Temptation and Revealed Preference

Gul and Pesendorfer (2001) model the static behavior of an agent who ranks menus prior to the experience of temptation. This paper models the dynamic behavior of an agent whose ranking of menus itself is subject to temptation. The representation for the agent's dynamically inconsistent choice behavior views him as possessing a dynamically consistent view of what choices he “should” make (a normative preference) and being tempted by menus that contain tempting alternatives. Foundations for the model require a departure from Gul and Pesendorfer's idea that temptation creates a preference for commitment. Instead, it is hypothesized that distancing an agent from the consequences of his choices separates normative preference and temptation.     

The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy

How much discretion should the monetary authority have in setting its policy? This question is analyzed in an economy with an agreed‐upon social welfare function that depends on the economy's randomly fluctuating state. The monetary authority has private information about that state. Well designed rules trade off society's desire to give the monetary authority discretion to react to its private information against society's need to prevent that authority from giving in to the temptation to stimulate the economy with unexpected inflation, the time inconsistency problem. Although this dynamic mechanism design problem seems complex, its solution is simple: legislate an inflation cap. The optimal degree of monetary policy discretion turns out to shrink as the severity of the time inconsistency problem increases relative to the importance of private information. In an economy with a severe time inconsistency problem and unimportant private information, the optimal degree of discretion is none.     

Immigration as a commitment device

This paper shows that the admittance of immigrants who are on average less skilled than natives can be part of a support-maximizing government policy despite a general political bias in favour of the poor. We make this point in a simple model with redistributive unemployment insurance. Once wage contracts are binding, the government has an incentive to increase the unemployment benefit, which leads to excessive unemployment. Affecting the political balance within the constituency, immigrants can serve as a commitment device against this time inconsistency. We show that this possibility can be greatly promoted by restrictions on political naturalization.

Self‐Control and the Theory of Consumption

To study the behavior of agents who are susceptible to temptation in infinite horizon consumption problems under uncertainty, we define and characterize dynamic self‐control (DSC) preferences. DSC preferences are recursive and separable. In economies with DSC agents, equilibria exist but may be inefficient; in such equilibria, steady state consumption is independent of initial endowments and increases in self‐control. Increasing the preference for commitment while keeping self‐control constant increases the equity premium. Removing nonbinding constraints changes equilibrium allocations and prices. Debt contracts can be sustained even if the only feasible punishment for default is the termination of the contract.     

On Seidenfeld‘s Criticism of Sophisticated Violations of the Independence Axiom 1

An agent who violates independence can avoid dynamic inconsistency in sequential choice if he is sophisticated enough to make use of backward induction in planning. However, Seidenfeld has demonstrated that such a sophisticated agent with dependent preferences is bound to violate the principle of dynamic substitution, according to which admissibility of a plan is preserved under substitution of indifferent options at various choice nodes in the decision tree. Since Seidenfeld considers dynamic substitution to be a coherence condition on dynamic choice, he concludes that sophistication cannot save a violator of independence from incoherence. In response to McClennens objection that relying on dynamic substitution when independence is at stake must be question-begging, Seidenfeld undertakes to prove that dynamic substitution follows from the principle of backward induction alone, provided we assume that the agents admissible choices from different sets of feasible plans are all based on a fixed underlying preference ordering of plans. This paper shows that Seidenfelds proof fails: depending on the interpretation, it is either invalid or based on an unacceptable assumption.     

高校团学学生干部队伍建设的若干矛盾关系探析

文章从效率和公平、功利与奉献、能力与热情、理想与现实、流动与稳定、共青团与学生会、坚持与妥协等若干矛盾关系入手,探析了高校团学学生干部队伍建设的复杂性,并提出了加强学生干部队伍建设的若干办法。     

论战略性贸易政策理论中的时间不一致性问题

战略性贸易政策理论主张通过政府干预转移垄断利润，但是否能达到预期的效果要取决于许多因素。本文通过研究在战略性贸易政策实施过程中的时间不一致性问题表明保持稳定的政府承诺的重要性。     

Inconsistency of the MLE for the Joint Distribution of Interval-Censored Survival Times and Continuous Marks

Abstract.  This paper considers the non-parametric maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for the joint distribution function of an interval-censored survival time and a continuous mark variable. We provide a new explicit formula for the MLE in this problem. We use this formula and the mark-specific cumulative hazard function of Huang & Louis (1998) to obtain the almost sure limit of the MLE. This result leads to necessary and sufficient conditions for consistency of the MLE, which imply that the MLE is inconsistent in general. We show that the inconsistency can be repaired by discretizing the marks. Our theoretical results are supported by simulations.     

人的心理冲突与矛盾产生根源剖析

社会变革是人的心理冲突和矛盾产生的根本原因。社会文化震荡是人的心理矛盾和冲突产生的文化根源;社会各阶层地位的不均衡是人的心理冲突和矛盾产生的深层社会根源;人际关系的变化是人的心理冲突和矛盾产生的直接原因;社会分配方式和生活方式的变化是人的心理矛盾和冲突产生的重要原因。