The conditions under which transactors can use the market (repeat-purchase) mechanism of contract enforcement are examined. Increased price is shown to be a means of assuring contractual performance. A necessary and sufficient condition for performance is the existence of price sufficiently above salvageable production costs so that the nonperforming firm loses a discounted steam of rents on future sales which is greater than the wealth increase from nonperformance. This will generally imply a market price greater than the perfectly competitive price and rationalize investments in firm-specific assets. Advertising investments thereby become a positive indicator of likely performance.

/pdf/the-role-of-market-forces-in-assuring-contractual-p2lajf4u7h.pdf

The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance

Personalized web services strive to adapt their services (advertisements, news articles, etc.) to individual users by making use of both content and user information. Despite a few recent advances, this problem remains challenging for at least two reasons. First, web service is featured with dynamically changing pools of content, rendering traditional collaborative filtering methods inapplicable. Second, the scale of most web services of practical interest calls for solutions that are both fast in learning and computation.In this work, we model personalized recommendation of news articles as a contextual bandit problem, a principled approach in which a learning algorithm sequentially selects articles to serve users based on contextual information about the users and articles, while simultaneously adapting its article-selection strategy based on user-click feedback to maximize total user clicks.The contributions of this work are three-fold. First, we propose a new, general contextual bandit algorithm that is computationally efficient and well motivated from learning theory. Second, we argue that any bandit algorithm can be reliably evaluated offline using previously recorded random traffic. Finally, using this offline evaluation method, we successfully applied our new algorithm to a Yahoo! Front Page Today Module dataset containing over 33 million events. Results showed a 12.5% click lift compared to a standard context-free bandit algorithm, and the advantage becomes even greater when data gets more scarce.

/pdf/a-contextual-bandit-approach-to-personalized-news-article-13tixfy0pk.pdf

A contextual-bandit approach to personalized news article recommendation

This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints. The final good is produced from “ dirty” and “ clean” inputs. We show that: (i) when inputs are sufficiently substitutable, sustainable growth can be achieved with temporary taxes/subsidies that redirect innovation toward clean inputs; (ii) optimal policy involves both “ carbon taxes” and research subsidies, avoiding excessive use of carbon taxes; (iii) delay in intervention is costly, as it later necessitates a longer transition phase with slow growth; and (iv) use of an exhaustible resource in dirty input production helps the switch to clean innovation under laissez-faire. (JEL O33, O44, Q30, Q54, Q56, Q58)

/pdf/the-environment-and-directed-technical-change-2mflbkatdz.pdf

The Environment and Directed Technical Change

New public management is a topical phrase to describe how management techniques from the private sector are now being applied to public services. This book provides a completely up-to-date overview of the main theoretical models of public sector management, and examines the key changes that have occurred as more and more public services are contracted out to private organisations, as the public sector itself grapples with 'internal markets'. Drawing on economics, organisational theory and poliltics, Jan-Erik Lane presents new public management from an analytical perspective. This book uses game theory and empirical studies in order to assess the pros and cons of new public management.

https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/42638/1/102.Jan-Erik%20Lane.pdf

New public management

The value of risks to life and health

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the systematic and analytical process of comparing benefits and costs in evaluating the desirability of a project or programme – often of a social nature. It attempts to answer such questions as whether a proposed project is worthwhile, the optimal scale of a proposed project and the relevant constraints. CBA is fundamental to government decision making and is established as a formal technique for making informed decisions on the use of society’s scarce resources. 
This timely sixth edition of the classic Cost-Benefit Analysis text continues to build on the successful approach of previous editions, with lucid explanation of key ideas, simple but effective expository short chapters and an appendix on various useful statistical and mathematical concepts and derivatives. The book examines important developments in the discipline, with relevant examples and illustrations as well as new and expanded chapters which build upon standard materials on CBA. Highlights include:



updated historical background of CBA


extended non-market goods valuation methods


the impact of uncertainty


evaluation of programmes and services


behavioural economics


decision rules and heuristics


CBA and regulatory reforms


CBA in developed and developing countries


value of household production 


other topics frequently encountered in CBA, such as costs of diseases and air pollution, and value of statistical life.


This book is a valuable source and guide to international funding agencies, governments, interested professional economists and senior undergraduate and graduate students.
The text is fully supported by a companion website, which includes discussion questions and PowerPoint slides for each chapter.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

None of the existing methods of evaluating loss or saving life, or assessing an increase or reduction in accidents resulting from investment projects, is satisfactory for a number of reasons. This is so chiefly because they are all inconsistent with the Pareto base of existing allocation theory and benefit-cost analysis. Strict application of the Pareto principle to changes in accidents and fatalities involves a calculation of the compensating variation associated with the changes in risk bearing regarded as external effects. Several of these external effects are discussed at length.

Evaluation of Life and Limb: A Theoretical Approach

First published in 1967, "The Costs of Economic Growth" was based on the central conviction that the official figures for growth in real income were entirely compatible with a decline in human welfare. Twenty-five years later, "The Costs of Economic Growth" remains one of the most persuasive and systematic demolitions of the religion of growth yet published, its arguments only reinforced by the growing social and environmental problems of the late 20th century. For this new major edition the text has been revised and updated in the light of recent global perils and environmetal degradation.

The Costs of Economic Growth

Introduction to normative economics

While it continues to fascinate many, welfare economics does not appear at any time to have wholly engaged the labours of any one economist. It is a subject which, apparently, one dabbles in for a while, leaves and, perhaps, returns to later in response to a troubled conscience—which goes some way to explain why, more than other branches of economics, it suffers from an unevenness in its development, a lack of homogeneity in its treatment and, until very recently, a distressing disconnectedness between its parts.2

E.J. Mishan

Papers

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Evaluation of Life and Limb: A Theoretical Approach

The Costs of Economic Growth

Introduction to normative economics

A Survey of Welfare Economics, 1939–59