This report examines an internship experience as the Auction and Fine Art Department Assistant at New Orleans Auction Galleries with discussion of the Company’s history, operating structure, and role in the auction market. In addition, an evaluation of the Company’s strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats and a discussion of the auction industry’s best practices used by international auction houses as they related to New Orleans Auction Galleries is also found. The report concludes with recommendations made by the intern, for the Company’s future sustainability in the auction market.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / Value-added management at the cow-calf level is integrated across breeding, health and nutrition programs. Hedonic pricing models are necessary to navigate through the layered management standards imposed by certified health and marketing programs on the cow-calf sector. Previous research in feeder calf pricing models provides insight on the use and development of ordinary least squares in estimating price effects. Breed, vaccination program, age-and-source verification and natural-beef production have become more relevant as vertical coordination has influenced commercial cow-calf producers. This study provides the industry with new information pertaining to the revenue opportunities that exist for cow-calf producers through increased coordination in the beef industry. Video and satellite auction markets are recognized as a national pricing mechanism for feeder cattle in the United States. These markets represent the management and marketing practices of national cow-calf producers and the tastes and preferences of a national stocker and feedlot industry. Previous research in feeder cattle pricing models is applied to the current genetic, management, marketing and market structure information from video auction markets to discover relevant price effects pertaining to value-added calf production. More intensive value-added management practices were expected to enhance the revenue of cow-calf producers selling their calves through video auction markets. This research confirms that verified health and genetic claims produce higher calf prices compared to commodity calves. Weaned calves with at least two rounds of respiratory vaccinations generated an additional $5.50 to $7.50 per cwt., and weaning created $2.75 to $4.50 per cwt. in premiums over non-certified health programs. There were statistical differences among the premiums for each aggregated breed influence, and Angus and black and black-white faced cattle offered the highest breed premiums at $5.25 to $7.50 per cwt. compared to Brahman-influenced calves. Age-and-source verification presents the best opportunity for video auction market premiums among recently developed marketing programs. Statistically significant premiums ranged from $1.25 to $2.00 per cwt. for both steers and heifers over the last five years.

The purposes of this thesis are probing into the change of Chinese Oil Painting in art market. By means of this study, we will able to understand the development processes of the art markets in China, on the other hand, to gather the data from the auction market of different age artists and analysis them. Furthermore, it¡¦s the way to clarify how strong the art market in China is, or just the strategy to sensationalize the whole market to get high attention. But, it¡¦s obvious to find out that the environment affects the artists¡¦ creation a lot, but the works in the art market will go by chance. Therefore, to conclude that the Chinese art market is immature because the position of Chinese oil paintings is not fixed by Chinese government, Chinese artists and Chinese art market, but the art market in the world. Consequently, the Chinese art market needs to connect with the international art market.

近年來，網際網路(Internet)快速發展，已成為一個無疆無界無時差的市場，如何不被這股潮流所淘汰，我們所提出的解決方案—軟體代理人(software agent)，一位具有人工智慧(artificial intelligence)演化調適(adaptive)能力的代理人，現在已經有許多企業與資訊、管理、電腦科學等各方面專家結合，開始使用軟體代理人來代勞，試想一位永不停止、具有創新、學習適應的員工，企業家可以隨意複製或刪除，隨時配合市場規模，不必擔心任何裁員的負擔，這樣的代理人的問世，勢必對我們的經濟環境帶來莫大的衝擊。 電子商務(electronic commerce)已經行之有年，人類的消費型態似乎不易於因這個轉變而有所改變，消費者如果沒有經過視覺、觸覺、嗅覺等感官的刺激，很難有購買的動機，再加上授信制度的不健全使得電子商務的施行充滿了風險。雖然有這麼多問題，我們仍無法阻擋這股趨勢，在電子科技的進步，3D數位影像、各種感官刺激的傳送、或如同期貨市場上明確公認的規格、法律的修訂、完善的認證制度，接下來我們就是要看軟體代理人的表現。 我們將軟體代理人運用在人工雙方喊價(artificial double auction)的市場，就像真實市場已經有人開始使用自動下單或自動議價代理人的機制一樣。然而市場上是否有必然不敗的策略呢？本文就是要解開這個答案。再進一步來看，待真實市場每個成員受不了生存競爭的壓力，也採取使用代理人的演化性策略，屆時我們的人工市場就是真實市場的縮影，我們在本文也會針對這樣一個具有未來前瞻性市場的表現如何？透過經濟學的角度來揭露市場的本質是否仍然維持？ 在本文軟體代理人即為議價代理人(bargaining agent)，她可以在穩定的(stable)市場環境(其他參與者使用固定策略)中辨別出一些有利的市場特徵，藉由這些特徵發展出有利的策略，而其結果甚至不是很容易想到的策略；接著若每個人都使用議價代理人在市場上交易，這裡我們使用一種納許式過程(Nash-like process)來詮釋，之後再分別依市場的分配效率、價格效率、及所得分配來討論市場績效。