范敏:微笑曲线谋局 加速转型综合旅游内容服务商

从当年四君子联手创下携程至今11年,无论江湖多少刀光剑影,携程还是那个携程。在旅游电子商务这个领域,携程继续保持着强势地位。截至2010年9月30日,携程Q3净营业收入1.21亿美元     

Why Competition from a Multi‐Channel E‐Tailer Does Not Always Benefit Consumers*

Empirical studies have delivered mixed conclusions on whether the widely acclaimed assertions of lower electronic retail (e‐tail) prices are true and to what extent these prices impact conventional retail prices, profits, and consumer welfare. For goods that require little in‐person pre‐ or postsales support such as CDs, DVDs, and books, we extend Balasubramanian's e‐tailer‐in‐the‐center, spatial, circular market model to examine the impact of a multichannel e‐tailer's presence on retailers' decisions to relocate, on retail prices and profits, and consumer welfare. We demonstrate several counter‐intuitive results. For example, when the disutility of buying online and shipping costs are relatively low, retailers are better off by not relocating in response to an e‐tailer's entry into the retail channel. In addition, such an entry—a multichannel strategy—may lead to increased retail prices and increased profits across the industry. Finally, consumers can be better off with less channel competition. The underlying message is that inferences regarding prices, profits, and consumer welfare critically depend on specifications of the good, disutility and shipping costs versus transportation costs (or more generally, positioning), and competition.     

A numerical analysis of supply chain performance under split decision rights

We examine periodic review supply chain models where order quantity and shipping frequency are both decision variables and decision-making rights are split between supply chain agents. We address two general questions: (1) when does decentralized decision making result in the greatest loss in supply chain performance; and (2) what effect does the distribution of channel power have on performance loss. We characterize optimal policies where possible in each scenario and we use numerical analysis to generate insights. We find that performance losses from decentralized control are somewhat limited in our results due to risk pooling and that the magnitude of performance loss is strongly influenced by the relative holding and penalty costs, but somewhat invariant to demand uncertainty. Furthermore, we find that concentrating channel power with the supplier can lead to supply chain profits that are very close to a centralized scenario, but also results in lower customer service levels.     

The Political Economy of Moral Conflict: An Empirical Study of Learning and Law Enforcement Under Prohibition

The U.S. Prohibition experience shows a remarkable policy reversal. In only 14 years, a drastic shift in public opinion required two constitutional amendments. I develop and estimate a model of endogenous law enforcement, determined by beliefs about the Prohibition‐crime nexus and alcohol‐related moral views. In turn, the policy outcomes shape subsequent learning about Prohibition enforcement costs. I estimate the model through maximum likelihood on Prohibition Era city‐level data on police enforcement, crime, and alcohol‐related legislation. The model can account for the variation in public opinion changes, and the heterogeneous responses of law enforcement and violence across cities. Results show that a 15% increase in the homicide rate can be attributed to Prohibition enforcement. The subsequent learning‐driven adjustment of local law enforcement allowed for the alcohol market to rebound to 60% of its pre‐Prohibition size. I conclude with counterfactual exercises exploring the welfare implications of policy learning, prior beliefs, preference polarization, and alternative political environments. Results illustrate the importance of incorporating the endogenous nature of law enforcement into our understanding of policy failure and policy success.     

Optimal Mandates and the Welfare Cost of Asymmetric Information: Evidence From the U.K. Annuity Market

Much of the extensive empirical literature on insurance markets has focused on whether adverse selection can be detected. Once detected, however, there has been little attempt to quantify its welfare cost or to assess whether and what potential government interventions may reduce these costs. To do so, we develop a model of annuity contract choice and estimate it using data from the U.K. annuity market. The model allows for private information about mortality risk as well as heterogeneity in preferences over different contract options. We focus on the choice of length of guarantee among individuals who are required to buy annuities. The results suggest that asymmetric information along the guarantee margin reduces welfare relative to a first‐best symmetric information benchmark by about £127 million per year or about 2 percent of annuitized wealth. We also find that by requiring that individuals choose the longest guarantee period allowed, mandates could achieve the first‐best allocation. However, we estimate that other mandated guarantee lengths would have detrimental effects on welfare. Since determining the optimal mandate is empirically difficult, our findings suggest that achieving welfare gains through mandatory social insurance may be harder in practice than simple theory may suggest.     

