论消费社会中的个体身份认同——以乔治·佩雷克的小说《物》为例

乔治·佩雷克的第一部小说《物》常被界定为写实小说,但是仅从它的篇幅便可看出佩雷克的真正用意并不是在深入剖析消费社会的机制,而是在探求人的个体意识。通过探讨小说主人公的欲望、行动与其内心的虚无感之间的关系可以窥见他们如何在消费社会中努力寻求个体身份认同以及作品所体现的现实意义。     

中国消费者保护的立法缺陷及其完善

我国消费者保护立法在产品责任保护水平、消费信用法律制度、网络消费者权益保护、消费者教育制度、消费者诉讼制度及消费环境等方面存在许多弊端,不能适应WTO下的多边贸易体系。作者从比较法的角度,在借鉴外国消费者保护立法的先进经验和成功做法的基础上,对如何发展和完善我国消费者保护法律制度,保护消费者的最大合法权益,提出了自己的看法。     

中国影子银行违约风险和防范机制研究——来自上市公司委托贷款数据的经验证据

本文运用中国上市公司披露的委托贷款公告数据,实证研究了影子银行的违约风险及其防范机制。数据显示,我国委托贷款的整体违约率为10.09%,远高于同期银行业金融机构的不良贷款率。进一步研究发现,与影子银行风险受信息因素影响的直觉一致,抵押条款和借贷距离会显著影响委托贷款违约率:其一,从抵押视角来看,抵押条款和贷款违约率显著正相关,这表明,为了防范事后的道德风险问题,贷款者会要求借款者提供抵押;其二,从借贷距离视角看,与近距离借贷(或同省借贷)相比,远距离借贷(或异省借贷)的违约风险相对较高,这揭示出,借贷距离越远,贷款者越难对借款者进行甄别和监督,从而推高了借款企业的违约概率。本文研究不仅为我国委托贷款这一影子银行机制的风险状况提供了直接的经验证据,而且对影子银行参与者如何有效防范风险和相关政府部门加强监管具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Net Neutrality,Broadband Market Coverage,and Innovation at the Edge*

Net neutrality (NN) is a widely debated policy issue that has the potential to alter the dynamics of accessing online content. The focal point of the debate lies in whether broadband service providers (BSPs) should be allowed to charge content providers for the preferential delivery of their digital content. This decision will affect broadband market coverage for end consumers as well as the issues of long‐term competition and innovation in the market of digital content. Our research aims to analyze and address these issues. We propose a game theoretical model with three players—the BSP, the content providers, and the consumers—where the BSP, in its capacity as a gatekeeper between the content providers and the consumers, is modeled as a two‐sided market platform. We find that while abandoning the principle of NN might sometimes result in increased consumer surplus and broadband market coverage, it can also hinder the ability of startups to compete against established rivals and thus reduce innovation at the edge. The results should be of great interest to policymakers as they debate on this very crucial issue.     

农户小额贷款违约影响因素研究

基于江苏北部某地区2007—2015年18万条真实农户大样本小额贷款记录,结合当地及全国CPI、GDP、第一产业产值、地区农业生产资料价格指数等宏观经济指标,采用基于最大似然估计逐步进入法的Logistic模型,筛选对农户违约概率影响较为显著的指标,之后对各指标经济含义进行了解释并对模型进行稳健性分析。研究发现：信用水平指标与农户的真实违约情况关联不显著,意味着当地信贷机构对贷款农户的贷前内部信用评级不能有效地预测农户的信用风险;利率、性别、婚姻状况、职业、教育等微观指标对信用风险有较大影响;全国范围的GDP和CPI、江苏农业生产资料价格指数、滞后一期的当地第一产业GDP等宏观指标也对信用风险具有预测作用; Logistic模型在不平衡数据集上,依然能保持较好的分类精度。     

Changing your role models: Social learning and the Engel curve

By relating Engel curves and social learning, we explain the existence of differently shaped Engel curves—an interesting phenomenon in the theory of demand. A formal approach to cultural learning within a population of consumers accounts for some cognitive foundations of these demand patterns. We find that a changing influence of an individual's role models due to her increasing income, which entails new reference groups providing social identity, leads to the diffusion of new consumption behaviors. Thereby, the resulting Engel curves’ shape depends on the underlying learning dynamics. The approach contributes to an explanation of structural change and economic development.     

