DIRECTED SEARCH,COORDINATION FAILURE,AND SELLER PROFITS: AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF POSTED PRICING WITH SINGLE AND MULTIPLE PRICES

We experimentally examine posted pricing and directed search. In one treatment, capacity‐constrained sellers post fixed prices, which buyers observe before choosing whom to visit. In the other, firms post both “single‐buyer” (applied when one buyer visits) and “multibuyer” (when multiple buyers visit) prices. We find, based on a 2 × 2 (two buyers and two sellers) market and a follow‐up experiment with 3 and 2 × 3 markets, that multibuyer prices can be lower than single‐buyer prices or prices in the one‐price treatment. Also, allowing the multibuyer price does not affect seller profits and increases market frictions.     

MONOPOLISTIC LOCATION CHOICE IN A TWO‐SIDED HOTELLING MODEL

We analyse the optimal location choice of a monopolistic firm that operates two arbitrarily located platforms on a two‐sided market. By extending the traditional Hotelling framework, we show that the optimal platform locations are equivalent to the one‐sided benchmark if both sides are either restricted to single‐ or multi‐homing. In the mixed case (one side single‐homes, the other one multi‐homes), the optimal platform locations are in line with the respective symmetric case. If the monopolist is restricted to choosing the same location on either side of the market, the optimal locations are determined by the relative profitability of the market sides.     

ON THE INFORMATIONAL CONTENT OF WAGE OFFERS*

This article investigates signaling and screening roles of wage offers in a single‐play matching model with two‐sided unobservable characteristics. It generates the following predictions as matching equilibrium outcomes: (i) “good” jobs offer premia if “high‐quality” worker population is large; (ii) “bad” jobs pay compensating differentials if the proportion of “good” jobs to “low‐quality” workers is large; (iii) all firms may offer a pooling wage in markets dominated by “high‐quality” workers and firms; or (iv) Gresham's Law prevails: “good” types withdraw if “bad” types dominate the population. The screening/signaling motive thus has the potential of explaining a variety of wage patterns.     

Pricing in International Markets: a "Small-country" Benchmark

The paper studies export pricing to market (PTM) in a “small‐country” context using a panel of disaggregated exports from Hong Kong since 1992. Conventional wisdom is that PTM is commonplace—except for US exports. This study provides a benchmark by which to interpret the puzzling behavior of US export prices. Empirically, Hong Kong's export price behavior is comparable to that of the US. This similarity reinforces the idea that PTM behavior is also a function of home market conditions and the ability to price discriminate across markets. There is little evidence of differences in PTM across Hong Kong's export destinations.     

NESTING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL DIFFERENTIATION IN TWO‐SIDED MARKETS

We merge the two‐sided markets duopoly model of Armstrong (2006) with the nested vertical and horizontal differentiation model of Gabszewicz and Wauthy (2012), which consists of a linear city with different consumer densities on the left and on the right side of the city. In equilibrium, the high‐quality platform sells at a higher price and captures a greater market share than the low‐quality platform, despite the indifferent consumer being closer to the high‐quality platform. The difference between market shares is lower than socially optimal. A perturbation that introduces a negligible difference between the consumer density on the left and on the right side of the city may disrupt existence of equilibrium in the model of Armstrong (2006).     

Strategic Choice of the Price Structure and Entry Deterrence Under Price Cap Regulation

This paper shows that a price‐capped firm under the threat of entry in some of the markets it serves can strategically manipulate its price structure to deter entry. In doing so, the regulated firm uses the price cap constraint as a commitment device to an aggressive pricing behaviour in case of entry. A (dynamic) price cap generally entails that the prices allowed today are a function of the previous‐period prices and that the tighter is the constraint on each price, the larger is the quantity sold of this good in the previous period. Hence, the regulated firm may strategically choose its price structure before entry to place a tighter regulatory control on the prices set in the (potentially) competitive markets and to make it optimal to charge in these markets – in case of entry – prices so low that entry is unprofitable.     

Starve all the lawyers: four theories of the just price

The only “sense in which we can meaningfully talk about just wages or just prices”, said Friedrich Hayek, is for wages and prices “determined in a free market without deception, fraud or violence”. Conversely, after reviewing three theories of the just price, this paper proposes a classical liberal theory of the just price, called the “catallactic” theory, according to which our understanding of just prices must account for the background institutions of markets. Some transactions could not happen in a market without a certain theory of just prices and such transactions will feed into our understanding of markets, hence making just prices a de facto reality.     

