Survey on E-commerce and its applications

Electronic Commerce, usually is called e-commerce, conducts business on-line. It is electronic forms of communication that permits the exchange of sale information related to goods and services purchasing between buyers and sellers with digital cash and via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). The application of e-commerce is very important because that is the only way that how buyers and on-line business stores make the deals without seeing and talking each other. The applications should be very friendly (interface with nice layout and easily accepted by the potential buyers), easy to access and use (almost without to learn any computer and network skills), showing all the necessary and related information to all the viewers (no any questions could not be found during purchasing), and trusted by real buyers (secure without the personal information leaking to third party especially social secure number and financial information). The well know on-line solutions are from IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite, Microsoft Corp’s Site Server Commerce Edition, Yahoo’s Yahoo Store, and BroadVision’s One-to-One Commerce, and all of them use web secure protocols such as S-HTTP (Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol), SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), or SEPP (Secure Electronic Payment Protocol). E-commerce has a lot of benefits if it compares with long time traditional business - less expense, space saving, spread fast, saving shopping time, easy comparison, almost no sales tax, etc.. With Internet and personal computer growing dramatically in the last decade, we already saw the huge on-line business obviously. In the next few years along with technological development and innovation of computer, Internet, and any other related factors, the potential e-commerce market will grow to billion and billion dollars business worldwide. E-commerce is changing people’s daily life and their shopping habitations

Product-driven Entrepreneurs and Online Crowdfunding

Advancements in information technology is known for enabling new business models and new market mechanisms. Online crowdfunding is one such new mechanism through which entrepreneurs can advertise their potential products and attract investors from the mass. In this study, we advance the existing theory on online crowdfunding markets by recognizing that online crowdfunding provides not only a venue of fundraising to entrepreneurs but also a venue for them to obtain demand information before production and to signal their intention. We formulate a spatial competition model between profit-driven entrepreneurs and product-driven entrepreneurs and find that on average profit-driven entrepreneurs earn higher profits, but their advantage is constrained by the mechanism of the crowdfunding campaign, and product-driven entrepreneurs earn a significant fraction of the market. Comparing to the Keep-it-all funding scheme we used in the baseline model, the All-or-nothing scheme is more favorable for product-driven entrepreneur, under which the two type entrepreneurs earn equal market shares. We further discuss model implications for consumer satisfaction of the platform and find that including more product-driven entrepreneurs, or adopting All-or-nothing funding scheme improves the overall quality of the platform, but the effects on design popularity and consumer welfare are subtle

Political and Economic Determinants of Free Trade Agreements in the Presence of Foreign Lobbying

Will a free trade agreements (FTAs) between nations be politically viable？Under political lobby what incentives determine whether FTAs will be signed or not? Will FTAs include steadily more countries until we reach worldwide free trade? The paper addresses these questions using a theoretical analysis model of free trade agreement under imperfect competition, with Grossman and Helpman’s “protection for sale” model as the foundation. The validity of theoretical results is tested by econometric analysis with a panel probit model. The data spans 25 key trade nations and covers the period of 2007, 2010 and 2013. It is shown that: the FTA will be endorsed if and only if the aggregate welfare under FTA, combing lobby contributions with social welfare of both pair nations, is higher than the counterpart without FTA. Otherwise, the agreement is rejected. The possibility of concluding a FTA by a pair of nations has significant positive correlation with both of their market sizes and the number of countries with which they have both previously concluded FTAs; the possibility has significant negative correlation with the distance between pair nations; If both of the pair nations’ market sizes are enough large, the possibility has positive correlation with government’s sensitivity to social welfare; Otherwise, the correlation is negative. Although FTAs are characterized by the regionalism, they will contribute to multilateral free trade in the long run

利益集团对中国贸易政策影响的研究

贸易政策并非是政府追求社会福利最大化的目标所决定的，而是政府与 利益集团相互博弈的结果。本文在中国的政治体制与市场环境下，建立了一个考 虑国内外利益集团与政府相互博弈的理论模型。结果表明，利益集团对政府的政 治影响越大，越容易获得对其有利的贸易政策。此外，本文利用中国工业行业数 据检验了理论模型所提出命题的真实性与显著性。从而为了解中国贸易政策的决 定因素提供了新的角度与思路

Product-driven Entrepreneurs and Crowdfunding

Advancements in information technology is known for enabling new business models and newmarket mechanisms. Online crowdfunding is one such new mechanism through which entrepreneurscan advertise their potential products and attract investors from the mass. In this study, we advancethe existing theory on online crowdfunding markets by recognizing that online crowdfunding pro-vides not only a venue of fundraising to entrepreneurs but also a venue for them to obtain demand in-formation before production and to signal their intention. We formulate a spatial competition modelbetween profit-driven entrepreneurs and product-driven entrepreneurs. We find that, while, on aver-age, profit-driven entrepreneurs earn higher profits than product-driven ones, their advantage is con-strained by the mechanism of the crowdfunding campaign, and product-driven entrepreneurs earn asignificant fraction of the market. We also discuss model implications on consumer satisfaction andcrowdfunding platform design

国际贸易新格局下的自由贸易协定研究 ——基于新政治经济学的视角

本文以Grossman和Helpman(1995)的标准贸易新政治经济学分析框架为基础，构建了在不完全竞争条件下的自由贸易协定理论分析模型，考察了自由贸易协定通过的条件和影响因素，以及对未来的世界贸易格局的影响，并且利用世界主要贸易国家2007、2010和2013的数据对结论进行了经验验证。结果表明：自由贸易协定签订的可能性与双方的市场总规模、已签订的贸易协定数量显著正相关，与双方之间的距离显著负相关；自由贸易协定虽然在一定时期内将继续强化区域贸易集团鼎立的贸易格局；但是，从长期而言，世界范围内的多边贸易自由化是未来的发展趋势。值得注意的是，政府关注的方向对于自由贸易协定是否签署的影响在不断增加

利益集团对中国贸易政策影响的研究

贸易政策并非是政府追求社会福利最大化的目标所决定的，而是政府与 利益集团相互博弈的结果。本文在中国的政治体制与市场环境下，建立了一个考 虑国内外利益集团与政府相互博弈的理论模型。结果表明，利益集团对政府的政 治影响越大，越容易获得对其有利的贸易政策。此外，本文利用中国工业行业数 据检验了理论模型所提出命题的真实性与显著性。从而为了解中国贸易政策的决 定因素提供了新的角度与思路

Political and Economic Determinants of Free Trade Agreements in the Presence of Foreign Lobbying

Will a free trade agreements (FTAs) between nations be politically viable？Under political lobby what incentives determine whether FTAs will be signed or not? Will FTAs include steadily more countries until we reach worldwide free trade? The paper addresses these questions using a theoretical analysis model of free trade agreement under imperfect competition, with Grossman and Helpman’s “protection for sale” model as the foundation. The validity of theoretical results is tested by econometric analysis with a panel probit model. The data spans 25 key trade nations and covers the period of 2007, 2010 and 2013. It is shown that: the FTA will be endorsed if and only if the aggregate welfare under FTA, combing lobby contributions with social welfare of both pair nations, is higher than the counterpart without FTA. Otherwise, the agreement is rejected. The possibility of concluding a FTA by a pair of nations has significant positive correlation with both of their market sizes and the number of countries with which they have both previously concluded FTAs; the possibility has significant negative correlation with the distance between pair nations; If both of the pair nations’ market sizes are enough large, the possibility has positive correlation with government’s sensitivity to social welfare; Otherwise, the correlation is negative. Although FTAs are characterized by the regionalism, they will contribute to multilateral free trade in the long run