TRANSFER FEE REGULATIONS AND PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

This paper studies the role of transfer fees in professional sports, where players can commit to binding long‐term contracts. They cannot switch clubs before their contract expires unless the old club agrees to let them go; the transfer fee is the price of that agreement. Transfer fees have been defended as a necessary incentive for clubs to invest in training their young players. The apparent absence of significant training costs (compared to the level of transfer fees) has undermined this defense. We present a model without training where an industry of clubs with heterogeneous marginal revenue products for player ability and a population of players with various levels of talent and experience match. Transfer fees are needed to allocate scarce playing opportunities efficiently among players of different levels of known and potential ability. We show that total surplus is lower without transfer fees because playing time gets reallocated towards older players with less upside potential. The resulting increase in player salaries exceeds the transfer fee costs for each level of ability. (JEL: J31, J41, K12, L83)     

Laurie Nordic Ski Center

The proprietor of a ski lodge with Nordic ski trails faces increased competition from other private lodges that are subsidized by government agencies and from a non profit ski club, which is also subsidized by use of government owned land for which the ski club pays no rent. The proprietor must decide what she can do to meet this subsidized competition or whether she should sell her business before profitability disappears.     

Strategic Consumer Cooperation in a Name‐Your‐Own‐Price Channel

Supplier reluctance to openly advertise highly discounted products on the Internet has stimulated development of “opaque” name‐Your‐Own‐Price sales channels. Unfortunately (for suppliers), there is significant potential for online consumers to exploit these channels through collaboration in social networks. In this paper, we study three possible forms of consumer collaboration: exchange of bid result information, coordinated bidding, and coordinated bidding with risk pooling. We propose an egalitarian total utility maximizing mechanism for coordination and risk pooling in a bidding club and describe characteristics of consumers for whom participation in the club makes sense. We show that, in the absence of risk pooling, a plausible bidding club strategy using just information exchange gives almost the same benefits to consumers as coordinated bidding. In contrast, coordinated bidding with risk pooling can lead to significantly increased benefits for consumers. The benefits of risk pooling are highest for consumers with a low tolerance to risk. We also demonstrate that suppliers that actively adjust for such strategic consumer behavior can reduce the impact on their businesses and, under some circumstances, even increase revenues.     

“圈钱”的9大风险

应该选择怎样的上市路线?2009年5月1日,《首次公开发行股票并在创业板上市管理暂行办法》(以下简称《暂行办法》)正式施行。创业板市场开启在望,对主板和中小板望洋兴叹的众多中小企业跃跃欲试,备战抢滩创业板。     

Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players

A unique data set of post‐war English trained soccer players is used to study the impact of the youth training program they attended on their career and spell duration. Duration models in the spirit of Abbring and van den Berg are employed to estimate local treatment effects of different training programs on players — survival in the top European leagues. The results indicate that the duration patterns of players are dependent on the youth academy they attended. Certain clubs, with a well‐established reputation in developing youth talent, outperform others in terms of producing and evaluating the ability of their youth players to succeed in top European leagues. The spell analysis outlines the nature of the competitive environment in which smaller clubs have a chance to keep up with the larger ones in terms of producing and holding on to homegrown talent. Finally, the results of both analyses addressed unobserved heterogeneity, allowed for nonlinearity of covariates using the cubic spline methodology, and were tested for endogeneity bias using a split sample test.     

State-of-the-Art Developments in Expert Systems and Strategic Marketing Planning

This paper describes a case history of the development of an Expert System in Strategic Marketing Planning codenamed EXMAR. It traces the evolution of the system from the formation of the DTI club two years ago to the launch of the prototype model. The paper outlines the technical and domain–specific obstacles encountered en route and how these were overcome. A number of conclusions are drawn from the project. The principal one is that there is a bright future for expert systems in the field of strategic management. Professor Malcolm McDonald is the principal expert to the club. Hugh Wilson is a senior consultant with Artificial Intelligence Ltd. He was also the knowledge engineer and the project manager. For readers who would like a simple explanation of Expert Systems, please refer to Professor McDonald's paper ‘Marketing Planning and Expert Systems: an Epistemology of Practice’, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 7, 7/8, 1989.     

内生时机下多阶段R&D博弈的均衡行动顺序

基于内生时机的博弈理论,研究了内生的R&D时机下双寡头企业先进行R&D活动后进行产品市场价格竞争的多阶段动态博弈的均衡R&D顺序,其中产品市场上的需求函数是线性的且企业在产品市场上的行动是同时进行的。运用逆向归纳法研究表明均衡R&D顺序只由企业的R&D外溢水平决定：若两企业的外溢水平都较低（较高）,则均衡R&D顺序为两企业同时行动（分别以两企业为领头者的序贯行动）;若一个企业的外溢水平较低而另一企业的外溢水平较高,则均衡R&D顺序为以低外溢水平的企业为领头者的序贯行动。在序贯R&D时两企业的R&D总水平、社会总福利水平及产品市场产量（价格）都高于（低于）同时R&D时的情形。     

