计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

Statistics for Spatial Data.

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

I NCENTIVES ARE the essence of economics. Despite many wide-ranging claims about their supposed importance, there has been little empirical assessment of incentive provision for workers. The purpose of this paper is to critically overview existing work on the provision of incentives. Since the interests of workers and their employers are not always aligned, a large theoretical literature has emphasized how firms design compensation contracts to induce employees to operate in the firm's interest. This literature has reached into many areas of compensation and has pointed to a multitude of different mechanisms that can be used to induce workers to act in the interests of their employers. These include piece rates, options, discretionary bonuses, promotions, profit sharing, efficiency wages, deferred compensation, and so on. My objective here is to evaluate this literature in the light of a growing empirical literature on compensation. Where possible, I will address the literature from two perspectives. First, an underlying assumption of this literature is that individuals respond to contracts that reward performance. Accordingly, I consider whether agents behave in this way, and whether these responses are always in the firm's interest. Second, I address whether firms write contracts with these responses in mind. In other words, do contracts look like the predictions of the theory? Incentives are provided to workers

/pdf/the-provision-of-incentives-in-firms-zlx7fye09q.pdf

The Provision of Incentives in Firms

The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

This article provides an empirical assessment of various agency-theoretic explanations for franchising, including risk sharing, one-sided moral hazard, and two-sided moral hazard. The empirical models use proxies for factors such as risk, moral hazard, and franchisors' need for capital to explain both franchisors' decisions about the terms of their contracts (royalty rates and up-front franchise fees) and the extent to which they use franchising. In this article, I exploit several new sources of data on franchising to construct a cross section of 548 franchisors involved in various business activities in the United States in 1986. The data are most consistent with a model based on two-sided moral hazard. The empirical models are also more successful at explaining the extent to which franchisors choose to franchise stores than at explaining the terms of franchise contracts. Finally, contrary to the predictions of several theoretical models, I find that royalty rates and franchise fees are not negatively related.

/pdf/agency-theory-and-franchising-some-empirical-results-2c6y44f175.pdf

Agency Theory and Franchising: Some Empirical Results

Since Ronald H. Coase's (1937) seminal paper, a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input–output structures. In the last twenty-five years, empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories also has been accumulating. We review the findings of empirical studies that have addressed two main interrelated questions: First, what types of transactions are best brought within the firm and, second, what are the consequences of vertical integration decisions for economic outcomes such as prices, quantities, investment, and profits. Throughout, we highlight areas of potential cross-fertilization and promising areas for future work.

/pdf/vertical-integration-and-firm-boundaries-the-evidence-kaauvzkw30.pdf

Vertical integration and firm boundaries : the evidence

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/31457/0000379.pdf?sequence=1

The Evolution of Ownersip Patterns in Franchise Systems

Preface 1. Introduction 2. Four popular misconceptions about franchising 3. Franchise contracts 4. Franchising, vertical integration, and vertical restraints 5. Quality control 6. Franchise tying contracts 7. Vertical price controls in franchising 8. Encroachment 9. Advertising and promotion 10. Termination and non-renewal 11. Concluding remarks.

https://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/72525/frontmatter/9780521772525_frontmatter.pdf

The Economics of Franchising

We summarize a number of regularities that arise in the empirical literature on contractual relationships between manufacturers and their exclusive resellers. We do this using studies of traditional and business-format-franchise relationships, as well as studies of salesforce-integration decisions. Some of the patterns that we uncover are consistent with a standard incentive-cum-insurance theory of organization, while others are not. We brie£y review some theoretical extensions that seem promising in terms of reconciling seeming con£icts between theory and practice. i. introduction Manufacturers of retail products must decide whether to sell their products to consumers themselves (vertical integration) or to sell via independent retailers (vertical separation). When manufacturers do not perform the sales function internally, but want exclusive retailers, they usually choose some form of franchising. 1 Many theories attempt to explain the choice of retail-organizational form. Moreover, a considerable body of empirical evidence concerning this choice is accumulating. We attempt to evaluate this econometric evidence and relate it to the theories. To accomplish this task, we assess studies of franchising arrangements as well as studies of sales-force organization in industrial settings. The paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we highlight a number of regularities that arise in the empirical literature on retail contracting. In particular, we ¢nd that: (i) Risk is positively related to the use of high-powered incentives (vertical separation). (ii) The importance of the agent’s eiort in production is positively related to the use of high-powered incentives.

/pdf/retail-contracting-theory-and-practice-12sxbwnbjp.pdf

Francine Lafontaine

Papers

Agency Theory and Franchising: Some Empirical Results

Vertical integration and firm boundaries : the evidence

The Evolution of Ownersip Patterns in Franchise Systems

The Economics of Franchising

Retail Contracting: Theory and Practice