1,721,041 research outputs found
Replication Data for: "Sales, Quantity Surcharge, and Consumer Inattention"
No full textClerides, Sofronis, and Courty, Pascal, (2017) "Sales, Quantity Surcharge, and Consumer Inattention." Review of Economics and Statistics 99:2, 357-370
Replication Data for: "Sales, Quantity Surcharge, and Consumer Inattention"
No full textClerides, Sofronis, and Courty, Pascal, (2017) "Sales, Quantity Surcharge, and Consumer Inattention." Review of Economics and Statistics 99:2, 357-370
Identical Price Categories in Oligopolistic MArkets. Innocent Behaviour or Collusive Practice?
No full textIn many sectors competing firms choose the same (or similar) price categories - a price category being defined as a situation where a firm commits to sell a given set of products (or to supply a given set of markets), at a single price. In this Report we show that firms might choose homogeneous price categories
in order to facilitate collusion. The reason being that similar price categories might make the enforcement of a given collusive outcome more likely; moreover, they may facilitate coordination on a given collusive outcome simpler; and they may make the market more transparent from the sellers’ side, thereby
facilitating reciprocal monitoring. However, homogeneous price categories might simply result from noncollusive
competitive interaction. Specifically, firms will tend to adopt similar price categories because they face similar demand or cost conditions. Historical reasons and habits, as well as the design of efficient incentive schemes for employees represent other innocent motives for homogeneous price categories.
Finally, the choice of the same price categories as rivals, by making the market more transparent from the
demand side, may make a firm’s aggressive pricing strategy more effective. Hence, our study suggests that
adopting the same (or similar) categories should not be considered per se illegal, nor competition
authorities should devote extra-effort to investigate sectors characterized by similar price categories. It is
only an explicit agreement among firms to use homogeneous price categories that should be considered
unlawful
Curbing Cream-Skimming: Evidence on Enrolment Incentives
Get PDFCan enrolment incentives reduce the incidence of cream-skimming in the delivery of public sector services (e.g. education, health, job training)? In the context of a large government job training program, we investigate whether the use of enrolment incentives that set different 'shadow prices' for serving different demographic subgroups of clients, influence case workers' choice of intake population. Exploiting exogenous variation in these shadow prices, we show that training agencies change the composition of their enrollee populations in response to changes in the incentives, increasing the relative fraction of subgroups whose shadow prices increase. We also show that the increase is due to training agencies enrolling at the margin weaker members, in terms of performance, of that subgroup.performance measurement, cream-skimming, enrolment incentives, bureaucrat behavior, public organizations
Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program
Get PDFWe describe the evolution of a performance measurement system in a government job-training program. In this program, a federal agency establishes performance measures and standards for sub-state agencies. We show that the performance measurement system’s evolution is at least partly explained as a process of trial-and-error, characterized by a feedback loop: the federal agency establishes performance measures, the local managers learn how to game them, the federal agency learns about gaming and reformulates the performance measures, leading to possibly new gaming, and so on. The dynamics suggest that implementing a performance measurement system in government is not a one-time challenge but benefits from careful monitoring and perhaps frequent revision.performance measurement, performance incentives, government organisation, organisational dynamic
Contracting-out and governance mechanisms in the public employment service
Get PDFThe contracting-out of job brokerage and case management services is a major international trend in the reform of the Public Employment Service. Instead of a public agency, private providers are contracted to deliver these services for the jobseekers. Australia and the Netherlands have contracted-out (almost) all of this formerly core public service. The U.K. has introduced so-called Employment Zones, in which private providers are responsible for long-term unemployed and thus replace the public Jobcentre Plus for this target-group. Based on agency theory, the paper analyses and compares the contract management in the three cases with respect to the risk of moral hazard. Differentiating between three distinct governance mechanisms (incentives, information and control), the paper shows the requirement of an integrated approach to contract management. -- Das Contracting-out der öffentlichen Arbeitsvermittlung und des Fallmanagements für Langzeitarbeitslose ist eine der wesentlichen internationalen Entwicklungen in der Reform der öffentlichen Arbeitsverwaltung. Statt einer öffentlichen Behörde werden dabei private Anbieter vertraglich beauftragt, diese Dienstleistungen für Arbeitssuchende zu erbringen. Australien und die Niederlande sind bei dieser Auslagerung ehemals öffentlicher Dienstleistungen besonders weit gegangen. Großbritannien hat so genannte Employment Zones eingerichtet, in denen private Anbieter für Langzeitarbeitslose zuständig sind und somit die Leistungen des Jobcentre Plus für diese Zielgruppe ersetzen. Ausgehend von der Prinzipal-Agent-Theorie analysiert und vergleicht der Aufsatz das Vertragsmanagement in den drei Ländern hinsichtlich des Moral Hazards. Ein effektives Governance-Konzept erfordert, dass die drei wesentlichen Steuerungsinstrumente (Anreiz-, Informations- und Kontrollmechanismen) zu einem integrierten Vertragsmanagement zusammengeführt werden.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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