Experimental Cournot oligopoly and inequity aversion

This paper explores the role of inequity aversion as an explanation for observed behavior in experimental Cournot oligopolies. We show that inequity aversion can change the nature of the strategic interaction: quantities are strategic substitutes for sufficiently asymmetric output levels but strategic complements otherwise. We find that inequity aversion can explain why: (i) some experiments result in higher than Cournot–Nash production levels while others result in lower, (ii) collusion often occurs with only two players whereas with three or more players market outcomes are very close to Cournot–Nash, and (iii) players often achieve equal profits in asymmetric Cournot oligopoly.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">γ</Emphasis>-core in Cournot oligopoly TU-games with capacity constraints

In cooperative Cournot oligopoly games, it is known that the β-core is equal to the α-core, and both are non-empty if every individual profit function is continuous and concave (Zhao, Games Econ Behav 27:153–168, 1999b). Following Chander and Tulkens (Int J Game Theory 26:379–401, 1997), we assume that firms react to a deviating coalition by choosing individual best reply strategies. We deal with the problem of the non-emptiness of the induced core, the γ-core, by two different approaches. The first establishes that the associated Cournot oligopoly Transferable Utility (TU)-games are balanced if the inverse demand function is differentiable and every individual profit function is continuous and concave on the set of strategy profiles, which is a step forward beyond Zhao’s core existence result for this class of games. The second approach, restricted to the class of Cournot oligopoly TU-games with linear cost functions, provides a single-valued allocation rule in the γ-core called Nash Pro rata (NP)-value. This result generalizes Funaki and Yamato’s (Int J Game Theory 28:157–171, 1999) core existence result from no capacity constraint to asymmetric capacity constraints. Moreover, we provide an axiomatic characterization of this solution by means of four properties: efficiency, null firm, monotonicity, and non-cooperative fairness.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： REGIONAL CONVERGENCE AND COORDINATED URBAN GROWTH Externalities, Transport Networks and the Economic Growth of Urban Clusters

利用网络分析工具和新经济地理理论对新古典区域经济增长模型进行修正，通过对交易费用的细分构建外部性和运输网络下的城市群经济增长模型，并利用1990-2008年中国部分城市数据和向量自回归模型（VAR）进行实证检验，得出以下结论。在运输网络影响下，中心城市依靠要素集聚获得增长，非中心城市快速接近中心城市。运输网络的改善，将加速中心城市的要素集聚。同时，在保留部分新增要素的情况下，增加节点集聚系数、降低非中心城市问的运输成本，利于非中心城市对外部性的应用，加速其经济增长，促进与中心城市的协同增长。因此，在建设交通运输基础设施时，不仅要重视非中心城市与中心城市的互联互通，更要重视非中心城市间的相互联结。     

上市公司资产重组的若干问题探讨

上市公司资产重组涉及股权变动 ,会发生企业的收购与兼并 ,是一种完整意义上的资产重组。它应是 :优化资本结构 ,减少同业竞争与关联交易 ,确定收购日及资产重组方式 ,并由国有资产管理部门确定国有股转让方案 ,资产重组中债务转移必须经债权人同意才有效。     

Subverting Social Policy on the Front Line: Agencies of Resistance in the Delivery of Services

An understanding of policy implementation issues in many of the core fields of social policy requires attention to the mode of service delivery that is characteristic of those fields: face‐to‐face interaction between frontline service staff and service users. A focus on implementation as interaction between these groups reveals the significance of ‘agency’ to the analysis of why and how certain social policy outcomes occur – and in particular why outcomes may sometimes be different from those anticipated by formal policy objectives. This article considers how the agency of workers and users shapes the processes of mediation, negotiation and adaptation that occur in different service delivery contexts, and identifies ways in which resistance to intended policy outcomes, and to the practices expected to deliver them, is formed and expressed. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research material, the article shows how agencies of resistance produce outcomes that are uncertain, fragile and contested, and whose effect can be the subversion of formal policy intentions.     

The Favorite-Longshot Bias in Sequential Parimutuel Betting with Non-Expected Utility Players

This paper analyzes a model of sequential parimutuel betting described as a two-horse race with a finite number of noise bettors and a finite number of strategic and symmetrically informed bettors. For generic objective probabilities that the favorite wins the race, a unique subgame perfect equilibrium is characterized. Additionally, two explanations for the favorite–longshot bias—according to which favorites win more often than the market's estimate of their winning chances imply—are offered. It is shown that this robust anomalous empirical regularity might be due to the presence of transaction costs and/or to strategic bettors' subjective attitude to probabilities.     

