村企关系的演变:从“村庄型公司”到“公司型村庄”

本文综合正式制度与非正式制度的研究角度,以永联村为例,考察了乡镇企业与乡村社区之间权力的相对变化,重点分析了村企关系的演变及演变的内在逻辑。研究结果表明,在正式制度的作用下,企业家人力资本生产力相对社区权力资本生产力逐渐提高,因此,在村企关系中企业的主导作用日趋凸显;但是在非正式制度,尤其是社会性合约的作用下,村企关系的演变并非按照线性模式进化,而是呈现出多样化。其中一种可能的演变趋势就是从"村庄型公司"到"公司型村庄",并且在正式制度和非正式制度共同作用下,"公司型村庄"模式具有内在的效率机制以及稳定性。     

Politics and Productivity

We use a stochastic frontier approach to study the effects of political and regulatory institutions on aggregate productivity in 39 countries from 1975 to 1990. We show that technical efficiency is positively related to policies supporting laissez-faire and political structures that promote policy stability. Moreover, models of technical efficiency incorporating both measures perform better than models including only one or the other. This suggests that economic performance depends not only on current policies but also on the confidence of market participants and outside investors that these policies will remain in place.     

The Efficacy of Regional Trade Agreements, 1958–2006: The Effect of Institution Creation on Market Expansion

This article examines the efficacy of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in promoting bilateral trade through a sociological lens that stresses institutional underpinnings of the market. Most RTAs are driven by economic neoliberalism and mainly focus on “negative integration” (direct removal of trade barriers such as tariffs and other regulations). Not all RTAs incorporate elements of “positive integration” (deliberate establishment of institutions supporting new markets). Using a large data set on international bilateral trade from 1958 through 2006, this study finds that incorporation of positive integration in an RTA increases its actual efficacy in promoting bilateral trade. It further distinguishes two major types of positive integration: (1) establishment of market institutions that directly regulate cross‐border markets and (2) establishment of social institutions that deal with social consequences of market expansion. Both types promote bilateral trade. The higher the level of positive integration, the more effective the RTA is in promoting bilateral trade. Overall, this study lends support to the sociological insight that creation of necessary institutions is essential for market expansion across borders. It also implies that positive integration has the potential to reconcile the seemingly contradictory goals of trade expansion and social protection.     

Automated Pricing Rules in Electronic Posted Offer Markets

Internet markets are heralded as enhancing efficiency by providing buyers and sellers with an abundance of information. In these electronic markets, firms have the opportunity to employ "pricebots," computerized algorithms that automatically adjust prices to prevailing market conditions. This article uses laboratory methods to examine the potential market impact of the endogenous selection of three automated pricing algorithms: undercutting, low-price matching, and trigger pricing. We find that the undercutting algorithm leads to prices similar to the game-theoretic prediction. Low-price matching generates significantly higher prices, and trigger pricing results in market prices below the game-theoretic prediction.     

Specific Investments, Flexible Adaptation, and Requirement Contracts

In a simple hold-up model with contractible cost-related variables, I show that an optimal requirement contract with "standard cost"–based nonlinear pricing can provide both ex post flexibility for adaptation and ex ante incentives for relationship-specific investments. The result is related to contractual arrangements observed in vertical procurement relationships.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH AND THE EFFICIENCY OF INSTITUTIONS

This paper explores the efect on economic efficiency of the distribution of wealth and systems for enforcing property rights. We construct a two-person, two-period economy in which each person can consume, plant, transfer or steal corn. We find circumstances in which redistribution of wealth is Pareto optimal and in which increasing sanctions against theft to their maximum level is not. These results suggest that it is not only important to consider distribution in the design of property institutions, but also that redistribution itself may serve to increase the efficiency of systems of property rights.     

从第三方支付发展看上海国际金融中心建设

互联网时代第三方支付的发展,揭示了企业"控制用户信息流以控制支付流,控制支付流以控制资金流;获得用户网络接入权胜过获得资本所有权,获得数据投入量胜过获得资金投入量"的新规则。大平台日益成为金融机构控制用户信息流、获得用户网络接入权的重要载体,在平台组合上加载信用有关数据流日益成为形成金融机构风险管理能力的重要生产资料。在互联网时代推进上海国际金融中心建设,既要继续重视金融机构集聚,更要注重鼓励企业赢得全国性用户网络接入权,加强平台组合,增强信用数据流。上海应依托自贸试验区推进互联网金融监管创新;牵头建立长三角征信联盟集团公司;搭建本地金融机构网聚平台。     

EU Accession and Income Growth: An Empirical Approach

The dynamic effects from EU membership are crucial for the new member states to catch up with the average income level in the old member states. To gauge the dynamic effects we follow a two-step procedure in which a gravity equation for bilateral trade shows the trade effect of EU membership and a growth regression yields the income effect of trade. Shared EU membership is found to increase trade between two of its member states with about 27%. EU membership may contribute to trade by inducing countries to improve the quality of their institutions. Trade increases by another 23% if institutions improve, yielding a total trade increase of 50%. Improved openness increases income by 38% according to our estimates. Adding a small direct effect of improved institutions on income, the total income effect of EU membership is 40% for the 12 new members and Turkey. This implies that EU membership, or its effect on trade and institutions, could lead to large economic gains for the new member states, but does not bring them economically on par with the old member states.

