Why principals tolerate biases of inaccurate agents

Some agents are more accurate than others in estimating the best policy. The more accurately an agent estimates a policy's effects, the more he will resist biases, such as bribes from a special interest. Thus, a special interest needs to pay a larger bribe to an accurate agent than to an inaccurate agent. The accurate agent who is biased will then more likely cause harm than does an inaccurate agent who favors the special interest. Therefore, the principal may gain more from controlling biases of an accurate agent than of an inaccurate one. Thus, high ability of public officials may be associated with little corruption.     

Using the Pack‐and‐a‐Half Rule to Eliminate Backroom Inventories in Retail Operations

In the retail industry, backroom inventories are typically associated with higher labor costs and greater operational complexity. Thus, retailers look for ways to eliminate backroom inventories. A heuristic used for this purpose is the pack‐and‐a‐half rule which suggests that the shelf space allocated for a product should be at least 50% larger than the case pack quantity in which the product is delivered. Despite its popularity among retailers, the pack‐and‐a‐half rule has been ignored in the academic literature. We introduce the pack‐and‐a‐half rule, assess its impact on a retailer's profits, identify cost, demand, and product characteristics driving this impact, and propose a modification. Based on an analysis of data obtained from a retailer on 1,986 SKUs in 20 categories, we find that the pack‐and‐a‐half rule decreases a retailer's profits, on average, by 10% when applied uniformly across all SKUs. Further, this decrease is significantly affected by product depth, product width, demand elasticity, case pack quantity, and inventory carrying cost. Finally, we develop a set of modifications based on these variables where the pack‐and‐a‐half rule is applied selectively and in a stepwise fashion. These modifications limit the decrease in a retailer's profits to a range between 6% and 7%.     

Automated topic modeling of tourist reviews: Does the Anna Karenina principle apply?

Automated content analysis of online travel reviews allows identification of topics of travelers' satisfaction, yet its domain is not well researched. We suggest that the Anna Karenina principle positing a greater variability of the factors leading to business failure as opposed to those leading to success can be applied to the domain of visitors’ reviews of historic and cultural attractions. The larger variability of issues in reviews of dissatisfied visitors is likely to result in limitations for automated topic modeling. We confirm our proposition using TripAdvisor reviews of the Terracotta Army museum in China, and validate the outcome with two additional sites. The study strongly suggests that application of unsupervised topic mining algorithms to negative reviews may be problematic and the results should be treated with caution. The main themes of dissatisfaction of visitors to all three sites are reported and practical implications for management of the attractions are discussed.     

信息技术提高企业组织敏捷性的作用机理

从考察企业组织的敏捷性与交易成本的相互关系入手,对企业组织敏捷性的影响因素进行了剖析。详细分析了信息技术(IT)对提高企业组织敏捷性的作用机理。指出IT正是通过降低企业内、外部的交易成本、缩短流程时间、提高人的认识理性、扼制机会主义、促进企业组织结构、决策方式     

A play-the-winner-type urn design with reduced variability

We propose a new adaptive allocation rule, the drop-the-loser, that randomizes subjects in the course of a trial comparing treatments with dichotomous outcomes. The rule tends to assign more patients to better treatments with the same limiting proportion as the randomized play-the-winner rule. The new design has significantly less variable allocation proportion than the randomized play-the-winner rule. Decrease in variability translates into a gain in statistical power. For some values of success probabilities the drop-the-loser rule has a double advantage over conventional equal allocation in that it has better power and assigns more subjects to the better treatment. Acknowledgments. I thank Stephen Durham, the associate editor, and the referees for their helpful suggestions.     

Battles in the costing war: UK debates, 1950-75

In the UK, 1950-75 was a lively period in the long-running debates between proponents of absorption and marginal costing. In the nexus of competing interests, management accountants advocated and defended rival costing systems with much vigour and passion. Expressed in the language of the times, these debates were 'battles' in the costing 'war'. We focus on these battles, analysing the various forces that operated upon the combatants, and locate them in the wider costing war. We conclude that no final resolution of the conflict was achieved in the twentieth century, nor is one likely in the foreseeable future.     

浅析公共服务有效供给的新模式

通过对公共服务的属性分析，结合新政治经济学理论和政府失败的现实因素，探索公益物品的有效供给模式，提出了公共服务的签约转包机制，并分析了这一机制的不足和政府的作用。     

完善欠发达地区在区域不平衡发展中的促动机制

区域不平衡发展是一个普遍的规律,欠发达地区应根据不平衡发展理论,吸取经验教训,建立科学的不平衡发展促动机制。     

Economic Implications of Alternative Allocation Schemes for Emission Allowances*

For reasons of political feasibility, emission trading systems may have to rely on free initial allocation of emission allowances in order to ameliorate adverse production and employment effects in dirty industries. Against the background of an emerging European‐wide emission trading system, we examine the trade‐off between such compensation and economic efficiency under output‐based and emissions‐based allocation rules. We show that the emissions‐based allocation rule is more costly than the output‐based rule in terms of maintaining output and employment in energy‐intensive industries. When the international allowance price increases, the inferiority of emissions‐based allocation vis‐à‐vis output‐based allocation becomes more pronounced, as emission subsidies drastically restrict efficiency gains from international trade in emission allowances.     

以风险协议为框架的化工措施管理机制探索与实践

以西方经济学中的代理理论为基础．建立了一套以风险协议为框架、对化工措施全过程进行控制的管理机制和相应的保证体系，提高了化工措施现场实施的成功率和有效率。