Is Contracting out of Public Services still the Great Panacea? A Systematic Review of Studies on Economic and Quality Effects from 2000 to 2014

This article presents the results of a systematic review of international studies on economic and quality effects of contracting out published in the period from 2000 to 2014. We conducted a comprehensive search of the literature and identified 49 relevant studies. There are three main findings of the systematic review: (1) cost savings documented in international contracting out literature have been decreasing over time; (2) cost savings have been much greater in technical services than in social services; and (3) economic effects have been twice as large in Anglo‐Saxon countries compared with other countries. With regard to measuring the effect of contracting out on service quality, which is a vital component of any service delivery arrangement, very few studies assess this issue in a comprehensive manner. There is also a significant lack of studies that include measures of transaction costs, thereby making it difficult to evaluate the impact of contracting out on overall cost‐effectiveness of public service delivery. We conclude that generalization of effects from contracting out should be made with caution and are likely to depend, among other things, on the transaction costs characteristics of the service, the market situation and the institutional/regulatory setting.     

Governing universal health insurance in Korea and Taiwan

This article examines policy responses to the rising costs of healthcare in the Republic of Korea and Taiwan from a governance perspective. It tries to answer why the two countries responded differently to a similar set of challenges facing their National Health Insurance (NHI). While Taiwan – in an attempt to contain costs – introduced a global budgeting system, Korea failed to do so. Governments in both countries attempted to establish a new mode of governance, bringing multiple stakeholders to health policy making in order to build social consensus. But the Korean government, as this article shows, could not resolve its policy deadlock because of a loss of trust between the government and the medical profession, caused by the separation reform of 2001. Even though Taiwan was better able than Korea to address the financial challenges of its NHI, the new mode of health governance is still on shaky ground. This article argues that because neither government now enjoys the exclusive power over health policy that they once did under the developmental state, it is essential to find a way in which different stakeholders can make the necessary compromises that will enable the NHI to run on a sustainable path for the future.     

创新的局域性研究综述:基于经济地理学视角

创新具有本地化特征。早期的经济理论中,熊彼特强调企业家在创新中的关键性作用,传统的集聚理论从外部规模经济的角度解释了企业在有限的地理空间集聚的原因,但关于创新的局域性问题,相关研究尚少。新产业地理理论认为社会关系、根植性和交易成本的节约是企业集聚创新的原因。现代演化经济学在不确定性、路径依赖等概念下探讨了企业的区位选择问题。区域创新体系强调企业和其他机构的相互联系、交互行动对创新能力的影响。     

Socially Structured Games

We generalize the concept of a cooperative non-transferable utility game by introducing a socially structured game. In a socially structured game every coalition of players can organize themselves according to one or more internal organizations to generate payoffs. Each admissible internal organization on a coalition yields a set of payoffs attainable by the members of this coalition. The strengths of the players within an internal organization depend on the structure of the internal organization and are represented by an exogenously given power vector. More powerful players have the power to take away payoffs of the less powerful players as long as those latter players are not able to guarantee their payoffs by forming a different internal organization within some coalition in which they have more power. We introduce the socially stable core as a solution concept that contains those payoffs that are both stable in an economic sense, i.e., belong to the core of the underlying cooperative game, and stable in a social sense, i.e., payoffs are sustained by a collection of internal organizations of coalitions for which power is distributed over all players in a balanced way. The socially stable core is a subset and therefore a refinement of the core. We show by means of examples that in many cases the socially stable core is a very small subset of the core. We will state conditions for which the socially stable core is non-empty. In order to derive this result, we formulate a new intersection theorem that generalizes the KKMS intersection theorem. We also discuss the relationship between social stability and the wellknown concept of balancedness for NTU-games, a sufficient condition for non-emptiness of the core. In particular we give an example of a socially structured game that satisfies social stability and therefore has a non-empty core, but whose induced NTU-game does not satisfy balancedness in the general sense of Billera.      

A note on the relationship of interdependent action to the optimality of certain voting decisions

While the theory of public goods points to socially suboptimal contributions by agents acting under Cournot assumptions, this externality can be rectified by the introduction of positive interdependence of actions to the individual's choice calculus. This paper draws attention to the fact that the institution of democratic voting is itself a means of transforming the individual calculus in such a way that parameter changes are evaluated as simultaneous adjustments by the group, on the side of benefits, but by the individual only, on the side of costs, thus generating optimal parameter preference in the case of identical agents.     

On the coalitional stability of monopoly power in differentiated Bertrand and Cournot oligopolies

Theory and Decision - In this article, we revisit the classic comparison between Bertrand and Cournot competition in the presence of a cartel of firms that faces outsiders acting individually. This...     

