When Are Local Incentive Constraints Sufficient?

We study the question of whether local incentive constraints are sufficient to imply full incentive compatibility in a variety of mechanism design settings, allowing for probabilistic mechanisms. We give a unified approach that covers both continuous and discrete type spaces. On many common preference domains—including any convex domain of cardinal or ordinal preferences, single‐peaked ordinal preferences, and successive single‐crossing ordinal preferences—local incentive compatibility (suitably defined) implies full incentive compatibility. On domains of cardinal preferences that satisfy a strong nonconvexity condition, local incentive compatibility is not sufficient. Our sufficiency results hold for dominant‐strategy and Bayesian Nash solution concepts, and allow for some interdependence in preferences.     

Designing Efficient Infrastructural Investment and Asset Transfer Mechanisms in Humanitarian Supply Chains

We analyze the efficacy of different asset transfer mechanisms and provide policy recommendations for the design of humanitarian supply chains. As a part of their preparedness effort, humanitarian organizations often make decisions on resource investments ex ante because doing so allows for rapid response if an adverse event occurs. However, programs typically operate under funding constraints and donor earmarks with autonomous decision‐making authority resting with the local entities, which makes the design of efficient humanitarian supply chains a challenging problem. We formulate this problem in an agency setting with two independent aid programs, where different asset transfer mechanisms are considered and where investments in resources are of two types: primary resources that are needed for providing the aid and infrastructural investments that improve the operation of the aid program in using the primary resources. The primary resources are acquired from earmarked donations. We show that allowing aid programs the flexibility of transferring primary resources improves the efficiency of the system by yielding greater social welfare than when this flexibility does not exist. More importantly, we show that a central entity that can acquire primary resources from one program and sell them to the other program can further improve system efficiency by providing a mechanism that facilitates the transfer of primary resources and eliminates losses from gaming. This outcome is achieved without depriving the individual aid programs of their decision‐making autonomy while maintaining the constraints under which they operate. We find that outcomes with centralized resource transfer but decentralized infrastructural investments by the aid programs are the same as with a completely centralized system (where both resource transfer and infrastructural investments are centralized).     

Buttressing Supply Chains against Floods in Asia for Humanitarian Relief and Economic Recovery

Floods are the most frequent category of disasters worldwide. Among all geographic regions, Asia has suffered the most. While there are several ongoing humanitarian efforts and initiatives, we believe there is a new opportunity to coordinate “last mile” humanitarian efforts in the event of a flood using micro‐retailers. Because micro‐retailers are the “last mile” nodes in traditional retail supply chains in many Asian countries, we propose the use of social enterprise to buttress these supply chains for distribution of essential goods by coordinating with micro‐retailers before and after floods. We also present a stylized model to quantify the benefits of doing so.     

Dynamic Mechanism Design: A Myersonian Approach

We study mechanism design in dynamic quasilinear environments where private information arrives over time and decisions are made over multiple periods. We make three contributions. First, we provide a necessary condition for incentive compatibility that takes the form of an envelope formula for the derivative of an agent's equilibrium expected payoff with respect to his current type. It combines the familiar marginal effect of types on payoffs with novel marginal effects of the current type on future ones that are captured by “impulse response functions.” The formula yields an expression for dynamic virtual surplus that is instrumental to the design of optimal mechanisms and to the study of distortions under such mechanisms. Second, we characterize the transfers that satisfy the envelope formula and establish a sense in which they are pinned down by the allocation rule (“revenue equivalence”). Third, we characterize perfect Bayesian equilibrium‐implementable allocation rules in Markov environments, which yields tractable sufficient conditions that facilitate novel applications. We illustrate the results by applying them to the design of optimal mechanisms for the sale of experience goods (“bandit auctions”).     

在活动中发展师德——中小学师德活动的设计与实施

师德活动是师德规范与教师教育实践的"结合体",体现了师德的"实践性"特征。其基本逻辑是将师德制度全面渗透到常态化和主题式的活动中,通过对师德"主体性"的激发,推动教师开展基于师德活动的实践反思,以此帮助教师发展师德。师德活动从形式上看,可以分为:"榜样同行"的师德对话活动,闪烁着师德尊严与光辉的师德仪式活动,以"师德问题求解"为核心的师德研修活动,"关怀备至"的师德发展支持性活动,等等。为保证师德活动能够科学有效地开展,必须建立完善的承托机制,即构建师德共同体、建立系统的师德活动制度与机制、建设立体化的师德活动资源平台与支持体系。     

高职院校服装设计专业顶岗实习教学模式探索

组织服装专业学生到杰娅诗服饰有限公司参与社会实践活动,在实践活动中发现学生与用人单位之间缺乏有效对接,引发对服装设计专业学生参与顶岗实习可行性的思考。认为顶岗实习模式简单,可以有效缩短企业与学生之间的距离,促进高职院校校企合作横向课题开展,改进现有的毕业设计模式,有利于双师型教师的培养,激发学生的创新意识,是一个可以借鉴的教学模式。     

研究型教学模式在“集成电路设计”课程中的探讨与实践

研究型教学注重发挥教师的主导作用和学生的主体作用,教师由知识的传授者转变为学习的指导者。文章分析了研究型教学模式的本质、特点,叙述了在集成电路设计课程中进行研究型教学模式的具体实施方法,经过问卷调查,结果表明,这些研究型教学方法能激发学生的学习兴趣,提高其在自学能力、写作能力、查阅文献能力、撰写论文等方面的水平。     

现代室内庭园中的文化表现及创新设计

“把自然引入室内”是当今人们普遍关注的话题,也是各国建筑师及室内设计师越来越重视的问题。文章从室内庭园设计的文化角度入手,阐释了在不同的文化中,室内庭园设计的不同表现形式。在研究室内庭园设计的精神内涵的同时,探索其设计的创新之路。希望为业内人士提供思考与讨论的平台,也从一个角度探讨了室内庭园中传统文化的重要性及其和创新设计的关系。     

镜面材料在家居环境中的应用

镜面材料是现代室内环境应用较多的装饰材料之一。它不仅具有装饰性,又能扩展空间,特别是在现在土地资源稀缺,寸土寸金的小户型流行的时代,镜面材料在增大视觉效果方面所起的作用是无可替代的,但镜面材料本身对人的心理作用在现实中却往往被设计师忽略了。本文从探讨镜面材质在家居环境设计中所起的作用入手,充分肯定这一类装饰材料在现代室内设计中所扮演的重要角色,同时提出家居环境中镜面材料的使用应慎重。