First‐Price Auctions With General Information Structures: Implications for Bidding and Revenue

We explore the impact of private information in sealed‐bid first‐price auctions. For a given symmetric and arbitrarily correlated prior distribution over values, we characterize the lowest winning‐bid distribution that can arise across all information structures and equilibria. The information and equilibrium attaining this minimum leave bidders indifferent between their equilibrium bids and all higher bids. Our results provide lower bounds for bids and revenue with asymmetric distributions over values. We also report further characterizations of revenue and bidder surplus including upper bounds on revenue. Our work has implications for the identification of value distributions from data on winning bids and for the informationally robust comparison of alternative auction mechanisms.     

Supply Chain Strategies and International Tax Arbitrage

What motivates the geographic footprint of the supply chains that multinational firms (MNFs) deploy? Traditional research in the operations and supply chain management literature tends to recommend locations primarily based on differentials in production costs and the ramifications of physical distance ignoring the role of taxation. MNFs that strategically position parts of their supply chains in low‐tax locations can allocate the profits across the divisions to improve post‐tax profits. For the profit allocation to be defensible to tax authorities, the divisional operations must possess real decision authority and bear meaningful risks. Generally speaking, the greater the transfer of risk and control, the larger the allowable allocation of profit. These transfers may also create inefficiencies due to misalignment of business goals and attitudes toward risk. We model these trade‐offs in the context of placing in a low‐tax region a subsidiary that oversees product distribution (as a limited risk distributor commissionnaire, limited risk distributor, or fully fledged distributor). Our analysis demonstrates that the MNF's preferences regarding the operating structures are not necessarily an obvious ordering based on the amount of risk and decision authority transferred to the division in the low‐tax jurisdiction. We derive and analyze threshold values of the performance parameters that describe the main trade‐offs involved in selecting an operating structure. We find some of the optimal decisions to exhibit interesting non‐monotone behavior. For instance, profits can increase when the tax rate in the low‐tax jurisdiction increases. Numerical analysis shows that the Limited‐Risk Distributor structure is rarely optimal and quantifies when each alternative dominates it.     

Governing Deviance in Public Space through Mayoral Orders: Fields Mismatch and Metropolitan Turbulence

This article addresses the issue of policy change and its consequences on the organizational field and institutional context, looking at the role of an instrument transfer process. We adopt a political sociology approach to policy instruments to account for the impact that the introduction of a securitarian instrument, the mayoral order, had on the implementation process of a social policy. Through a genealogy of the instrument we identify a constitutive, normative and cognitive dimension. Our aim is to explain the interaction between these institutional dimensions, the re‐definition of the organizational field of the policy, and the dynamics of metropolitan politics. Following a synthesis of the policy process and the institutional arrangements where the policy is implemented, we show how the instrument transfer triggered a division within the organizational field, and the rise of institutional tensions amongst local authorities. In the conclusion, we identify the institutional dimensions of the instruments and the policy implementation scale as elements that are to interact with public‐private relationships and institutional arrangements, and that have an impact on implementation process and policy outcome.     

Intention to Leave the Profession: Welfare Social Workers Compared to Health Care and Community Social Workers in Israel

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to compare specific work related-factors (personal factor: length of work experience; structural factors: personal subjection to violence and fear of being subjected to violence; and psychological factors: professional quality of life—compassion satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue) between welfare social workers (SWs) (n = 200) and health care and community SWs (n = 173). Furthermore, since the issue of turnover among SWs has important implications for the provision and programming of social services, the study also aimed to assess the relationship between these factors and SW intention to leave the profession. For the purpose of this study, online questionnaires were distributed to SWs working at social agencies and services. The findings suggest that the two categories of SWs showed a similarity with regard to the association between the personal and structural factors and intention to leave the profession. However, with regard to the psychological factors, the components of professional quality of life were found to operate differently in each category of SWs. It is suggested that future research examine other work-related factors and explore the intention to leave the profession among other social work specializations and employment sectors.     

“福利田”的经济分析

由于农地经济功能的弱化和社会功能的强化,以保障基本生活为目的的福利田产生,与之相对的是以获取最大经济效益为目的的效率田。通过对福利田的经济分析,我们可以明确看到,福利田导致了农地的低效利用,制约了农业效益的提高,同时影响到农民工的非农化进程,阻碍了我国产业结构升级。     

农民工社会保障问题研究

建立健全农民工社会保障体系关系到我国和谐社会构建的成败。但目前我国农民工社会保障的法制建设落后,社会保险、社会救助和社会福利缺失。要加快农民工社会保障法律制度建设,降低农民工缴纳社会保险费的标准,建立与农民工收入水平联动的缴费标准机制,构建科学的农民工社会保险关系转移制度,加大国家对农民工社会保障建设的资金投入力度。     

孙中山的社会福利思想探析

孙中山的社会福利观一方面继承了中国社会福利思想的传统,又受到资产阶级民主革命和西方福利思想的影响,形成他颇具特色的社会福利观,成为其民生主义的重要内容。孙中山关注社会弱势群体,认为为国民提供社会福利是政府的责任,倡导社会福利的制度化和法治化建设。孙中山的社会福利思想对民国的社会福利实践产生了重要影响,在中国社会思想史上占有重要的地位。     

城镇化进程中农村征地补偿制度的构建

改革开放以来.随着我国经济飞速发展,城镇化进程不断加快,大量的农村土地被征用,许多农民失去了赖以生存的土地.对于失地农民而言,唯一能保障其生活就是土地征用补偿.但是,在我国现行的土地征用补偿制度下,许多农民却出现"征地返贫"的现象.审视我国现行的土地征用补偿制度,其存在一系列问题,应当从将市场因素导入补偿标准、提高土地征用补偿标准、扩大补偿范围、丰富补偿方式等方面完善土地征用补偿制度.     

劳动合同理论研究

本文分析劳动合同的可执行特征和在可执行要求下,劳动合同条款须具备可检验性,这要求明确期限和工资,同时劳动强度与劳动范围却是模糊的.进一步阐释劳动合同中劳动强度与劳动范围的模糊性的原因以及在劳动合同中劳动强度与劳动范围的模糊性情况下,相关制度安排怎样抑制雇佣双方机会主义行为,雇佣双方退出权的不对称是有效抑制雇佣双方机会主义行为的安排.     

透析实施生育保险制度的局势

从社会学视角对实施生育保险制度的必要性进行探讨,分别从宏观(包括人口转变规律、经济体制改革、提高人口素质的需求三个方面)、中观(包括社会支持网络的变迁、保障女性群体地位、保障企业平等竞争三个方面)和微观层面(包括生育观念的转变、生育的风险性、体现女性的生育价值三个方面)进行层层剖析,说明实施和拓宽生育保险制度势在必行。