Life satisfaction,income and personality

We use personality traits to better understand the relationship between income and life satisfaction. Personality traits mediate the effect of income on life satisfaction. The effect of neuroticism, which measures sensitivity to threat and punishment, is strong in both the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socioeconomic Panel. Neuroticism increases the usually observed concavity of the relationship: individuals with a higher neuroticism score enjoy extra income more than those with a lower score if they are poorer, and enjoy extra income less if they are richer. When the interaction between income and neuroticism is introduced, income does not have a significant effect on its own. To interpret the results, we present a simple model based on Prospect Theory, where we assume that: (i) life satisfaction is dependent on the gap between aspired and realized income, and this is modulated by neuroticism and (ii) income increases in aspirations with a slope less than unity, so that the gap between aspired and realized income increases with aspirations. From the estimation of this model we argue that poorer individuals tend to over-shoot in their aspirations, while the rich tend to under-shoot. The estimation of the model also shows a substantial effect of traits on income.     

Optimal procurement of long-term contracts in the presence of imperfect spot market

B2B spot market has grown rapidly and become an effective trading channel for commodity products. Besides long-term contract procurement from conventional suppliers (forward and option), a buyer can procure or sell commodities at any time in B2B spot market to adjust her inventory level. However, spot prices are generally volatile and the market is imperfect in the sense that spot trading may be realized with uncertainty in a given period of time and often comes with extra transaction cost. This paper considers a commodity buyer who can order forward and option contracts in advance and trade in a B2B spot market when spot price and demand are observed stochastically. Based on a single-period newsvendor model, we discuss three optimal order strategies and derive respective expected profits when the buyer is risk-neutral. The sensitivity of purchase costs, market liquidity and transaction cost is investigated. We also compare the optimal expected profits for different strategies to illustrate the effects of the two long-term contracts in the presence of the B2B spot market. We then extend our model to a multi-period setting and derive the optimal strategy. Finally, we numerically compute the optimal order strategy for a risk-averse buyer and analyze the impact of spot market, risk aversion, as well as the correlation between customer demand and spot price.     

双红光聚焦定位的射频激光标刻系统设计

针对目前激光标刻系统采用普通PC控制设备的情况,存在稳定性差、实时性不高、外形尺寸大以及标刻加工过 程中对焦速度慢、准确度不高的问题,提出一种双红光聚焦定位的射频CO,激光标刻系统。设计基于Windows环境的触 摸屏控制系统的硬件结构;根据触摸屏内镶、风冷散热、CO,激光管耐用的设计思想,设计了激光标刻系统的集成;还设 计了一种双红光交点与场镜焦点重合的定位系统。应用结果表明：触摸屏控制系统既满足标刻系统要求,又能满足客户 的使用习惯;整个标刻系统激光输出稳定可靠,系统外形小巧、设备寿命长、维护少,适合于连续性的工业化生产应用;并 实现了加工过程中的快速准确定位,从而提高了加工的精度和速度。     

伟大的教义学家、哲学家、伊斯兰权威安萨里

安萨里是阿拉伯历史上著名的、影响深远的哲学家、思想家。他站在伊斯兰教正统派的立场上,对伊斯兰教问世后500年来的经验和问题,进行了深入的研究;尤其是对当时众多的教派和学派,以及他们不同的理论及观点,作了认真的分析和澄清,某种意义上,可以说安萨里再次统一了伊斯兰思想界的认识,维护了正统的思想体系和理论基础。     

两种宿轴锦鸡儿花粉形态种内分化及近缘种的比较研究

本文用扫描电镜在个体水平上观察了两种宿轴锦鸡儿花粉形态，并用透射电镜研究了藏锦鸡儿花粉外壁内部的超微结构。藏锦鸡儿花粉形态种内具明显分化，按外壁纹饰和形状可分为三类：1）具细网状纹饰、超长球形；2）具个穿孔、长球形；3）具不典型小穿孔．长圆形花粉。鬼箭锦鸡儿花粉形态也有一定的种内差异。此外，对其三个近级种的花粉形态进行了观察和比较研究。     

“第三只手”：一个边贸市场的民间权威及其成长

中、越、老边境线附近的滇村“三号街”是当地人自发形成的边境贸易市场,经由传统社会生活方式所确立的民间权威,是维系“三号街”市场运行的重要力量。在传统的乡村社会,无论行政权力还是市场本身,都无法凭借一己之力建构稳固的经济体系并维持其运行,而民间权威在地方社会的经济生活中是不可或缺的。     

ARTIFICIAL STATES

We define artificial states as those in which political borders do not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by the people on the ground. We propose and compute for most countries in the world two measures of the degree to which borders may be artificial. One measures how borders split ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The other measures the straightness of land borders, under the assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be artificial. We then show that these two measures are correlated with several measures of political and economic success.     

MONITORING IN TEAMS: USING LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS TO STUDY A THEORY OF THE FIRM

Alchian and Demsetz’s influential explanation of the classical business firm (The American Economic Review, 1972, 62, 777–795) argues that there is need for a concentrated residual claim in the hands of a central agent, to motivate the monitoring of workers. We model monitoring as a way to transform team production from a collective action dilemma with strong free riding incentives to a productivity‐enhancing opportunity with strong private marginal incentives to contribute effort. In an experiment, we have subjects experience team production without monitoring, team production with a central monitor, and team production with peer monitoring. Then subjects vote on whether to employ the central monitor, who gets to keep a fixed share of the team output, or to rely on peer monitoring, which entails a coordination or free riding problem. Our subjects usually prefer peer monitoring but they switch to the specialist when unable to successfully self‐monitor. We provide evidence for situations in which team members resist the appointing of a central monitor and succeed in overcoming coordination and free riding problems as well as for a situation in which an Alchian–Demsetz‐like firm grows in the laboratory.     

EXTERNALITIES IN PROGRAM EVALUATION: THE IMPACT OF A WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM ON IMMUNIZATION

Impact evaluations of development programs usually do not explicitly take into account externalities on non‐participants. Based on a unique dataset we estimate the direct as well as the spillover effects of Mahila Samakhya, a women's empowerment program in India, on child immunization. The survey covers both participants and non‐participants in program villages, as well as respondents in control villages. We account for participation selection bias using instrumental variables. We propose a direct test for the exclusion restriction using the control villages. We find both direct effects on the immunization rates of participants’ children and significant spillovers on immunization rates of non‐participants’ children. The impact of interventions might be substantially underestimated if such external effects were not taken into account. Alternative estimation methods such as propensity score matching and a regression discontinuity approach yield comparable results.     

FAIR PRICING

This paper explores the consequences of supposing that consumers see a firm as fair if they cannot reject the hypothesis that the firm is somewhat benevolent towards them. When consumers can reject this hypothesis, some become angry, which is costly to the firm. The desire to appear benevolent can lead firms to adopt third‐degree price discrimination based on the income of different consumer classes while foreswearing third‐degree price discrimination based on differences in the elasticity of demand. It can also explain why prices seem to be more responsive to changes in factor costs than to changes in demand that have the same effect on marginal cost. Lastly, if consumers experience regret or disappointment when faced by increased prices, the model can explain why prices can be more rigid in response to disasters that increase demand dramatically than they are when there is a less substantial increase in demand.