Imperfect competition and the modelling of expectations in macroeconomics

We show that when a model of the macroeconomy is based on imperfect, rather than perfect, competition, this may increase the problem of how to model agents’ expectations. We provide a simple example using an overlapping-generations economy with the potential for unemployment. Under certain assumptions about how consumers migrate between locations between the first and second periods of their lives, this extra issue regarding expectations arises. Imperfect competition may increase agents’ forecasting difficulties because they have to forecast not only future equilibrium prices, but also future out-of-equilibrium prices, and by definition the latter are never actually observed.

GDP steady-state multipliers under monopolistic competition revisited

New Keynesian general-equilibrium static models showed the fiscal multiplier is an increasing function of the degree of monopoly. Here, I develop a simple intertemporal model allowing us to study the steady-state role of optimal capital stock (and depreciation) in the fiscal policy transmission mechanism. The GDP multiplier may be locally decreasing in the degree of monopoly when the number of firms is fixed, but results depend strongly on the set of parameter values chosen. Using a net-output definition or allowing for free entry leads to unambiguous dominance of the long-run monopolistic multiplier over the Walrasian one.

The concept of choice: why and how innovative behaviour is not just stochastic

The goal of this paper is to highlight the importance of the concept of choice. To do so, a synopsis of the most important contributions to this topic—featuring an eclectic set of scholars across disciplines—is provided. As central to the argument, John von Neumann’s contributions, game theory and simulation techniques on von Neumann machines, are identified. Innovation (economic and theoretic) as the driving force behind human evolution seems to head for a new scientific paradigm based on von Neumann’s ideas.

Entry and fiscal policy effectiveness in a small open economy within a Monetary Union

In this article I develop an imperfectly competitive dynamic general equilibrium model for a small open economy integrated in a monetary union. Here, the type of entry in the non-traded goods’ sector affects fiscal policy effectiveness. Fiscal policy effectiveness is enlarged when aggregate demand stimuli increase intra-industrial competition (case I). This is due to the counter-cyclical mark-up mechanism generated by entry. Such a mechanism is absent in the usual monopolistic competition where entry only has a sharing effect (case II).

Politics, selection and the public interest: Besley’s benevolent despot

This paper is an assessment of Besley’s attempt to orchestrate a rapprochement between public choice theory and conventional public economics—with its characteristic normative orientation towards public policy. In this paper, I first try to set the Besley enterprise in the context of earlier work—focussing on my own work with Buchanan (The Power to Tax and The Reason of Rules). I then direct attention to three aspects of the Besley enterprise: whether selecting for competence depends on having solved the motivation problem (either by incentive or selection means), how selection mechanisms might be supported institutionally and the possibility that selection processes might create incentives at the ‘dispositional’ level.

Price-setting behavior of Austrian firms

This paper explores nominal rigidities by investigating price-setting behavior of Austrian firms based on survey evidence. Distinguishing between two stages of price setting—first the price reviewing phase and second the price changing phase—our results suggest that the main obstacles to price flexibility lie on the second stage. Our main result is that firms postpone price adjustments, because they are afraid to antagonize customers with frequent price changes. Thus, customer relationships - especially those with consumers—are a major source of price stickiness in the Austrian economy.

A simple note on herd behaviour

In his ‘Simple model of herd behaviour’, (Banerjee A (1992) A simple model of herd behaviour. Q J Econ CVII:797–817) shows that—in a sequential game—if the first two players have chosen the same action, player 3 and all subsequent players will ignore his/her own information and start a herd, an irreversible one. In this paper, we analyse the role played by the tie-breaking assumptions in reaching the equilibrium. We show that: players’ strategies are parameter dependent—an incorrect herd may be reversed; a correct herd is irreversible.