Using Probabilistic Terrorism Risk Modeling for Regulatory Benefit-Cost Analysis: Application to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative in the Land Environment

This article presents a framework for using probabilistic terrorism risk modeling in regulatory analysis. We demonstrate the framework with an example application involving a regulation under consideration, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative for the Land Environment, (WHTI‐L). First, we estimate annualized loss from terrorist attacks with the Risk Management Solutions (RMS) Probabilistic Terrorism Model. We then estimate the critical risk reduction, which is the risk‐reducing effectiveness of WHTI‐L needed for its benefit, in terms of reduced terrorism loss in the United States, to exceed its cost. Our analysis indicates that the critical risk reduction depends strongly not only on uncertainties in the terrorism risk level, but also on uncertainty in the cost of regulation and how casualties are monetized. For a terrorism risk level based on the RMS standard risk estimate, the baseline regulatory cost estimate for WHTI‐L, and a range of casualty cost estimates based on the willingness‐to‐pay approach, our estimate for the expected annualized loss from terrorism ranges from $2.7 billion to $5.2 billion. For this range in annualized loss, the critical risk reduction for WHTI‐L ranges from 7% to 13%. Basing results on a lower risk level that results in halving the annualized terrorism loss would double the critical risk reduction (14–26%), and basing the results on a higher risk level that results in a doubling of the annualized terrorism loss would cut the critical risk reduction in half (3.5–6.6%). Ideally, decisions about terrorism security regulations and policies would be informed by true benefit‐cost analyses in which the estimated benefits are compared to costs. Such analyses for terrorism security efforts face substantial impediments stemming from the great uncertainty in the terrorist threat and the very low recurrence interval for large attacks. Several approaches can be used to estimate how a terrorism security program or regulation reduces the distribution of risks it is intended to manage. But, continued research to develop additional tools and data is necessary to support application of these approaches. These include refinement of models and simulations, engagement of subject matter experts, implementation of program evaluation, and estimating the costs of casualties from terrorism events.     

基于绿色投资效率的港航供应链投资策略研究

在IMO环境政策约束日趋严格的背景下，绿色投资成为港航企业提升自身竞争优势的方式之一。本文以港口主导的供应链为研究对象，分析三种投资场景与不同成员投资的利益关系，即从绿色技术投资效率对港航供应链的成本效应、绿色技术投入效应、经济效应和市场效应等方面展开分析，最后分析不同投资策略对消费者剩余和社会福利的影响。研究表明：港口绿色技术投资在一定程度上会增加整体供应链的成本投入；当绿色技术投资效率逐步提高时，绿色投入水平不断下降，降低了绿色投入的成本，从而达到“投入高效率，投入水平低增长，整体收益高增长”的投资效果；无论是承运人或是港口进行绿色技术投入，均会增加市场的服务价格，相较于非绿色技术投入，绿色技术投入时会增加整体市场的需求数量；从消费者剩余的角度考虑，承运人绿色技术投入相较于港口绿色技术投入产生的消费者剩余大，也会在一定程度上减少因价格“传递效应”带来的不利影响；从社会福利的角度考虑，虽然绿色投资可能会降低社会福利，但承运人投资产生的社会福利优于港口绿色投资时产生的社会福利；从保护环境的角度，政府的政策制定具有较高的优先级，有助于提升环境收益。研究结果进一步丰富了港航企业绿色投资的研究成果，可为合理权衡绿色技术投资效率，为港口供应链成员的绿色投资决策提供一定的参考，对绿色港口供应链的良性发展具有一定的指导意义。     

The Costs of Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry

The typical cost analysis of an environmental regulation consists of an engineering estimate of the compliance costs. In industries where fixed costs are an important determinant of market structure, this static analysis ignores the dynamic effects of the regulation on entry, investment, and market power. I evaluate the welfare costs of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act on the U.S. Portland cement industry, accounting for these effects through a dynamic model of oligopoly in the tradition of Ericson and Pakes (1995). Using the two‐step estimator of Bajari, Benkard, and Levin (2007), I recover the entire cost structure of the industry, including the distributions of sunk entry costs and capacity adjustment costs. My primary finding is that the Amendments have significantly increased the sunk cost of entry, leading to a loss of between $810M and $3.2B in product market surplus. A static analysis misses the welfare penalty on consumers, and obtains the wrong sign of the welfare effects on incumbent firms.     