“混合地权”的制度分析及其实践逻辑——基于Z村村民小组的个案分析

本文通过“混合地权”的概念来解释中国农村土地产权的内在结构、关系和实施机制。借用制度分析方法指出,混合地权的制度系统包括财产权利、公共治理、社会关系和观念习俗等四个维度,它们是具有很强约束力的制度安排。通过对Z村村民小组的个案研究发现,不同维度的规则对混合地权的实施都产生了影响,共同决定了农地产权实施的过程和效果,使得地权实施呈现出不确定性规则的内在逻辑,陷入多重均衡和交易成本高的困境,且承包经营权和集体成员权之间的张力是根本性矛盾。个案研究还发现,农民的财产权利观念不断增强,家庭承包经营权得到了越来越多的农民认可。在经济社会转型中,应完善集体土地所有制的社会化治理机制,构建起一种平衡多方利益的现代农村土地产权制度。     

Legal Mechanisms for the Joint Governance of Public and Private Rights

Traditional jurisprudence has produced few studies at the level of institutional operation, resulting in a lack of knowledge about the structure, actors and symbols involved in the modernization of social governance. This is so much so that modernization of social governance is in practice misunderstood as the rule of law, informatization and adoption of technology. The core issue of social governance is the division of oversight and penalty costs between the state and individuals, but we need to call upon a statutory platform to facilitate cooperation between public and private rights. The modernization of social governance involves the use of legislation to provide techniques and statutory platforms for cooperation in an open society, ensuring the reasonable division of social governance information and penalty costs when public and private rights overlap. The social governance techniques that enable public and private rights to work together involve taking a group of observable symbols or organizations on which consensus has been reached as a statutory platform, with all sides bringing greater accountability to bear on this platform in order to maximize their interests and minimize their transaction costs, with no need to inquire further into its particular constitution.     

世界钢铁产业整合的历程及其对我国的启示

世界钢铁产业的发展过程就是钢铁产业整合的过程。到目前为止,已经历四次大规模产业整合。世界钢铁产业整合的主要动因大致可以归纳为：追求规模经济,降低经营成本;扩大市场占有份额,增强市场控制能力;增强技术创新能力;抵御外部并购。世界钢铁产业整合的历程对我国钢铁产业发展有较大的启示。     

国际商务谈判的博弈论议价模型分析

商务谈判是谈判各方当事人在追求共同商业目标,实现双方商业利益整个过程中不断化解冲突、实现谈判者最大利益的手段。在商务谈判中,正确掌握国际商品价格对于节约交易成本,增强企业国际市场竞争力,具有重要意义。可以从博弈论的角度,建立国际商务谈判的议价模型,对信息进行组织、筛选,寻找一个最佳的价格点来分析谈判双方应采取的策略。     

The Revenge of History – The Institutional Roots of Post‐Communist Family Policy in the Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland

The authors combine historical and sociological institutional analysis to show that despite the political and socio‐economic transformation in 1990s, the institutional development during and before the communist era provides the best explanation for current childcare policies in Central Europe. While most authors have concentrated on policy changes that have taken place in the region since 1989, this article concentrates on the historical roots of these policies and shows that today's policies are highly influenced by a certain dynamics that had already emerged under communist rule. It shows that a historical institutional approach, which analyses the ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’ and policy legacies at various critical junctures, can explain why family policies in Central Europe had already begun to differ during the communist era, why these main differences continue and why even the changes that have taken place follow logically from historical‐institutional developments.     

A note on budget constraints and outside options in common agency

Bernheim and Whinston (Q J Econ 101:1–31, 1986) show that, in a common agency problem without budget constraints, the set of Nash equilibria with truthful strategies (TNE), the set of coalition-proof Nash equilibria (CPNE), and the principal-optimal core of the underlying coalitional game are non-empty and all equivalent in payoff space. We show that, with budget constraints, none of Bernheim and Whinston’s (Q J Econ 101:1–31, 1986) results hold: (i) a CPNE may not exist, (ii) a TNE may not exist even when a CPNE exists, (iii) a TNE may not be a CPNE, and (iv) both TNE and CPNE payoffs are core allocations but are not necessarily principal-optimal. However, when principals have outside options but no budget constraints, (i), and (iii) continue to hold but not for (ii) and (iv). In particular, a TNE always exists but the core may be empty.     

A Time to Hate: Situational Antecedents of Intergroup Bias

Shortly after the World Trade Center was destroyed, reports began to appear of hate crimes against Americans of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent. This article provides a summary of social psychological research that explains why certain events might promote intergroup bias. The literature on the correlation between hate crimes and potential precipitating factors is also reviewed. Finally, a few brief suggestions are made, based on previous research, as to how these crimes might be prevented.