Formation of land market institutions and their impacts on agricultural activity

The process of transformation of Bulgarian agriculture from a centrally controlled economy to a market-oriented economy is resulting in land reform, which will necessitate the immediate development and operation of land markets. On the one hand, the land reform is restoring land to those who owned it in the year 1947, or their heirs, who not only have very small and scattered holdings, but who often live in urban areas far from the claimed land and do not practice farming. On the other hand, farming is being changed by the liquidation of the former collective farms and the emergence of privately managed farms and new forms of co-operatives. These new operating units may or may not have their own land claims, but in most cases, do not have immediate access to sufficient land for adequately sized operations. Without land market institutions for information, contracting land use, and enforcement of contractual rights, the transaction costs of bringing the suppliers of land together with those demanding land will result in unused land and distorted agricultural activity. The paper explores both the formation of institutions and the evidence of transactions, as well as the possible impacts on farming.     

HOW TRADING INSTITUTIONS AFFECT FINANCIAL MARKET PERFORMANCE: SOME LABORATORY EVIDENCE

The effects of trading institutions on market efficiency and trading volume are examined. The trading institutions are computerized versions of continuous double auction and "clearinghouse" markets. Traders are experienced, profit-motivated undergraduates. The traded good is a financial asset whose monetary value is state- and trader type-contingent. Traders possess asymmetric private information on asset value. The results show that clearinghouse markets are as informationally efficient as double auction markets and almost as allocationally efficient; the double auction encourages greater trading volume but the clearinghouse provides greater depth; public orderflow information enhances double auction performance but impairs clearinghouse performance.     

Privatization of government services: Pressure-group resistance and service transparency

Even when efficiency gains can be expected from contracting out municipal services, it surprisingly rarely occurs. Political pressure by interest groups, especially unions, is usually assumed responsible. We argue that the effectiveness of such pressure is actually a function of a service’s “transparency,” which determines voter’s knowledge of the quality and cost of the service as well as the tax burden. A model is presented of the interplay between union opposition to contracting and service transparency. Policies are offered to increase transparency and make contracting optimal for governments.     

A comparison of pricing rules for auctions and fair division games

Consider an auction or fair division game where every bidder knows his true value of the single object but is only incompletely informed about the true values of his competitors. By imposing the axiom of envy freeness with respect to stated preferences the set of pricing rules is restricted to the prices between the highest and second highest bid. Whereas for auctions one also can satisfy incentive compatibility, the same is not true for fair division games. We analyse and compare the different pricing rules, partly incentive compatible and partly not, by deriving the optimal bidding strategies. By comparing the payoff expectations induced by the various pricing rules we can prove directly a special equivalence statement saying that expected payoffs do not depend on the pricing rule. It is interesting that in fair division games equivalence of pricing rules is only valid if information is sufficiently incomplete.The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of an anonymous referee     

BILATERAL OLIGOPOLY IN POLLUTION PERMIT MARKETS: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE

We experimentally investigate behavior in a bilateral oligopoly using a supply function equilibria model discussed by Klemperer and Meyer (1989), Hendricks and McAfee (2010), and Malueg and Yates (2009). We focus on the role that market size and the degree of firm heterogeneity have on the market equilibrium. Our results indicate that subjects within the experiment recognize the strategic incentives in a bilateral oligopoly, but they do not exploit these incentives to the exact magnitude predicted by theory. We find weaker support for predicted market outcomes, as market efficiency does not depend on market size, and in some cases buyers or sellers are more successful at extracting the rents from the market. (JEL L13, Q5, C9)     

The Economic and Psychological Burden to Hospitals and Care Facilities of Accepting EPA Candidates in Japan

The Japanese government has encouraged the opening of the domestic market to foreign workers under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) as a “special case” in order “to promote the trade relationship between Japan and the countries that sign the agreement” since 2008. According to the literature, the introduction of nurses and care workers is not at all economical. Many empirical studies indicate that the costs of accepting EPA candidates is crucial for accepting institutions. In this study, the authors developed a multiple regression model for the economic and psychological burden of EPA and evaluated the goodness of fit of the model by comparing hospitals and care facilities. The multiple regression analysis indicated a good fit model for hospitals, but not for care facilities. The authors speculate that there are some differences in management between hospitals and care facilities that should be considered in interpreting this phenomenon.     

SHAPING THE INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Certain types of laws and institutions shape economic behavior in market economies. In Eastern Europe these general rules and market institutions are often nonexistent, and a major problem is to create market economies while simultaneously building the supporting institutions. We describe the type of institutions inherited from Soviet-style economies and show institutional reforms and macroeconomic policies may have limited effects due to the interdependence and lack of complementary market institutions. Without a "critical mass" of market institutions, the benefits of markets are slow in realization. The advantages of reforming existing but distorted institutions over building new ones is stressed.     

