Modeling cooperation among self-interested agents: a critique

This paper reviews recent attempts to model cooperation in groups of self-interested unrelated individuals. It concludes that no empirically plausible model has been developed, and the economist's quest for an explanation of human prosociality in terms of self-interested agents has not been successful. We show that the equilibrium criteria employed in standard game-theoretic models have no attractive dynamic properties, and the mechanisms deployed in these models are not generally seen in empirical examples of cooperative groups. We also show that these models are not robust to plausible rates of signaling error and mutation. We present an alternative, involving strongly reciprocal agents, that satisfies all the requirements for a dynamically stable model of cooperation.     

Automobile prices and protection: The U.S.-Japan trade restraint

We examine the effects of the U.S.-Japan trade restraint on automobile prices and quality upgrading, for both Japanese imports and American small cars. From April 1981 to April 1984 the suggested retail price of all Japanese models increased by 15.8 percent, or 5.3 percent per year. We find that nearly the entire amount of this rise can be explained by the upgrading of individual models. This upgrading may benefit consumers who would purchase a luxury import in any case, but harms those who desire the basic imports. In addition to upgrading, we conclude that a second cost of the trade restraint has been to prevent the yen depreciation from being passed onto American consumers, in terms of lower imported auto prices. For U.S. small cars we find a 9.1 percent rise in the suggested retail price, or 3 percent per year, with a fraction of this amount due to model upgrading. If the yen depreciation had led to lower import prices without the trade restraint, then we expect that U.S. auto prices would have been lower, too.     

从经济学视角谈科学育才之路

在现阶段高校毕业生面临着社会对他们的有效需求不足的问题,从而必须面对社会对高素质人才的需求同高校毕业生供给相对过剩这一结构性供需矛盾。本文从经济学角度分析产生这种矛盾的原因,进而提出只要高校学生工作措施得当,政策有针对性,就有可能缓解上述供需矛盾。     

如何定义“大国”？

 摘　　要:本文通过对各种关于“大国”定义的总结和分析，根据经济学原理给出了关于经济学意义的“大国”的定义。并分析了这种定义的优势，以及在该定义下进一步研究“大国”问题的方向     

历届诺贝尔经济学奖得主评介

举世瞩目的诺贝尔经济学奖得主及其学术成就 ,对我国“入世”后市场经济的发展及其与世界经济的接轨 ,都具有十分重要的指导作用     

Business reform outcomes: Why so different?

Post-crisis policy making increasingly focuses on doing business reforms. We argue that the effects of those reforms will be different across countries. To understand the reasons for the reform outcome divergence, we advance a novel firm-size distribution (FSDs) argument. At the center of the argument is the fact that FSDs are different across countries and stable over time. Then, if a given doing business reform induces firms of different size to grow differently, this will produce a variety of reform outcomes across countries. To advance the argument, we set up a tractable general equilibrium (GE) model and study how firms of different size grow after a doing business reform. The model predicts that larger firms will grow faster than smaller firms after the reform. The model predictions are tested on the Enterprise Surveys (ES) data, merged with the Doing Business indicators. We confirm that firms of different size grow differently after a Doing Business reform. Thus, based on the notable differences of firm size distributions across countries, identical reforms to start, operate and close a business will produce a variety of reform outcomes across countries.     

Charisma as signal: An evolutionary perspective on charismatic leadership

We present an evolutionary perspective on charismatic leadership, arguing that charisma has evolved as a credible signal of a person's ability to solve a coordination challenge requiring urgent collective action from group members. We suggest that a better understanding of charisma's evolutionary and biological origins and functions can provide a broader perspective in which to situate current debates surrounding the utility and validity of charismatic leadership as a construct in the social sciences. We outline several key challenges which have shaped our followership psychology, and argue that the benefits of successful coordination in ancestral environments has led to the evolution of context-dependent psychological mechanisms which are especially attuned to cues and signals of outstanding personal leadership qualities. We elaborate on several implications of this signaling hypothesis of charismatic leadership, including opportunities for deception (dishonest signaling) and for large-scale coordination.     

Bayesian optimal sequential design for nonparametric regression via inhomogeneous evolutionary MCMC

We develop a novel computational methodology for Bayesian optimal sequential design for nonparametric regression. This computational methodology, that we call inhomogeneous evolutionary Markov chain Monte Carlo, combines ideas of simulated annealing, genetic or evolutionary algorithms, and Markov chain Monte Carlo. Our framework allows optimality criteria with general utility functions and general classes of priors for the underlying regression function. We illustrate the usefulness of our novel methodology with applications to experimental design for nonparametric function estimation using Gaussian process priors and free-knot cubic splines priors.     

关于东北和内蒙古东部区域经济一体化的思考

国家实施振兴东北老工业基地的战略,对內蒙古东部四盟市是一次难得的历史机遇。蒙东四盟市与东北三省山水相连、文化相同、人缘相亲,在人才、技术、自然资源等诸多方面有互补性,奠定了合作开发的基础。振兴东北,拉动内蒙,实现区域经济一体化,是应对区域经济一体化大趋势的必然选择,也是全面建设小康社会的战略要求。三省一区联合互动,必然会促进区域经济一体化进程,将会带动东三省和蒙东四盟市的新一轮共同发展。