虚拟品牌社群成员个人特质对品牌社群承诺的影响:社群发起形态的干扰角色

研究了虚拟品牌社群成员的个人特质与品牌社群承诺的关系,并同时检验社群发起形态的干扰角色。通过网络问卷收集数据,总共调查苹果计算机用户社群、Window Xbox玩家论坛、SONY PSP玩家社群、BMW motor club、裕隆篮球队球迷社群、纽约洋基棒球队球迷俱乐部、LOMO Taiwan Group、Nissan Taiwan club和L A Lakers Fans’club9个虚拟品牌社群的成员,共计回收了212份有效问卷。研究结果显示,虚拟品牌社群成员的自我彰显、自我超越与自我呈现等个人特质正向影响品牌社群承诺,社群发起形态对虚拟品牌社群成员个人特质与品牌社群承诺的关系存在干扰效果。     

Directed Search for Equilibrium Wage–Tenure Contracts

I construct a theoretical framework in which firms offer wage–tenure contracts to direct the search by risk‐averse workers. All workers can search, on or off the job. I characterize an equilibrium and prove its existence. The equilibrium generates a nondegenerate, continuous distribution of employed workers over the values of contracts, despite that all matches are identical and workers observe all offers. A striking property is that the equilibrium is block recursive; that is, individuals' optimal decisions and optimal contracts are independent of the distribution of workers. This property makes the equilibrium analysis tractable. Consistent with stylized facts, the equilibrium predicts that (i) wages increase with tenure, (ii) job‐to‐job transitions decrease with tenure and wages, and (iii) wage mobility is limited in the sense that the lower the worker's wage, the lower the future wage a worker will move to in the next job transition. Moreover, block recursivity implies that changes in the unemployment benefit and the minimum wage have no effect on an employed worker's job‐to‐job transitions and contracts.     

双重内生选择下双寡头博弈的均衡研究

研究了在行动时机(先动还是后动)和策略变量类型(价格还是产量)都由参与人内生确定的双重内生选择下双寡头博弈的均衡,表明无论参与人在内生时机之前还是内生时机之后选择策略变量的类型,博弈的均衡结果是相同的,都为三种可能行动顺序的产量竞争,即同时行动和分别以两参与人为领头者的序贯行动的产量竞争。     

基于专利指标的中国区域创新趋同的时空演变特征分析

本文以中国31个省级行政区1990-2008年专利数据为资料,基于空间马尔可夫链方法,研究中国区域创新趋同的时空动态演变特征。结果表明:(1)1990年以来中国区域创新一直存在"俱乐部趋同"现象,在2000-2008年期间更为显著。(2)区域自身和周围邻居同时向上转移的区域基本集中于东南沿海地区,而区域自身或周围邻居有一方或双方均向下转移的区域绝大多数位于中西部。(3)中国区域创新类型转移显著受到地理背景的制约,创新高水平的区域背景对区域转移起到了正面影响,而创新低水平的区域背景则产生了负面影响,进一步为中国区域创新"俱乐部趋同"现象的存在提供了空间上的解释。     

Experimental Games on Networks: Underpinnings of Behavior and Equilibrium Selection

In this paper, we describe a series of laboratory experiments that implement specific examples of a general network structure. Specifically, actions are either strategic substitutes or strategic complements, and participants have either complete or incomplete information about the structure of a random network. Since economic environments typically have a considerable degree of complementarity or substitutability, this framework applies to a wide variety of settings. We examine behavior and equilibrium selection. The degree of equilibrium play is striking, in particular with incomplete information. Behavior closely resembles the theoretical equilibrium whenever this is unique; when there are multiple equilibria, general features of networks, such as connectivity, clustering, and the degree of the players, help to predict informed behavior in the lab. People appear to be strongly attracted to maximizing aggregate payoffs (social efficiency), but there are forces that moderate this attraction: (1) people seem content with (in the aggregate) capturing only the lion's share of the efficient profits in exchange for reduced exposure to loss, and (2) uncertainty about the network structure makes it considerably more difficult to coordinate on a demanding, but efficient, equilibrium that is typically implemented with complete information.     

Efficient Repeated Implementation

This paper examines repeated implementation of a social choice function (SCF) with infinitely lived agents whose preferences are determined randomly in each period. An SCF is repeatedly implementable in Nash equilibrium if there exists a sequence of (possibly history‐dependent) mechanisms such that its Nash equilibrium set is nonempty and every equilibrium outcome path results in the desired social choice at every possible history of past play and realizations of uncertainty. We show, with minor qualifications, that in the complete information environment an SCF is repeatedly implementable in Nash equilibrium if and only if it is efficient. We also discuss several extensions of our analysis.     

