Compensating Differentials in Emerging Labor and Housing Markets: Estimates of Quality of Life in Russian Cities

The existence of compensating differentials in Russian labor and housing markets is examined using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) augmented by city and regional-specific characteristics from other sources. While Russia is undergoing transition to a market economy, we find ample evidence that compensating differentials for location-specific amenities exist in the labor and housing markets. Our estimated wage and housing value equations suggest that workers are compensated for differences in climate, environmental conditions, ethnic conflicts, crime rates, and health conditions, after controlling for worker characteristics, occupation, industry, and economic conditions, and various housing characteristics. Moreover, we find evidence that these compensating differentials exist even after controlling for the regional pay differences (“regional coefficients”) used by the Russian government to compensate workers for living in regions that are designated as less desirable. We rank 953 Russian cities by quality of life as measured by a group of eleven amenities. Sizable variation in the estimated quality of life across cities exists. The highest ranked cities tend to be in relatively warm areas and areas in the western, European part of the country. In addition, our quality of life index is positively correlated with net migration into a region, suggesting workers are attracted to amenity-rich locations. Overall, we find that sufficient market equilibrium exists and a model of compensating differentials with controls for disequilibrium yields useful information about values of location-specific amenities and quality of life in this large transition economy.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40006/2/wp620.pd

Diversification Preferences in the Theory of Choice

Diversification represents the idea of choosing variety over uniformity. Within the theory of choice, desirability of diversification is axiomatized as preference for a convex combination of choices that are equivalently ranked. This corresponds to the notion of risk aversion when one assumes the von-Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility model, but the equivalence fails to hold in other models. This paper studies axiomatizations of the concept of diversification and their relationship to the related notions of risk aversion and convex preferences within different choice theoretic models. Implications of these notions on portfolio choice are discussed. We cover model-independent diversification preferences, preferences within models of choice under risk, including expected utility theory and the more general rank-dependent expected utility theory, as well as models of choice under uncertainty axiomatized via Choquet expected utility theory. Remarks on interpretations of diversification preferences within models of behavioral choice are given in the conclusion

Fair social decision under uncertainty and belief disagreements

This paper aims to address two issues related to simultaneous aggregation of utilities and beliefs. The first one is related to how to integrate both inequality and uncertainty considerations into social decision making. The second one is related to how social decision should take disagreements in beliefs into account. To accomplish this, whereas individuals are assumed to abide by Savage model’s of subjective expected utility, society is assumed to prescribe, either to each individual when the ex ante individual well-being is favored or to itself when the ex post individual well-being is favored, acting in accordance with the maximin expected utility theory of Gilboa and Schmeidler (J Math Econ 18:141–153, 1989). Furthermore, it adapts an ex ante Pareto-type condition proposed by Gayer et al. (J Legal Stud 43:151–171, 2014), which says that a prospect Pareto dominates another one if the former gives a higher expected utility than the latter one, for each individual, for all individuals’ beliefs. In the context where the ex ante individual welfare is favored, our ex ante Pareto-type condition is shown to be equivalent to social utility taking the form of a MaxMinMin social welfare function, as well as to the individual set of priors being contained within the range of individual beliefs. However, when the ex post individual welfare is favored, the same Pareto-type condition is shown to be equivalent to social utility taking the form of a MaxMinMin social welfare function, as well as to the social set of priors containing only weighted averages of individual beliefs

Competition and well-being: does market competition make people unhappy?

Empirical research on the role of economic institutions for subjective well-being is still widely lacking, while recent economic-experimental outcomes suggest that experienced utility may depend on the intensity of market competition. This paper is the first to empirically analyze the implication of market competition for subjective well-being using real-life survey data on 80,000 individuals in more than 60 countries from the World Values Survey 1997-2001. In support of our hypothesis, we find that market competition aggravates the impact of individual’s bargaining position in economic transactions on her subjective well-being – compared to the least powerful in society. Put differently, we find that market competition enlarges the happiness differences caused by cleavages in socio-economic position. Our results also suggest that competition induced welfare changes are not gender-specific, while a stronger rule of law appears to prevent the generation of such additional benefits or losses. Particularly the latter results call for further economic-experimental corroboration in the laboratory, but also bear important policy implications.Subjective well-being; happiness; utility; competition; rule of law; completeness of contract; laboratory experiment; World Values Survey

Venture capital investor behaviour in the backing of UK high technology firms : financial reporting and the level of investment

This paper is an empirical investigation into the ways in which venture capitalists value (and invest in) high technology firms, focusing on financial reporting, risk disclosure and intangible assets. It is based on questionnaire returns from UK investors in diverse sectors, ranging from biotechnology, through software/ computer services, to communications and medical services. This evidence is used to examine: (a) the usefulness of financial accounts; (b) the implications of technopole investment; (c) the extent of investor control over the investee's AIS; and (d) the role of investor opinion (e.g. on disclosure, due diligence and risk reporting) in determining the level of equity provision

Utility based pricing of contingent claims

In a discrete setting, we develop a model for pricing a contingent claim. Since the presence of hedging opportunities influences the price of a contingent claim, first we introduce the optimal hedging strategy assuming a contingent claim has been issued: a strategy implemented by investing the budget plus the selling price is optimal if it maximizes the expected utility of the agent's revenue, which is the difference between the outcome of the hedging portfolio and the payoff of the claim. Next, we introduce the `reservation price' as a subjective valuation of a contingent claim. This is defined as the minimum price to be added to the initial budget that makes the issue of the claim more preferable than optimally investing in the available securities. We define the reservation price both for a short position (reservation selling price) and for a long position (reservation buying price) in the contingent claim. When the contingent claim is redundant, both the selling and the buying price collapse in the usual Arrow-Debreu price. We develop a numerical procedure to evaluate the reservation price and two applications are provided. Different utility functions are used and some qualitative properties of the reservation price are shown.Incomplete markets, reservation price, expected utility, optimization

The Favorite-Longshot Bias in Sequential parimutuel Betting with Non-Expected Utility Players

This paper analyzes a model of sequential parimutuel betting described as a two-horse race with a finite number of noise bettors and a finite number of strategic and symmetrically informed bettors. For generic objective probabilities that the favorite wins the race, a unique subgame perfect equilibrium is characterized. Additionally, two explanations for the favorite-longshot bias---according to which favorites win more often than the market's estimate of their winning chances imply---are offered. It is shown that this robust anomalous empirical regularity might be due to the presence of transaction costs and/or to strategic bettors' subjective attitude to probabilities.Parimutuel betting; Sequential decisions; Favorite-longshot bias; Non-expected utility under risk.

On the Determinants of Labour Market Institutions: Rent-sharing vs. Social Insurance

What determines the structure of labour market institutions? This paper argues that common explanations based on rent sharing are incomplete; unions, job protection, and egalitarian pay structures may have as much to do with social insurance of otherwise uninsurable risks as with rent sharing and vested interests. In support of this more benign complementary hypothesis the paper presents a range of historical, theoretical, and cross-country regression evidence. The social insurance perspective changes substantially the assessment of often-proposed reforms of European labour market institutions. The benefits from eliminating labour market rigidities have to be set against the costs of reduced coverage of human capital related risk. The paper also argues that it is unclear whether the forces of globalisation, and the new economy, will really force countries to make their labour markets more flexible. While these phenomena may increase the efficiency costs of existing institutions, they may also make people more willing to pay a high premium to preserve institutions that provide insurance.Labour market institutions; comparative historical evidence; Sweden; Massachusetts; rent seeking; social insurance; union models; cross-country regressions; openness; linguistic fractionalisation