Market-induced Asset Specificity: Redefining the Hold-up Problem

In a standard hold-up problem, individuals are vulnerable to hold-up because it is impossible to write complete contracts to cover the lifespan of relationship-specific investments. Hold-up occurs only when investments are to some degree nongeneric, and the extent of the problem increases with the time-span over which an investment must pay off, since long-term contracts are more difficult to write than short-term contracts. This result appears inconsistent with the real life experience of contract suppliers in two respects. First, suppliers often consider themselves "vulnerable" to hold-up even when investments are generic. Second, such a sense of vulnerability is often greatest precisely when assets are short-lived rather than long-lived. This paper provides a model that solves this apparent paradox by looking beyond the isolated problem of bilateral monopoly to the market context in which contracting takes place. We then find that the very meaning of asset specificity comes into question

Difficulties of Simplicity

This paper attempts to show that the doctrine of divine simplicity suffers from difficulties which undermine its plausibility. The main difficulties explored are Plantinga’s problem of double identification, Pruss’ multiple attributes problem, and Schmitt’s co-specificity problem. In more recent years, defenders of the doctrine have offered a way out of these problems by interpreting it in light of a truthmaker account of predication. This paper analyzes this recent defense, among others, and attempts to show that this new interpretation of divine simplicity still has problems which undermine the plausibility of the doctrine

Sources of Measurement Error in an ECG Examination: Implications for Performance-Based Assessments

Objective: To assess the sources of measurement error in an electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation examination given in a third-year internal medicine clerkship. Design: Three successive generalizability studies were conducted. 1) Multiple faculty rated student responses to a previously administered exam. 2) The rating criteria were revised and study 1 was repeated. 3) The examination was converted into an extended matching format including multiple cases with the same underlying cardiac problem. Results: The discrepancies among raters (main effects and interactions) were dwarfed by the error associated with case specificity. The largest source of the differences among raters was in rating student errors of commission rather than student errors of omission. Revisions in the rating criteria may have helped increase inter-rater reliability slightly however, due to case specificity, it had little impact on the overall reliability of the exam. The third study indicated the majority of the variability in student performance across cases was in performance across cases within the same type of cardiac problem rather than between different types of cardiac problems. Conclusions: Case specificity was the overwhelming source of measurement error. The variation among cases came mainly from discrepancies in performance between examples of the same cardiac problem rather than from differences in performance across different types of cardiac problems. This suggests it is necessary to include a large number of cases even if the goal is to assess performance on only a few types of cardiac problems

Sources of Measurement Error in an ECG Examination: Implications for Performance-Based Assessments

Objective: To assess the sources of measurement error in an electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation examination given in a third-year internal medicine clerkship. Design: Three successive generalizability studies were conducted. 1) Multiple faculty rated student responses to a previously administered exam. 2) The rating criteria were revised and study 1 was repeated. 3) The examination was converted into an extended matching format including multiple cases with the same underlying cardiac problem. Results: The discrepancies among raters (main effects and interactions) were dwarfed by the error associated with case specificity. The largest source of the differences among raters was in rating student errors of commission rather than student errors of omission. Revisions in the rating criteria may have helped increase inter-rater reliability slightly however, due to case specificity, it had little impact on the overall reliability of the exam. The third study indicated the majority of the variability in student performance across cases was in performance across cases within the same type of cardiac problem rather than between different types of cardiac problems. Conclusions: Case specificity was the overwhelming source of measurement error. The variation among cases came mainly from discrepancies in performance between examples of the same cardiac problem rather than from differences in performance across different types of cardiac problems. This suggests it is necessary to include a large number of cases even if the goal is to assess performance on only a few types of cardiac problems

New representations for square-integrable spheroidal functions

We discuss the solution of boundary value problems that arise after the separation of variables in the Schr\"odinger equation in oblate spheroidal coordinates. The specificity of these boundary value problems is that the singular points of the differential equation are outside the region in which the eigenfunctions are considered. This prevents the construction of eigenfunctions as a convergent series. To solve this problem, we generalize and apply the Jaffe transformation. We find the solution of the problem as trigonometric and power series in the particular case when the charge parameter is zero. Application of the obtained results to the spectral problem for the model of a quantum ring in the form of a potential well of a spheroidal shape is discussed with introducing a potential well of a finite depth.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, proc. Days on Diffraction 201

The effect of missing values using genetic programming on evolvable diagnosis

Medical databases usually contain missing values due the policy of reducing stress and harm to the patient. In practice missing values has been a problem mainly due to the necessity to evaluate mathematical equations obtained by genetic programming. The solution to this problem is to use fill in methods to estimate the missing values. This paper analyses three fill in methods: (1) attribute means, (2) conditional means, and (3) random number generation. The methods are evaluated using sensitivity, specificity, and entropy to explain the exchange in knowledge of the results. The results are illustrated based on the breast cancer database. Conditional means produced the best fill in experimental results

BUYER-SUPPLIER INTERACTION, ASSET SPECIFICITY, AND PRODUCT CHOICE

The goal of this paper is to explore how the demand for specific investments may affect the product variety in a bilateral duopolistic industry. In the literature on the hold-up problem, it is generally assumed that the degree of specificity of investments is either exogenously determined or chosen by the suppliers. We develop a model where the degree of specificity of investments is endogenously determined through the product choices of both buyers and suppliers. In an environment where input prices are determined by bilateral negotiations, we show that the existence of alternative buyers causes suppliers to choose less-than-fullyspecialized input types. Their location and investment choices crucially depend on the degree of product differentiation in the downstream market. This implies that the buyers may choose to increase their own competition by producing more similar products in order to increase the suppliers’ investment incentives. The results offer an explanation for why we may observe instances of intermediate product differentiation by focusing on the interactions between buyers and suppliers.asset specificity, vertical interactions, product differentiation