Optimal estimation of a finite population mean under generalized random permutation models

Employing certain generalized random permutation models and a general class of linear estimators of a finite population mean, it is shown that many of the conventional estimators are “optimal” in the sense of minimum average mean square error. Simple proofs are provided by using a well-known theorem on UMV estimation. The results also cover certain simple response error situations.     

Controlling health care costs: An evaluation of strategies

There has been much discussion about the factors underlying inflation in the health care sector and the means to moderate increases in health expenditures. This paper identifies various costcontainment strategies and synthesizes research findings that may be helpful in evaluating their effectiveness. The review demonstrates the complexity of the issues and relationships that must be confronted and understood in cost containment. The delivery system is shown to be not well-suited to improving efficiency and restraining health care expenditure. Any single strategy, whether it involves restructuring the market or more direct regulation, cannot in itself accomplish the combination of expenditure control and adequacy of services that is socially desirable. A number of mutually reinforcing strategies are required. Finally, more empirical and analytical information on incentives, provider and regulatory decisionmaking, costs of regulation, and the dynamics of negotiation, is essential for the design of an effective costcontainment program.     

元赋“祖骚宗汉”论

文章认为,“祖骚宗汉”实质上是元人不满于律赋的偏尚俳偶与文赋的倾于理趣,却又缺少情感或藻彩而提出的一个辞赋革新的口号。在这面旗帜下,元赋作家学习楚辞,宣泄失志之悲,驰骋想象,展开入地升天的描写;也学习汉赋的颂美皇家和铺陈讽谏。这些努力强化了元赋的抒情性和生动性,复兴了古赋的宏大气势,使之获得较高的文学价值,并奠定了明清辞赋以古为主的格局。元赋的不足是思想境界稍欠高迥,也缺少全新的创造。     

Droit du travail,chômage et part salariale: l'expérience de six pays de l'OCDE, 1970–2010

Utilisant des données sur le droit du travail dans six pays (Allemagne, Etats‐Unis, France, Japon, Royaume‐Uni et Suède) entre 1970 et 2010, les auteurs évaluent les effets de la réglementation du travail sur le chômage et la part du travail dans le revenu national. Leur méthode montre la différence entre les effets à court et à long terme des changements de réglementation: la législation protectrice des travailleurs n'est pas associée de façon systématique avec le chômage, mais est corrélée positivement avec la part du travail dans le revenu national. Les dispositions relatives au temps de travail et la représentation des salariés ont des effets bénéfiques tant sur l'efficacité que sur la répartition.     

《查泰莱夫人的情人》之生态女性主义伦理管窥

D·H·劳伦斯的名作《查泰莱夫人的情人》是一部颇受争议的书,然而其主题却是严肃而深刻的。本文从自然和社会两个方面挖掘书中所体现的生态女性主义伦理:在自然领域,主张人与自然和谐共处;在社会领域,反对阶级歧视,并声援处于边缘的弱势群体——女性。     

‘Public toilets for a diverse neighborhood’: Spatial purification practices in community development discourse

This paper explores the dialectic of place and community identity in Mount Pleasant, a multi–ethnic and multi–class U.S. neighborhood where definitions of place are hotly contested among its residents. In a grant proposal for public toilets, Mount Pleasant writers use linguistic strategies such as presupposition, deixis, and contrast, coupled with discursive themes of filth and geography, to construct a core of the Mount Pleasant community. The writers place themselves and people who share their values in that core, and immigrants at the margins. These strategies serve as a discursive type of spatial purification practice (cf. Sibley 1988) through which the grantwriters set up a moral and spatial order where they and other core community members are deemed to use space ‘appropriately’, and thus inhabit positive moral positions, while immigrant community members’ imputed ‘inappropriate’ use of space is used to construct negative moral positions for them.     

跨国公司扩大对华R&D投资的影响与对策

跨国公司在华R＆D投资的发展会对我国的企业、产业、技术创新和技术进步带来什么样的影响?能否达到我国吸引跨国公司R＆D投资所期望的战略目标和层次?这是人们所普遍关心和想深入了解的一个问题。本文探讨了跨国公司在华R＆D投资的内在动因与挑战问题;分析了我国吸引跨国公司R＆D投资的多重需求和效应;提出了促使我国吸引跨国公司R＆D投资有效目标实现的应对策略。     

同工异曲的悲歌--《菊花的幽香》与《薄奠》之比较

英国小说大师劳伦斯创作的<菊花的幽香>和中国著名小说家郁达夫创作的<薄奠>具有异曲同工之处,他们分别以象征和写实的笔法描写了一个以男主人公的死亡为结局的家庭悲剧,并对各自社会的罪恶进行了揭露,因而具有进步意义,成为中英文学史上不可多得的佳作.     

Real option games with R&D and learning spillovers

We demonstrate to decision makers how to optimally make costly strategic pre-investment R&D decisions in the presence of spillover effects in an option pricing framework with analytic tractability. Decisions are modeled as impulse-type controls with random outcome. Two firms face two decisions that are solved interdependently in a two-stage game. The first-stage decision is: What is the optimal level of coordination (optimal policy/technology choice)? The second-stage decision is: What is the optimal effort for a given level of the spillover effects and the cost of information acquisition? The framework is extended to a two-period closed-loop stochastic game with (path-dependency inducing) switching costs that make strategy revisions harder. When conditions of learning-by-doing exist, we find that strategy shifts are easier to observe in market environments of high growth and high volatility.     

UNCERTAIN DEMAND,CONSUMER LOSS AVERSION,AND FLAT‐RATE TARIFFS

We consider a model of firm pricing and consumer choice, where consumers are loss averse and uncertain about their future demand. Possibly, consumers in our model prefer a flat rate to a measured tariff, even though this choice does not minimize their expected billing amount—a behavior in line with ample empirical evidence. We solve for the profit‐maximizing two‐part tariff, which is a flat rate if (a) marginal costs are not too high, (b) loss aversion is intense, and (c) there are strong variations in demand. Moreover, we analyze the optimal nonlinear tariff. This tariff has a large flat part when a flat rate is optimal among the class of two‐part tariffs.