Mises’ democracy–dictatorship equivalence theorem: A critique

Ludwig von Mises argues that public opinion, not the form of government, is the ultimate determinant of policy. The implication is that, holding public opinion constant, democracies and dictatorships will have the same policies—a result I call Mises’ Democracy–Dictatorship Equivalence Theorem. According to Mises, dictators have to comply with public opinion or else they will be overthrown. I argue that he seriously overestimates the power of revolution to discipline dictators. Mises was perceptive to note that, in practice, “dictatorially imposed” policies are often democratically sustainable, but he neglected several mechanisms—all more plausible than the threat of revolution—capable of explaining this fact.

Special issue: imperfect competition and contemporary macroeconomics. Editor’s introduction

This paper introduces the special issue by tracing out the history of imperfect competition in macroeconomics, particularly since 1980. It argues that in the search for a micro-foundation for nominal rigidity it was necessary to abandon the assumption of competitive equilibrium where all agents are price-takers. This led to models where firms and other optimising agents set wages and prices which were part of the new Keynesian economics of the 1980s. When these were combined with quantitative dynamic equilibrium methods it gave rise to the new neoclassical synthesis models which dominate macroeconomics today. The assumption of imperfect competition provides an equilibrium with different properties to the competitive, and one particular focus is on the relationship between the markup and the fiscal multiplier.

Growth and inflation forecasts for Germany a panel-based assessment of accuracy and efficiency

We analyse forecasts of professional forecasters for Germany regarding the time span from 1970 to 2004. This novel panel data set renders it possible to assess the accuracy and efficiency of growth and inflation forecasts more efficiently than in previous studies. We argue that the forecasts are, on average, unbiased and weakly—but not strongly—efficient. Using model confidence sets suggested by Hansen et al. (2004), we find that, besides the effect of diverging forecasting dates, no other substantial differences in forecasting quality among forecasters exist. Nevertheless, on the basis of a direction-of-change analysis we argue that it is not always advisable to listen to the majority of forecasters.

Locational choice and price competition: some empirical results for the austrian retail gasoline market

Using data from the Austrian retail gasoline market we find that a higher station density reduces average prices. Market (i.e. ownership) concentration does not significantly affect average price, however is negatively related to the density of stations. Estimation of the pricing and entry equations as simultaneous equations does not alter our conclusions, and suggests causality running from station density to price. We argue that the spatial dimension of markets allows the identification of market conduct, which is particularly relevant for competition policy.

Trade liberalization,intra-industry trade and the environment: competition mode and the order of firms’ moves

This paper explores the implications of trade liberalization by extending the intra-industry trade framework à la Fung and Maechler (J Int Trade Econ Dev 16(1):53–69, 2007) to the case of sequential move and taking the mode of firms’ competition into consideration as well. It is shown that the existing results obtained for the case of simultaneous price competition are robust in quantity competition and sequential move cases. Moreover, it studies the likelihood that the environmental effects of trade liberalization occur.

Buchanan’s constitutional political economy: exchange vs. choice in economics and in politics

This article discusses the methodological foundations of Buchanan’s constitutional political economy. We argue that Buchanan is a constitutional economist because he is an economist or a political economist. In other words, Buchanan is a constitutional economist—he insists on the necessity of focusing on constitutions and to analyze the “rules of the social game”—because he defines economics as a science of exchange. Buchanan’s definition of economics is not only specific, it is also opposed to the definition of economics that other economists retain and, above all, opposed to the definition of economics that many public choice theorists use. The latter have, in effect, adopted the Robbins 1932 definition of economics as a science of choice that Buchanan criticizes and rejects. Buchanan’s constitutional economics can be a branch of public choice only under certain conditions.

Strategic technology choice in regulated markets with demand uncertainty

This paper presents a simple model of a non-competitive market with demand uncertainty in which firms can choose their technology of production. Technology is characterised by two parameters: capacity and flexibility. The first has a strong commitment value while flexibility is needed to face uncertainty. Lack of competition requires active regulation to ensure that the price is not set at excessive level. When choosing their technology, firms take into account not only the effects of this choice on the opponent(s) but also the effect on the regulated price. In this framework, and because of regulation, firms have an incentive to strategically manipulate their cost (cost padding). This causes monopoly regulation aiming at improving allocative efficiency to be ineffective. In fact, by “tying its hand” to a low level of capacity, the monopolistic firm is able to get round the constraint imposed by the regulator. Increasing the number of firms in the market may restore regulation effectiveness. The reason is that if demand is sufficiently volatile, then firms strategically choose flexible techniques and this effect dominates over the incentive to manipulate costs in order to escape regulation. In this case, regulation is effective precisely because cost padding is hampered by firms’ non-cooperative behaviour.