“牛市”和“熊市”对信息的不平衡性反应研究

“利好”和“利空”信息对股票市场具有不平衡性的影响 ,研究这一现象对资产定价、投资组合构造及风险头寸确定都有重要作用。而新信息的出现对股票市场的影响应该区分股市所处的位置 ,这一点正是已有的波动性研究所忽视的。中国股票市场总体上不平衡性信息表现与国外不同 ,本文将股票市场波动划分为“牛市”和“熊市”两个阶段 ,采用EGARCH模型实证研究我国股票市场在牛市和熊市阶段对“利好”与“利空”的不平衡性反应特征。然后从投资者预期、结构、心理和交易机制等方面解释产生“强市恒强、弱市恒弱”现象的原因 ,指出进一步研究的方向 ,以期为投资者选择投资策略和政府制订政策提供参考     

Poverty-Reducing and Welfare-Improving Marginal Public Price and Price Cap Reforms

This paper extends familiar results on the optimal pricing of publicly provided goods and price cap regulations in a stochastic dominance framework. The key advantage is that the assessment as to whether pricing or price cap reforms are poverty reducing or welfare improving is not contingent on any given social welfare function. Rather, robust assessments of the impact of reforms can be made for wide classes of ethical judgments.     

Price Adjustment to Exchange Rates and Forward‐looking Exporters: Evidence from USA–China Trade

This paper shows that the pricing behavior of exporting firms exhibits a “forward‐looking” nature with sticky prices. As a result, the expectations of future exchange rates affect current prices at both the product level and firm level. We find evidence by employing both highly disaggregated Harmonized System (HS) 10‐digit product‐level import data of the USA and firm–product level customs data on China's exports to the USA. These findings provide evidence for a previously unexplored micro‐level forward‐looking nature of trade price adjustment as response to future exchange rates, and suggest a potentially important factor in helping explain incomplete exchange rate pass‐through.     

Why equity cannot be separated from efficiency: the welfare economics of progressive social pricing

Applied neoclassical microeconomists maintain that when profits are constrained, and average costs are higher than marginal costs, Ramsey “inverse elasticity” pricing optimizes static consumer welfare. However, when weighted, instead of unweighted, consumer surplus aggregation is used, the Ramsey pricing rule becomes a “progressive social pricing rule,” which suggests that under plausible conditions “direct-elasticity” rather than “inverse-elasticity” pricing is consumer welfare optimal.     

Reexamination of Strategic Public Policies

This paper attempts to reinterpret the familiar approach to strategic public policies from the viewpoint of inefficiencies involved in oligopoly where firms engage in Cournot competition. To this end, we introduce tools called “quasi‐reaction functions” and “quasi‐supply curves”. These tools allow us to conduct analyses through use of the standard partial‐equilibrium diagram, i.e. the quantity‐price plane. We can find the relationship between prices and quantities directly and, hence, deal with inefficiencies easily and also suggest policies to correct such inefficiencies. Specifically, we reexamine public policies related to mixed‐oligopoly, excess entry, technology choices with free entry and exit, and foreign oligopoly.     

The empirical effects of competition on third‐degree price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage

Since Borenstein ( 1985 ) and Holmes ( 1989 ), a theoretical and empirical literature has emerged that examines the effects of competition on third‐degree price discrimination. Since transaction costs involved in conducting arbitrage are typically unobserved, empirical investigations in this area have largely been restricted to markets such as for air travel where arbitrage is difficult, if not impossible. Using an entirely novel dataset, this paper documents the effect of competition on price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage in the Canadian online sports betting market where prices for Canadian teams are higher than in the world market. I observe how the prices of Canadian teams change in real time in response to the presence of arbitrageurs that establish Canadian sportsbooks’ observable marginal opportunity costs. I exploit the existence of government betting outlets not subject to arbitrage to obtain reduced form counterfactual estimates of the extent to which competition affects price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage. In this new empirical environment, I find results consistent with the airline literature: competition reduces overall price dispersion and markups, but dispersion and markups shrink more for those in the “strong” market than the “weak” market.     