The Role of Parents in Introducing Children to Financial Services: Evidence from Ghana-YouthSave

Financial capability—financial knowledge, skills, and access to financial services—may help smooth transitions to adulthood for youth and is affected by socialization experiences with parents and other family members. Among a sample of youth and their parents enrolled in the YouthSave experiment in Ghana (n?=?4,065), this study examined whether physical access to financial services and/or visiting banks with parents or other family members was associated with youth’s perceptions and understanding of financial institutions. We found a statistically significant association between visiting the bank with a parent or other family member and youth’s attitudes (β?=?1.45, p?<?0.001) and understanding of financial services (β?=?2.96, p?<?0.001), controlling for other factors like household income and assets. Conversely, physical access (distance, travel time) was not associated with financial services attitudes or understanding. Parents may play an important role in introducing their children to financial services. Practitioners and policy makers should consider ways to include parents in efforts to promote financial capability among youth.     

Demand for contract enforcement in a barter environment

Do greater potential gains from trade enhance or erode contracting institutions? In an anonymous exchange environment traders can sign a contract, hence agreeing to interact with the assigned partner, or wait till the next match. Any contract can be endorsed (for a payment) by the enforcement agency, which then observes the interaction with a positive probability known to the traders and punishes any detected infractors. Demand for contract enforcement is the highest amount a proposer of a contract is ready to pay to the agency, in a stationary subgame perfect equilibrium. It may be strictly positive, as we show, even when contracts are broken. Surprisingly, larger potential gains from exchange may dampen the demand, but not always: the demand is boosted under agencies that oversee the interactions frequently.     

The relevance of thinking-by-analogy for investors’ willingness-to-pay: An experimental study

People tend to think by analogies. We investigate whether thinking-by-analogy matters for investors’ willingness-to-pay for a risky asset in a laboratory experiment. We find that thinking-by-analogy has a strong influence when the assets in question have similar (but not identical) payoffs. The hypothesis of thinking-by-analogy or coarse thinking clearly outperforms other hypotheses including the hypothesis of arbitrage-free or rational pricing. When the similarity between the payoffs is reduced, the risk neutral and risk averse hypotheses outperform the hypothesis of thinking-by-analogy. Regardless of the similarity between the payoffs, the arbitrage-free or rational pricing remains the hypothesis with the worst performance.     

Race,class and the shaping of a policy for immigrants: the case of the Netherlands

Ethnic stratification constitutes a (potential) threat to social stability. The major factors that determine the immigrants' position are 1) ethnic differences between them and the original population (and among the various immigrant groups themselves) and 2) the social system of the receiving society and the way in which the major distribution mechanisms in that system operate. For a very long period immigration policy in the Netherlands was based on the principle that it was not a country of immigration and it would not become one. Thus, it had a rather liberal admissions policy until 1980 because immigration was not expected to lead to permanent settlement. Ethnic minority groups constitute about 4.3% of the total population, but they are heavily overrepresented in the metropolitan areas. The culturalist approach in Dutch policy allowed opportunities for migrants to retain their own "cultural identity." During the 1970s the government supported the creation of a variety of institutions which served exclusively the different immigrant groups. After the policy change in the 1980s the Dutch allowed the immigrant institutions to continue to exist, to provide a "shelter" which would help the migrants emancipate within Dutch society. Meanwhile, they launched campaigns to inform the Dutch about immigrant cultures. This approach encountered difficulties: 1) the relatively small size of each immigrant group, the large and growing differences and oppositions within these groups, and their geographical dispersal, often made it impossible to set up separate institutions with even minimal viability; 2) there was a lack of leaders in most minority groups; 3) the economic crisis of the early 1980s hit the immigrants much more strongly than the general population; and 4) a "blame-the-victim" attitude developed among a growing number of Dutchmen. In 1983 the government shifted to a structuralist approach, by striving to overcome social disadvantage and achieve legal equality. This approach also has its limitations. Recently, institutional racism has been growing. The government now aims to have immigrants proportionally represented in all major institutions, but it is only on a voluntary basis. The author concludes: 1) both the cultural and the structuralist approach are insufficient in overcoming the migrants marginal position; and 2) culturalist and structuralist approaches clash sometimes. Ethnic pluralism should no longer be viewed as a stage in integration processes, but rather as one of its possible outcomes.     

COLLUSION IN PROCUREMENT AUCTIONS: AN EXPERIMENTAL EXAMINATION

Experimental methods are used to examine the existence and detectability of collusion in environments that exhibit critical parallels to procurement auctions. We find that given the opportunity sellers often raise prices considerably. Moreover, noncollusive Nash equilibrium predictions are insufficient to dismiss "suspicious" behavior as innocuous: in an environment where identical prices are predicted in a noncollusive Nash equilibrium, common prices are observed only when sellers communicate. In a second environment designed to parallel construction procurement contracting, market rotations are observed both with and without collusion, but collusion can often be detected from the pattern of losing bids.