污染产业转移下府际间合作治理大气污染的演化博弈分析

大气污染具有跨区域性,府际间合作治理是大气污染防治的必由之路,合作治理中存在“搭治污便车”的困境。由于府际间大气污染治理博弈的具有长期性和动态性,由此建立了多人两策略的演化博弈模型。分别研究,无约束机制和有约束机制两种情况下地方政府演化稳定策略及其影响因素。考虑到政府间污染产业转移,建立了污染产业转移政府对承接方政府治污补偿机制下的演化博弈模型,分别研究无约束和有约束两种情形下(补偿,治理)策略成为演化稳定均衡状态的条件。研究表明:府际间的合作治理策略选择不会受到外部效应的影响,大气污染治理成本、治理时污染物减排量、不治理时污染物排放增加量、中央政府对治理的奖励和对不治理的惩罚力度是影响地方政府决策的重要因素。将大气质量作为政绩考核的重要指标,提高其权重系数,可有效促使地方政府策略向参与合作治理演化。无约束下自主选择时,最优策略(补偿,治理)不会成为稳定均衡策略,引入中央政府约束后,当经济惩罚在一定范围内,(补偿,治理)成为稳定均衡策略。     

政府监管下的医院医疗信息分享演化博弈分析

在分析政府监管下医院间医疗信息分享特征的基础上,结合我国当前正在推行的医联体医院间信息分享运作模式,引入梅特卡夫定律并考虑患者评价的影响,分析了监管部门与医院各自的利益组成,建立了监管部门与医院两者之间的演化博弈模型,并采用复制动态方程研究了不同情形下医院间信息分享的演化博弈轨迹。研究表明,政府通过监管并建立激励惩罚机制等引导措施对医院最终达到的演化稳定态具有极大影响;降低医院主体信息分享的风险成本、规范提高医院分享信息的质量、引导患者增强对医院信息分享的关注、制定有吸引力和威慑力的奖惩政策,是促进医院医疗信息分享的关键。研究结果可为政府监管部门预测医院间的信息分享趋势和制定精准化政策以促进分享提供参考。     

政府奖励对报废汽车回收模式选择的作用机制研究——基于企业社会责任视角

随着我国报废汽车数量的增多,由其造成的交通隐患、环境污染和资源浪费已成为重要社会问题,而如何设计合理可行的回收模式成为解决问题的关键。以制造商主导为前提,提出了基于企业社会责任的报废汽车回收模型,构建了制造商回收、销售商回收和第三方回收模式下的回收流程和数学模型,通过实例对考虑和不考虑企业社会责任两种情况下的回收模型进行了分析,探讨了不同政府奖励下报废汽车回收模式的策略选择。通过研究发现:(1)不论是否考虑企业社会责任,随着政府奖励的增加,制造商最终都会选择由自己进行回收;(2)当考虑企业社会责任时,政府奖励和决策者经济责任偏好都会导致决策的改变,随着政府奖励和赋予经济责任权重的同步增加,制造商的决策由第三方企业回收模式或销售商回收模式变成了制造商回收模式,表明政府奖励和企业社会责任对报废汽车回收模式选择具有显著影响。     

不同补贴对象下闭环供应链信息共享价值研究

在一个制造商和一个零售商组成的二级闭环供应链中,为研究政府补贴下供应链需求信息共享对决策的影响及共享价值,针对两种补贴对象,构建并求解无信息共享和信息共享博弈模型,并进行仿真验证.研究表明:1)两种补贴对象下,制造商均能从信息共享中获益,零售商仅在绿色成本和回收成本较低时才会从信息共享中获益;绿色成本和回收成本稍高时,设计基于谈判势力的信息补偿机制能有效促进零售商共享信息.2)产品绿色度和回收率随预测需求量的提高而提高,批发价和零售价仅在回收成本较低时,才会随预测需求量的提高而提高.3)在仅补贴一方情况下,当补贴对象为低补贴一方时,两个主体所获的信息共享价值大;若对两者的补贴均较低,两个主体均希望补贴对象为零售商;若对两者的补贴均较高,零售商不愿共享需求信息.     

