The price of Middle East crude oil exported to Asian countries has been higher than that to Europe and America for a long period, and this price differential made Asian countries pay more than European and American co...The price of Middle East crude oil exported to Asian countries has been higher than that to Europe and America for a long period, and this price differential made Asian countries pay more than European and American countries. Prior investigations found that ＂Asian Crude Oil Premium＂ did exist at a relatively low oil price level. However, world oil price soared after 2003, making the price of Middle East crude oil exported to European countries or America rise quickly, sometimes even higher than that to Asia. Under this situation, this paper uses the price of Middle East crude oil sold to Europe or America or Asia to test if the premium exists at a high oil price level and concludes that the crude oil price premium of Asia against America does not exist, but the premium of Asia against Europe still exists.展开更多
This paper studies a service firm whose business time can be divided into several periods, each providing different value to customers. Heterogeneous service is a major reason resulting in imbalances between supply an...This paper studies a service firm whose business time can be divided into several periods, each providing different value to customers. Heterogeneous service is a major reason resulting in imbalances between supply and demand. Since customers differ in their degree of impatience, firrns can use differential pricing mechanisms to optimize their objectives and match supply with demand in each period, by inducing customers to choose different periods. We study two types of firrns, an internal firm, the objective of which is to maximize the system＇s （including the f＇nan and all the customers） total net value, and a commercial firm, which aims to optimize its own profit. Though impatience factors are customers＇ private information, for each type of firm, we derive the optimal incentive compatible pricing policy, under which all the coming customers will follow the firm＇s assignment, that is, patient customers will buy the service in high-value periods, but their waiting time will be longer, while impatient customers will enter into the low-value periods, but they will be compensated by shorter waiting times. Furthermore, in the internal firm, we also prove that this mechanism enables the decentralization of decisions, while maintaining centralized system-wide optimality. Numerical analysis shows that when there is sufficient capacity, the internal firm does not always need to set lower prices than the commercial firm in every period.展开更多
Under the background of population aggregation in megacities,some adjustments are made to the urbanization strategy,whose focus is shifted to the development of megacities and megacity clusters.Meanwhile,the housing p...Under the background of population aggregation in megacities,some adjustments are made to the urbanization strategy,whose focus is shifted to the development of megacities and megacity clusters.Meanwhile,the housing price differentiation among cities tends to become increasingly serious.This paper,from the perspective of population mobility,takes provincial capitals and municipalities with independent planning status(PCs&MIPSs)as research samples to evaluate the level of housing price differentiation within provincial-level administrative divisions of China,and analyze from the perspective of demand side how the metropolitanization effects regarding the population formed due to population aggregation in megacities affect the housing prices of megacities and the housing price difference between megacities and other cities.The research found that:1)The increasing net inflow of population boosts the housing prices and accelerate the housing price differentiation;2)The impact of the increasing net inflow of population on housing price increases and housing price differentiation has regional heterogeneity and city size heterogeneity;3)The income gap strengthens the effect of population inflow upon the housing price differentiation.展开更多
文摘The price of Middle East crude oil exported to Asian countries has been higher than that to Europe and America for a long period, and this price differential made Asian countries pay more than European and American countries. Prior investigations found that ＂Asian Crude Oil Premium＂ did exist at a relatively low oil price level. However, world oil price soared after 2003, making the price of Middle East crude oil exported to European countries or America rise quickly, sometimes even higher than that to Asia. Under this situation, this paper uses the price of Middle East crude oil sold to Europe or America or Asia to test if the premium exists at a high oil price level and concludes that the crude oil price premium of Asia against America does not exist, but the premium of Asia against Europe still exists.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos.70621061,70518002,and 70601018
文摘This paper studies a service firm whose business time can be divided into several periods, each providing different value to customers. Heterogeneous service is a major reason resulting in imbalances between supply and demand. Since customers differ in their degree of impatience, firrns can use differential pricing mechanisms to optimize their objectives and match supply with demand in each period, by inducing customers to choose different periods. We study two types of firrns, an internal firm, the objective of which is to maximize the system＇s （including the f＇nan and all the customers） total net value, and a commercial firm, which aims to optimize its own profit. Though impatience factors are customers＇ private information, for each type of firm, we derive the optimal incentive compatible pricing policy, under which all the coming customers will follow the firm＇s assignment, that is, patient customers will buy the service in high-value periods, but their waiting time will be longer, while impatient customers will enter into the low-value periods, but they will be compensated by shorter waiting times. Furthermore, in the internal firm, we also prove that this mechanism enables the decentralization of decisions, while maintaining centralized system-wide optimality. Numerical analysis shows that when there is sufficient capacity, the internal firm does not always need to set lower prices than the commercial firm in every period.
文摘Under the background of population aggregation in megacities,some adjustments are made to the urbanization strategy,whose focus is shifted to the development of megacities and megacity clusters.Meanwhile,the housing price differentiation among cities tends to become increasingly serious.This paper,from the perspective of population mobility,takes provincial capitals and municipalities with independent planning status(PCs&MIPSs)as research samples to evaluate the level of housing price differentiation within provincial-level administrative divisions of China,and analyze from the perspective of demand side how the metropolitanization effects regarding the population formed due to population aggregation in megacities affect the housing prices of megacities and the housing price difference between megacities and other cities.The research found that:1)The increasing net inflow of population boosts the housing prices and accelerate the housing price differentiation;2)The impact of the increasing net inflow of population on housing price increases and housing price differentiation has regional heterogeneity and city size heterogeneity;3)The income gap strengthens the effect of population inflow upon the housing price differentiation.
