Competition and Sustainability: The Impact of Consumer Awareness

Sustainability, a broad concept that includes numerous environmental and social dimensions, has emerged as an important product evaluation criterion for consumers. We suggest the impact of sustainability on consumer behavior depends on two factors—each individual consumer's unique level of concern about sustainability, and the general level of awareness regarding the sustainability of competing products—that together determine the level of heterogeneity among consumer attitudes toward sustainability. We incorporate sustainability concern and awareness into a model of horizontal competition in a duopoly, where one firm's product is more sustainable than the other's. Our results suggest that marginal increases in awareness can benefit all firms, including the less sustainable one, when awareness is sufficiently high (the explicit goal of recent sustainability labeling initiatives). In several model extensions, we provide additional insights for the following cases: the sustainable firm controls the extent of its sustainability advantage, the sustainable firm can directly influence the general level of awareness, and the distribution of sustainability concern across consumers is nonuniform. Our results enable us to suggest several new insights for managers, both those whose products enjoy a sustainability advantage and those whose products do not.     

民生目标下政府的支出竞争和福利效应

本文研究不同政绩考核目标下地方政府间财政支出决策的互动机制,使用全国地级城市面板数据和空间杜宾模型估计地方政府支出反应方程,并利用民生类公共支出竞争的空间效应拟合值估计其对居民福利的影响。空间计量分析表明,同省辖区内的城市在基本公共服务支出政策方面存在相互模仿攀比,民生类公共支出竞争不仅提高了辖区民生类公共服务水平,而且牵动了各辖区的居民消费。研究结果为如何完善地方官员考核体系和提高民众福利提供了政策启示。     

中国县级政府税收竞争研究

税收竞争是地方政府财政竞争的常见方式。为吸引税基,放松税收征管力度是其主要表现形式。理论模型表明地方政府不同策略行为取决于相对税率的权衡;政府间不同的资本税率弹性导致了实际税率的分化。利用空间计量方法分析了中国县级政府的税收竞争行为,发现相邻县存在显著的策略互补(税收模仿);异质性政府税率存在差异,贫穷县的实际税率要高于富裕县。纠正扭曲的税收征管策略和提升市场保护激励是未来改革关键。     

准入制度改革、同业竞争与银行业市场进入决策机制升级

为了研究我国银行业市场准入制度改革对银行市场进入决策机制的影响和检验银行间差异化竞争战略的实施成效,本文基于中小股份制商业银行分支数据构建静态离散博弈的均衡结构模型还原银行市场进入过程中的战略互动,并重点考察不同垄断地位银行间非对称的竞争壁垒效应。鉴于多重Nash均衡引起的估计不一致问题,分别使用条件矩不等式和子样本模拟技术识别与估计模型参数的置信区间,并进一步设计反事实分析和分类比较分析。研究发现,我国银行业准入制度放松显著推动了市场进入决策机制升级,使其不仅取决于银行内部优势和市场区位,也受制于对手决策及其构建的品牌、规模经济等非对称竞争壁垒;银行边际利润实现从第二产业向第三产业转移,当前银行业的“壁龛市场”战略占优于“跟随”战略。     

The organization of project evaluation under competition

This article examines the optimal organizational form of project evaluation under competition. The evaluations are carried out by two fallible screening units that sequentially assess projects. Screening can be organized as a hierarchy or a polyarchy. We show that as competitive pressure rises, the polyarchy becomes less attractive. Therefore, different organizational forms might be found in different industries depending on the degree of competition. In addition, we examine endogenous screening rules under competition: For symmetric situations, we show that polyarchies will employ higher decision thresholds compared to hierarchies. Nonetheless, as in the case of exogenous screening rules, the hierarchy becomes more attractive the higher the degree of competition.

社会核算矩阵不同更新方法的比较研究

更新社会核算矩阵(Social Accounting Matrix, SAM)作为一种非调查技术一直受到普遍重视。本文用十种更新方法,包括RAS法、交叉熵法、广义交叉熵法等,以江苏省1997年的宏观和细化SAM为初始表,将其分别更新到2002年的宏观和细化SAM。我们通过保号检验、方向检验和接近程度检验比较了各种方法的更新结果。研究结论显示：第一,基于商的更新方法要优于基于距离的更新方法;第二,保号类方法不仅具有保号的功能,而且在方向检验和接近度检验中有着良好表现;第三,对某些重要系数采用适当的外生估算方式,可以提高SAM更新的精度。     

竞争导向的城市特色内涵

面对竞争日趋激烈的城市发展环境 ,城市特色的研究内容有必要向外拓展和延伸 ,国内虽有初步的研究 ,但大多局限于概括性的论述。本文以有关经济理论对竞争力的解释、城市受众的需求和国内外著名城市的特色表现三个方面作为研究的依据 ,建构了包括特色资源子系统、核心子系统、扩展子系统和支撑子系统的城市特色系统内涵 ,廓清了城市特色的构成 ,也为城市管理者如何塑造城市特色提供了清晰的思路和努力的方向     

促进电信业有效竞争的制度逻辑

我国电信业改革带来的实惠 ,我们有目共睹。但电信运营商之间的恶性竞争却值得反思。本文在指出有效竞争是电信业进一步改革的目标之后 ,从市场的逻辑出发 ,指出在我国市场经济建立的今天 ,有效的市场竞争在于制度的创新 ,并从成本收益分析的角度 ,提出了制度创新的主体和途径     

Time-consistent investment and reinsurance under relative performance concerns

This article investigates the optimal time-consistent investment and reinsurance for two mean–variance insurance managers who take into account the relative performance by comparison to their peers. The unique time-consistent Nash equilibrium policies and the corresponding value functions are derived for asset concentration and diversification. No matter which case is chosen, when the two insurance managers are sensitive to each other’s wealth, they chase each other’s trading behaviors leading to under-reinsurance and overinvestment and lower utility relative to the standard case without relative concerns. The cost–benefit from asset diversification to asset concentration and economic implications of parameters are illustrated by numerical examples.     

CRM的发展趋势及其对提高金融企业竞争力的启示

随着我国金融业对外开放程度的逐渐提高,如何提升我国金融企业的竞争力已成为一个被广泛讨论的话题。根据欧美等发达国家CRM的发展趋势和表现形式,分别从电子商务对金融企业运营的冲击和影响、优化渠道管理、重视关系管理以及把握对企业的整体协调这4个方面进行了分析,认为实施CRM是提高我国金融企业竞争力的重要途径。