中国省级政府间财政竞争效应的识别与解析:1978～2006年

采用工具变量法(2SLS)对1978～2006年分省面板数据的实证分析显示,我国省级政府间存在显著的财政策略性行为,且策略性反应函数向右上方倾斜。同时,东中西部省份之间财政策略性反应特征不同,呈现出跨区差异与俱乐部效应。税收竞争与标尺竞争作为财政策略性行为两种表现形式具有不同的政策内涵,故本文又通过提出相应的可检验命题,对我国省际财政策略性行为的具体表现形式进行了识别。实证结果显示我国省级政府间争夺流动性税基的税收竞争效应显著,而理论上的"自上而下的标尺竞争"效应没有得到证实。这意味着对中央政府而言,为了避免税收竞争可能产生的"race to the bottom"低水平均衡,"做对协调"比"做对激励"更重要。     

A Mathematical Model of Protease-Antiprotease Homeostasis Failure in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, has a puzzling etiology. Although it is a smoking-associated disease, only a minority of smokers develop it. Moreover, the disease continues to progress in COPD patients, even after smoking ceases. This article proposes a mathematical model of COPD that offers one possible explanation for both observations. Building on a conceptual model of COPD causation as resulting from protease-antiprotease imbalance in the lung, leading to ongoing proteolysis (digestion) of lung tissue by excess proteases, we formulate a system of seven ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with 18 parameters to describe the network of interacting homeostatic processes regulating the levels of key proteases (macrophage elastase (MMP-12) and neutrophil elastase (NE)) and antiproteases (alpha-1-antitrypsin and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1). We show that this system can be simplified to a single quadratic equation with only two parameters to predict the equilibrium behavior of the entire network. The model predicts two possible equilibrium behaviors: a unique stable "normal" (healthy) equilibrium or a "COPD" equilibrium with elevated levels of MMP-12 and NE (and of lung macrophages and neutrophils) and reduced levels of antiproteases. The COPD equilibrium is induced in the model only if cigarette smoking increases the average production of MMP-12 per alveolar macrophage above a certain threshold. Following smoking cessation, the predicted COPD equilibrium levels of MMP-12 and other disease markers decline, but do not return to their original (presmoking) levels. These and other predictions of the model are consistent with limited available human data.     

一类基于SPE的物流配送量优化模型

在对物流配送过程进行分析时,将完全垄断企业物流配送量优化问题看作一个带“有向边”的网络,从而利用交通网络优化中的用户均衡原则,将物流配送量的优化问题转化为需求函数未知时的空间价格均衡问题。在给出与空间价格均衡问题等价的隐式变分不等式后,利用求解变分不等式的预测-校正方法的思想,对所得的模型进行动态化求解,通过对物流配送量与商品价格的数值观察结果对物流配送量进行动态调整,在经过较少次数的迭代后可以得到最优解。最后给出了数值试验的结果。     

Strongly Consistent Self‐Confirming Equilibrium

Fudenberg and Levine (1993a) introduced the notion of self‐confirming equilibrium, which is generally less restrictive than Nash equilibrium. Fudenberg and Levine also defined a concept of consistency, and claimed in their Theorem 4 that with consistency and other conditions on beliefs, a self‐confirming equilibrium has a Nash equilibrium outcome. We provide a counterexample that disproves Theorem 4 and prove an alternative by replacing consistency with a more restrictive concept, which we call strong consistency. In games with observed deviators, self‐confirming equilibria are strongly consistent self‐confirming equilibria. Hence, our alternative theorem ensures that despite the counterexample, the corollary of Theorem 4 is still valid.     

A Theory of the Stakeholder Corporation

There is a widely held view within the general public that large corporations should act in the interests of a broader group of agents than just their shareholders (the stakeholder view). This paper presents a framework where this idea can be justified. The point of departure is the observation that a large firm typically faces endogenous risks that may have a significant impact on the workers it employs and the consumers it serves. These risks generate externalities on these stakeholders which are not internalized by shareholders. As a result, in the competitive equilibrium, there is under‐investment in the prevention of these risks. We suggest that this under‐investment problem can be alleviated if firms are instructed to maximize the total welfare of their stakeholders rather than shareholder value alone (stakeholder equilibrium). The stakeholder equilibrium can be implemented by introducing new property rights (employee rights and consumer rights) and instructing managers to maximize the total value of the firm (the value of these rights plus shareholder value). If there is only one firm, the stakeholder equilibrium is Pareto optimal. However, this is not true with more than one firm and/or heterogeneous agents, which illustrates some of the limits of the stakeholder model.     

Nonexclusive Competition in the Market for Lemons

A seller can trade an endowment of a perfectly divisible good, the quality of which she privately knows. Buyers compete by offering menus of nonexclusive contracts, so that the seller can privately trade with several buyers. In this setting, we show that an equilibrium exists under mild conditions and that aggregate equilibrium allocations are generically unique. Although the good for sale is divisible, in equilibrium the seller ends up trading her whole endowment or not trading at all. Trades take place at a price equal to the expected quality of the good, conditional on the seller being ready to trade at that price. Our model thus provides a novel strategic foundation for Akerlof's (1970) results. It also contrasts with competitive screening models in which contracts are assumed to be exclusive, as in Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). Latent contracts that are issued but not traded in equilibrium play an important role in our analysis.