纵向结构与投入品竞价合谋的悖论分析--日资配件企业“垄断协议”案的若干思考

2013年以来，跨国公司主导的价格合谋和价格歧视受到了中国反垄断机构的调查和处罚。文章以汽车配件行业中“日资企业”的价格垄断案为线索，构建了一个纵向股权关联下投入品价格合谋和集团内转移定价的理论模型，通过静态比较分析发现：关联企业之间的价格投标合谋并不符合“利润最大化”的目标，而是跨国公司作为实际控制人在上下游股权比例和盈利能力不对等的条件下，将下游整车合资企业的利润转移到上游配件企业的一种手段。文章从股权比例和企业运营模式的层面论证了利润转移假说的合意性，并结合主要细分市场的结构和利润关系，对“结构－合谋”原理所面临的现实矛盾进行了深入分析。文章的主要政策建议是：中国汽车产业的反垄断立法要实现从行为惩罚到规则干预的转化，要适当增加产业组织分析的证据以提高执法的科学水准，需要更多地使用合理推定原则以避免对企业理性行为的不当干预。     

Model uncertainty and liquidity

Extreme market outcomes are often followed by a lack of liquidity and a lack of trade. This market collapse seems particularly acute for markets where traders rely heavily on a specific empirical model such as in derivative markets like the market for mortgage backed securities or credit derivatives. Moreover, the observed behavior of traders and institutions that places a large emphasis on “worst-case scenarios” through the use of “stress testing” and “Value-at-Risk” seems different than Savage expected utility would suggest. In this paper, we capture model-uncertainty using an Epstein and Wang [Epstein, L.G., Wang, T., 1994. Intertemporal asset pricing under Knightian uncertainty. Econometrica 62, 283–322] uncertainty-averse utility function with an ambiguous underlying asset-returns distribution. To explore the connection of uncertainty with liquidity, we specify a simple market where a monopolist financial intermediary makes a market for a propriety derivative security. The market-maker chooses bid and ask prices for the derivative, then, conditional on trade in this market, chooses an optimal portfolio and consumption. We explore how uncertainty can increase the bid–ask spread and, hence, reduces liquidity. Our infinite-horizon example produces short, dramatic decreases in liquidity even though the underlying environment is stationary. We show how these liquidity crises are closely linked to the uncertainty aversion effect on the optimal portfolio. Effectively, the uncertainty aversion can, at times, limit the ability of the market-maker to hedge a position and thus reduces the desirability of trade, and hence, liquidity.     

An experimental study of price dispersion

We report an experiment examining a simple clearinghouse model that generates price dispersion. According to this model, price dispersion arises because of consumer heterogeneity—some consumers are “informed” and simply buy from the firm offering the lowest price, while the remaining consumers are “captive” and shop based on considerations other than price. In our experiment we observe substantial and persistent price dispersion. We find that, as predicted, an increase in the fraction of informed consumers leads to more competitive pricing for all consumers. We also find, as predicted, that when more firms enter the market, prices to informed consumers become more competitive while prices to captive customers become less competitive. Thus, our experiment provides strong support for the model's comparative static predictions about how changes in market structure affect pricing.     

Managing Financial Integration and Capital Mobility—Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades

Emerging market experience over the past two decades has revealed the tenuous links between external financial integration and faster growth, and the proclivity of such integration to fuel costly crises. Emerging markets learned, converging to the middle ground of the macroeconomic trilemma. Following their crises of 1997–2001, emerging markets added financial stability as a goal, self‐insured by building up international reserves, and adopted a public finance approach to financial integration. The global crisis of 2008–09 illustrated that the advanced economies “overshot” the optimal degree of financial deregulation, while the resilience of the emerging markets validated their public finance approach to financial integration.     

Beauty contest,bounded rationality,and sentiment pricing dynamics

We present a dynamic asset pricing model that incorporates investor sentiment, bounded rationality and higher-order expectations to study how these factors affect asset pricing equilibrium. In the model, we utilize a two-period trading market and investors make decisions based on the heterogeneous expectations principle and the “sparsity-based bounded rational” sentiment. We find that bounded rationality results in mispricing and reduces it in next period. Investor sentiment produces more significant effects than private signals, optimistic investor sentiment increases hedging demand, thus causing prices to soar. Higher-order investors are more rational and attentive to the strategies of other participants rather than private signals. This model also derives the dampening effect of higher-order expectations to price volatility and the heterogeneity expectation depicts inconsistent investor behavior in financial markets. In the model, investors' expectations about future price is distorted by their sentiment and bounded rationality, so they obtain a biased mean from the signal extraction.     

双边市场、不完全信息与二级价格歧视

本文研究了双边市场二级价格歧视问题。本文构建了包括广告商、消费者、垄断平台在内的两阶段博弈模型，研究了在最优与次优情况下平台的定价机制，分析了二级价格歧视对平台利润、社会福利等的影响。研究表明：（1）“顶部无扭曲”或“底部无扭曲”并不严格成立；（2）平台对观众提供的节目质量、广告插播量均可能出现类型逆转的情况；（3）二级价格歧视会增加社会总福利；（4）“会员制”是平台可能的占优定价机制之一。     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.