Terrorism Risks and Cost‐Benefit Analysis of Aviation Security

We evaluate, for the U.S. case, the costs and benefits of three security measures designed to reduce the likelihood of a direct replication of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To do so, we assess risk reduction, losses, and security costs in the context of the full set of security layers. The three measures evaluated are installed physical secondary barriers (IPSB) to restrict access to the hardened cockpit door during door transitions, the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), and the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) Program. In the process, we examine an alternate policy measure: doubling the budget of the FFDO program to $44 million per year, installing IPSBs in all U.S. aircraft at a cost of $13.5 million per year, and reducing funding for FAMS by 75% to $300 million per year. A break‐even cost‐benefit analysis then finds the minimum probability of an otherwise successful attack required for the benefit of each security measures to equal its cost. We find that the IPSB is costeffective if the annual attack probability of an otherwise successful attack exceeds 0.5% or one attack every 200 years. The FFDO program is costeffective if the annual attack probability exceeds 2%. On the other hand, more than two otherwise successful attacks per year are required for FAMS to be costeffective. A policy that includes IPSBs, an increased budget for FFDOs, and a reduced budget for FAMS may be a viable policy alternative, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars per year with consequences for security that are, at most, negligible.     

Exploring Reductions in London Underground Passenger Journeys Following the July 2005 Bombings

We examine the reduction in London Underground passenger journeys in response to the July 2005 bombings. Using entrance data for London Underground stations between 2001 and 2007, we incorporate demand and supply factors in a multivariate time‐series regression model to estimate changes in passenger journeys between different Underground lines. We find that passenger journeys fell by an average of 8.3% for the 4 months following the attacks. This amounts to an overall reduction of 22.5 million passenger journeys for that period. Passenger journeys returned to predicted levels during September 2005, yet we find evidence of reduced travel until June 2006. Our estimates controlled for other factors, including reduced Underground service provision due to damage from the attacks, economic conditions, and weather, yet substantial reductions in passenger journeys remained. Around 82% of passenger journey reductions following the 2005 attacks cannot be attributed to supply‐side factors or demand‐side factors such as economic conditions, weather, or the summer school‐break alone. We suggest that this reduction may partially be due to an increased perception of the risk of Underground travel after the attacks.     

Strategies for Addressing the Nursing Shortage: Coordinated Decision Making and Workforce Flexibility

In this article, we present strategies to help combat the U.S. nursing shortage. Key considerations include providing an attractive work schedule and work environment—critical issues for retaining existing nurses and attracting new nurses to the profession—while at the same time using the set of available nurses as effectively as possible. Based on these ideas, we develop a model that takes advantage of coordinated decision making when managing a flexible workforce. The model coordinates scheduling, schedule adjustment, and agency nurse decisions across various nurse labor pools, each of differing flexibility levels, capabilities, and costs, allowing a much more desirable schedule to be constructed. Our primary findings regarding coordinated decision making and how it can be used to help address the nursing shortage include (i) labor costs can be reduced substantially because, without coordination, labor costs on average are 16.3% higher based on an actual hospital setting, leading to the availability of additional funds for retaining and attracting nurses, (ii) simultaneous to this reduction in costs, more attractive schedules can be provided to the nurses in terms of less overtime and fewer undesirable shifts, and (iii) the use of agency nurses can help avoid overtime for permanent staff with only a 0.7% increase in staffing costs. In addition, we estimate the cost of the shortage for a typical U.S. hospital from a labor cost perspective and show how that cost can be reduced when managers coordinate.     