User reward programs in online social media

Online social media (OSMs) have become a popular and growing Internet phenomenon, as exemplified by the millions of followers of websites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Given the Internet’s ease of access and the high degree of competition to attract users to these sites, a question arises as to whether OSMs should develop revenue-sharing programs as a way to reward their contributing users. We present an ex ante asymmetric duopoly OSM game, where heterogeneous users are either active or passive with respect to each OSM. The game includes two steps: First, the OSMs simultaneously announce their rewards for active users; and second, based on their preference, users choose their level of contribution with respect to each OSM. We show that this game has a unique Nash equilibrium in pure strategies, and we identify the conditions under which a symmetric equilibrium exists, despite the asymmetry between the OSMs. Moreover, at equilibrium, no user chooses to contribute content exclusively to the less favourable OSM, even when the more favourable firm shares a lower reward than the less favourable firm. Furthermore, in some circumstances, a higher asymmetry can diminish the net revenue of the more favourable firm and vice versa.     

基于机器学习LSTM&US模型的消费者信心指数预测研究

消费者信心指数等宏观经济指标具有时间上的滞后效应和动态变化的多维性,不易精确预测。本文基于机器学习长短时间记忆(Long Short-Term Memory,LSTM)神经网络模型,结合大数据技术挖掘消费者信心指数相关网络搜索数据(User Search,US),进而构建一种LSTM&US预测模型,并将其应用于对我国消费者信心指数的长期、中期与短期的预测研究,同时引入多个基准预测模型进行了对比分析。结果发现:引入网络搜索数据能够提高LSTM神经网络模型的预测性能与预测精度;LSTM&US预测模型具有较好的泛化能力,对不同期限的预测效果均较稳定,其预测性能与预测精度均优于其他六种基准预测模型(LSTM、SVR&US、RFR&US、BP&US、XGB&US和LGB&US);预测结果显示本文提出的LSTM&US预测模型具有一定的实用价值,该预测方法为消费者信心指数的预测与预判提供了一种新的研究思路,丰富了机器学习方法在宏观经济指标预测领域中的理论研究。     

美国小企业如何获得普通担保贷款和特种贷款

美国的小企业发展经验令世界各国特别是发展中国家为之瞩目。其成功的秘诀之一就是小企业借助美国小企业管理局提供的担保支持,可以顺利地从相关金融机构获得贷款。本文从小企业合格性审查、贷款的用途、贷款的偿还、贷款金额和费率、贷款申请程序等五个方面详细介绍分析了普通小企业担保贷款,然后又对小企业管理局担保的小企业特种贷款项目进行了介绍分析。其目的在于对中国的小金融机构开展小额贷款业务提供一些借鉴和支持。     

Product Positioning and Pricing Under Production Cost Considerations*

A framework in a competitive environment is proposed that incorporates production cost and economies of scale in the problem of positioning a product for a market segment. The model facilitates the existence of a Nash equilibrium in prices and product positions. As such, firms can simultaneously choose prices and product positions for the segment. This result improves the traditional theory on equilibria points in prices and product positions where firms choose their product positions first and then set their prices. A sensitivity analysis demonstrates the effects of changes in the unit savings derived from economies of scale or the cost of furnishing a product with its attributes by one firm on the product positions, prices, and profits of all competing firms. More important, the paper examines the effect on prices and profits of competing firms when one of the firms repositions its product closer to the segment's ideal point. It is shown that under certain conditions, the profit of a firm may actually decrease as it redesigns its product closer to the segment's ideal point. These conditions assist management to identify the product design beyond which enhancements of the product would lead to lower profits because of increasing production costs. It is also shown that the price of this firm increases. Past research supports the idea that positioning a brand closer to the ideal point, given fixed product positions of competing firms, would lead to greater buyer preferences and eventually higher profits. The price and profits of the competing firm may increase or decrease. Conditions are derived under which a movement towards the segment's ideal point by one firm would lead to higher profits by the competing firm.