of a policy tool. More specifically, we theorize that the often emphasized process legitimacy is only valid as a factor driving support before implementation, and that the effect of general institutional trust is replaced by the level of trust specific to the implementing institutions after the introduction of the policy tool. We tested these hypotheses using a natural experiment; that is, by studying public attitudes toward the introduction of congestion fees in the Swedish city of Gothenburg both before and after their introduction. By doing so, we were able to comprehensively analyze both the drivers behind public sentiments toward congestion charges and how these mechanisms transform as people are exposed to the costs and benefits of the policy tool in practice. Among other things, we found that with regard to fairness and environmental effectiveness, there is a clear symmetry in our results. The level of acceptance increased most noticeably among those who experienced that the environment was improved by the implemented tax, or that the system turned out to be fairer than expected. However, the opposite is also the case. Thus, among those experiencing that the environment was not improved, or that the system appeared to be less fair than expected, the level of acceptance decreased significantly after implementation. These results may have important policy implications.