A Bayesian-loss function-based method in assessing loss caused by ship-source oil spills in the arctic area

It is difficult to assess the risk of ship-source oil spills in Arctic waters for insurance purposes due to many unknowns and the lack of reliable data. However, maritime activities in the Arctic area continue to grow, indicating the urgent needs for the development of innovative methods to estimate loss from potential ship-source oil spills in the Arctic area. To fill this gap, we develop a hybrid Bayesian-loss function-based method to assess ship-source oil spill-related loss and implement an illustrative test on Baffin Island, Nunavut in Canada. The results confirm that our method can accurately assess loss and, subsequently, develop reliable insurance premiums for shipping activities in the Arctic area. This enables governmental and nongovernmental organizations alike to use the method as a reliable loss estimation mechanism for ship-source oil spills. Also, it is a valuable tool in designing measures for safer and more resilient Arctic shipping.     

贸易自由化视角下新丝绸之路战略经济影响评估

新丝绸之路是中国当前实施的一项重大的对外战略,而贸易畅通是中国推进该战略的一项重要举措。中国已经宣布将积极与沿线国家和地区共同商建自由贸易区,激发区域合作潜力。 为探讨贸易自由化视角下新丝绸之路战略的经济影响,采用全球贸易分析模型进行定量分析,以新丝绸之路建设的核心区(中国和中亚五国)为分析对象,从实际GDP、居民福利、进出口贸易和产业结构等方面,对中国与中亚五国开展区域经济一体化合作的效果进行评估。 研究结果表明,①新丝绸之路推进会给沿线国家带来不同的经济增长效应和福利改善效果,是一个共同繁荣和发展的战略。受益于关税减免,中国和中亚五国总GDP增长0.011%,总的福利水平改善671.065百万美元。②新丝绸之路会显著提升沿线国家的经贸合作水平,改变参与国家的产业结构和贸易结构。通过推进区域经济一体化,中国向中亚五国出口增长31.402%,中亚五国向中国出口增长14.143%。③新丝绸之路战略的推进会带来复杂的行业分布效果,中国纺织业受益较大,但农业和电子设备制造业均会遭受一定的损失。与之不同,哈萨克斯坦钢铁金属业产出增幅最高,吉尔吉斯斯坦受益最大的是农业。 从贸易畅通视角推进新丝绸之路经济带建设符合互惠互利的基本原则,中国应该全面客观地了解新丝绸之路战略的影响,针对那些受损严重的行业可能需要出台一定的保护措施。     

Efficiency Wage,Fixed Employment Costs,and Dual Labour Markets

The standard efficiency wage‐based explanation of labour market dualism hinges on the existence of differences in monitoring across sectors. The paper proposes fixed employment costs as an alternative source of wage differentials for homogeneous workers. It shows that firms with larger fixed costs pay higher wages in order to elicit more effort from their workers, and tend to have higher capital/labour ratio and labour productivity. The model generates both involuntary unemployment and involuntary confinement in the secondary sector: high effort–high wage jobs are preferred to low effort–low wage jobs and either are preferred to unemployment. The proposed framework can also account for the various types of treatment of marginal jobs in primary sector firms envisaged by Doeringer and Piore (Internal Labour Markets and Manpower Analysis, 1971). In particular, an increase in fixed costs beyond a certain level may induce primary sector firms to restructure, segment production, and enter the secondary sector, thus converting their jobs into secondary jobs. From a welfare point of view, we cannot state in general the desirability of subsidizing fixed employment costs; however, we show that an employment subsidy financed by a wage tax is able to increase employment with no loss in terms of production.     

Promoting Seismic Retrofit Implementation Through “Nudge”: Using Warranty as a Driver

This article proposes a new type of warranty policy that applies the “nudge” concept developed by Thaler and Sunstein to encourage homeowners in Japan to implement seismic retrofitting. Homeowner adaptation to natural disasters through loss reduction measures is known to be inadequate. To encourage proactive risk management, the “nudge” approach capitalizes on how choice architecture can influence human decision‐making tendencies. For example, people tend to place more value on a warranty for consumer goods than on actuarial value. This article proposes a “warranty for seismic retrofitting” as a “nudge” policy that gives homeowners the incentive to adopt loss reduction measures. Under such a contract, the government guarantees all repair costs in the event of earthquake damage to the house if the homeowner implements seismic retrofitting. To estimate the degree to which a warranty will increase the perceived value of seismic retrofitting, we use field survey data from 1,200 homeowners. Our results show that a warranty increases the perceived value of seismic retrofitting by an average of 33%, and an approximate cost‐benefit analysis indicates that such a warranty can be more economically efficient than an ex ante subsidy. Furthermore, we address the failure of the standard expected utility model to explain homeowners’ decisions based on warranty evaluation, and explore the significant influence of ambiguity aversion on the efficacy of seismic retrofitting and nonanalytical factors such as feelings or trust.     