Modeling the role of government efforts in controlling extremism in a society

People having extreme idealogies affect the process in a region using fear of terror acts, money power, and the word of mouth communication network to change individuals to their way of thinking. This forces government to divert its limited financial resources for controlling extremism and thus affecting development. In this paper, therefore, a nonlinear mathematical model is proposed to study the dynamics of extremism governed by four dependent variables, namely, number of people in the general population having no extreme ideology, number of extreme ideologists, number of isolated ideologists (prisoners), and the cumulative density of government efforts and their interactions. The model is analyzed using the stability theory of differential equations and computer simulation. The analysis shows that if appropriate level of government efforts is applied on extremists, the spread of their ideology can be controlled in the general population. A numerical study of the model is also carried out to investigate the effects of certain parameters on the spread of extremism confirming the analytical results.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An analysis of managerialism and performance in English and Welsh male prisons

This paper fills a noticeable gap in the current economic and penology literature by proposing new performance-enhancing policies based on an efficiency analysis of a sample of male prisons in England and Wales over the period 2009/10. In addition, we advance the empirical literature by integrating the managerialism of four strategic functions of prisons, employment and accommodation, capacity utilization, quality of life in prison and the rehabilitation and re-offending of prisoners. We find that by estimating multiple models focussing on these different areas some prisons are more efficient than other establishments. In terms of policy, it is therefore necessary to consider not just an overall performance metric for individual prisons, as currently undertaken annually by the UK Ministry of Justice, but to look into the administration and managerialism of their main functions in both a business and public policy perspective. Indeed, it is further necessary to view prisons together and not as single entities, so as to obtain a best practice frontier for the different operations that management undertakes in English and Welsh prisons.     

A mixed integer linear programming model for optimal sovereign debt issuance

Governments borrow funds to finance the excess of cash payments or interest payments over receipts, usually by issuing fixed income debt and index-linked debt. The goal of this work is to propose a stochastic optimization-based approach to determine the composition of the portfolio issued over a series of government auctions for the fixed income debt, to minimize the cost of servicing debt while controlling risk and maintaining market liquidity. We show that this debt issuance problem can be modeled as a mixed integer linear programming problem with a receding horizon. The stochastic model for the interest rates is calibrated using a Kalman filter and the future interest rates are represented using a recombining trinomial lattice for the purpose of scenario-based optimization. The use of a latent factor interest rate model and a recombining lattice provides us with a realistic, yet very tractable scenario generator and allows us to do a multi-stage stochastic optimization involving integer variables on an ordinary desktop in a matter of seconds. This, in turn, facilitates frequent re-calibration of the interest rate model and re-optimization of the issuance throughout the budgetary year allows us to respond to the changes in the interest rate environment. We successfully demonstrate the utility of our approach by out-of-sample back-testing on the UK debt issuance data.     

Cooperation between scientists and the government in the US: benefits and problems

This paper discusses the importance of maintaining close working relations between scientists and their government. Several examples of this cooperation in the U.S. are presented to illustrate the benefits, as well as problems, that result from such cooperation, or lack thereof. These examples include government support of scientific research, as well as contributions by science to help governments understand both the possibilities and the limitations of science as they formulate national policy.     

The analysis of popular collective action

Most models of popular collective action treat it as the behavior of single social units having unitary dispositions that explain the behavior. Since in fact it consists largely of strategic interaction among several parties, activates and builds on existing social networks, and follows a dynamic that no single-actor model can represent, available models are inadequate. Through sustained discussion of the rural conflicts of 1830 in England, this paper illustrates the critique, sketches an alternative approach centering on the analysis of repertoires of contention, and describes techniques for standardizing narratives of contention that are compatible with the alternative approach.     

Opportunistic timing and manipulation in Australian Federal Elections

In many parliamentary systems, election timing is an important decision made by governments in order to maximize their expected remaining life in power. Governments can also introduce policy or economic actions to enhance their popular standing and thus their chance of being re-elected. On the other hand, an oppositions’ natural objective is to gain power, and they will also apply controls through their own policies to reduce the governments’ chance of being re-elected. In this paper we employ a dynamic programming approach to determine the optimal timing for governments and oppositions to best utilize their limited resources. At each decision branch, the optimal control is interpreted as a Nash–Cournot equilibrium of a zero-sum political game which, in certain states, admits mixed strategy solutions. We perform a case study on the Australian Federal Election for House of Representatives.