Social Market Economy: origins,meanings and interpretations

This paper investigates various possible meanings of ‘Social Market Economy’—60 years after its political initiation in Germany. We focus on the variety of intellectual sources that influenced the formation and interpretation of the concept in Germany during the first half of the last century. Our particular attention is on Müller-Armack’s definition of a rather dualistic concept of ‘social’ versus ‘market economy’ and the subtle differences it has with an original (Freiburg School) view of ordo-liberalism that lends itself more easily to a constitutional economics perspective.

Buchanan on monetary constitutions

Buchanan’s reflections on monetary issues have been mostly neglected, despite their great interest both per se and for a deeper understanding of his general constitutional endeavour. We will thus propose a comprehensive assessment of Buchanan’s writings on this topic, focusing in particular on the different political models that have been developed to argue in favour of constitutional constraints on the governmental power to create money and on the implications that one can draw from our author’s monetary papers for the structure and the objectives of his constitutional discourse more generally.

Economic integration and similarity in trade structures

In this paper, we look at the similarity of the trade structures toward the EU market between four CEECs and the EU15. We evaluate the appropriateness of different indices to compare export flows—correlation indices and distance metrics—opting for the use of the Bray-Curtis semi-metric. We examine both how the export composition of a country has changed over time and how the export composition has changed with respect to the EU15 export composition. Finally, we test if the dynamics of sectoral distribution of the CEECs’ exports is related to the role acquired by processed trade in the 1990s. We give evidence that processed trade is crucial in explaining changes in the overall structure of exports of transition countries, and that greater economic integration in terms of trade flows and processing trade does not always lead to greater export similarity.

On the evolutionary edge of migration as an assortative mating device

In a haystack-type representation of a heterogeneous population that is evolving according to a payoff structure of a prisoner’s dilemma game, migration is modeled as a process of ‘swapping’ individuals between heterogeneous groups of constant size after a random allocation fills the haystacks, but prior to mating. Migration is characterized by two parameters: an exogenous participation-in-migration cost (of search, coordination, movement, and arrangement-making) which measures the migration effort, and an exogenous technology—of coordinating and facilitating movement between populated haystacks and the colonization of currently unpopulated haystacks—which measures the migration intensity. Starting from an initially heterogeneous population that consists of both cooperators and defectors, a scenario is postulated under which ‘programmed’ migration can act as a mechanism that brings about a long-run survival of cooperation.

Legal positivism and property rights: a critique of Hayek and Peczenik

Scholars such as Friedrich Hayek and Aleksander Peczenik have criticized legal positivism for undermining constitutionalism and the rule of law, an implication of which is weakened private property rights. This conclusion is far from evident. First, I contend that legal positivism is compatible with a strong support for property rights. Second, the causal relationship between legal positivism and the degree to which property rights are applied and protected is analyzed. The main arguments for a negative relationship—that legal positivism centralizes and politicizes legislation and that it makes the legal culture servile in relation to the political sphere—are considered unconvincing.

Changing of the guards: New coaches in Austria’s premier football league

Professional team sports provide an ideal real world experiment to explore the effect of top executive replacement due to the availability of excellent performance data. This paper investigates how replacing the coach affects the performance of football teams. Analyzing almost 2,000 matches of the Austrian premier football league by ordinal (probit) regression techniques we find that a new coach tends to enhance team performance in home matches but to weaken it in away matches. However, neither of these effects turns out to be statistically significant. Nevertheless, the much discussed coach effect—ousting an underperforming coach in order to improve team performance at least temporarily—may make sense despite the costs involved by providing stronger ex-ante incentives for effort.