Fossil fuel supplies simulation 1972–1979

Fossil fuels are an important source of energy for Ontario Hydro and purchases exceed $100 million per year. This paper describes a computer simulation of the inventory situation over an eight-year period, which is being used to assess the relationship between order flexibility and the target carry-over stocks at the beginning of each shipping season. A simple way of presenting the results for management evaluation is illustrated. Variations of the model are used to assess random influences, such as strikes, and to determine the economic balance between holding costs and stock-outs.     

网瘾概念的定义研究

据CNNIC于2006年1月17日发布的《中国互联网发展状况统计报告》估算,截止2005年12月31日,中国内地的网络成瘾的青少年已达380万左右.它比经济日报2005年5月26日第13版报道的数据多出100余万,增长速度也高于每年50%的估计.要科学地研究网络成瘾问题,首先要对对网络成瘾的概念做一个严格的定义.本文在回顾1990年代以来国内外对网络成瘾问题研究的基础上,给出了"网络爱好"、"网络沉迷"与"网络成瘾"的定义.     

航运供应链上的品牌价值、公平关切与契约协调

航运供应链上的船公司提高企业品牌价值需要付出大量的投资成本,因此将会更加关注供应链上利润分配的公平。本文以单个船公司和单个货代公司构成的两级航运供应链为研究对象,运用博弈论分析船公司的公平关切行为和品牌投入意愿对航运供应链上各方利润的影响,探讨决策者非理性条件下航运供应链的合作模式和协调机制。研究表明：1）船公司的公平关切提高了其在供应链上利润分配占比,但降低了整个航运供应链的利润和效率;2）随着品牌投入意愿的提高,船公司的公平关切对航运供应链上各方决策的负作用就越明显;3）"收益共享成本共担"式契约能够消除公平关切的负作用,达到航运供应链纵向联盟的最优收益和整体效率。     

网络环境对数字内容产品的市场影响分析

本文引入Cournot模型对数字内容厂商和盗版厂商的竞争均衡进行了分析,比较了在传统环境和网络环境下,数字内容产品的价格、正版产品的市场份额以及消除盗版产品的条件.通过比较发现,在传统环境下,正版产品的边际成本高于盗版产品,难以和盗版产品竞争,正版产品的市场份额小于盗版产品;而在网络环境下,正版产品的边际成本大幅度降低,甚至可能低于盗版产品,在市场总需求增加的情况下,盗版产品的销量反而下降,正版产品的市场份额获得大幅度提高,而且在网络环境下依靠政府支持消除盗版的条件也更加可行.     

The benefits and costs of U.S. employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates

In 2021, the Biden Administration issued mandates requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for U.S. federal employees and contractors and for some healthcare and private sector workers. These mandates have been challenged in court; some have been halted or delayed. However, their costs and benefits have not been rigorously appraised. This study helps fill that gap. We estimate the direct costs and health-related benefits that would have accrued if these vaccination requirements had been implemented as intended. Compared with the January 2022 vaccination rates, we find that the mandates could have led to 15 million additional vaccinated individuals, increasing the overall proportion of the fully vaccinated U.S. population from 64% to 68%. The associated net benefits depend on the subsequent evolution of the pandemic—information unavailable ex ante to analysts or policymakers. In scenarios involving the emergence of a novel, more transmissible variant, against which vaccination and previous infection offer moderate protection, the estimated net benefits are potentially large. They reach almost $20,000 per additional vaccinated individual, with more than 20,000 total deaths averted over the 6-month period assessed. In scenarios involving a fading pandemic, existing vaccination-acquired or infection-acquired immunity provides sufficient protection, and the mandates’ benefits are unlikely to exceed their costs. Thus, mandates may be most useful when the consequences of inaction are catastrophic. However, we do not compare the effects of mandates with alternative policies for increasing vaccination rates or for promoting other protective measures, which may receive stronger public support and be less likely to be overturned by litigation.