Spatial discrimination: Bertrand vs. Cournot with asymmetric demands

This paper develops a barbell model a la Hwang and Mai [Hwang, H., and C.C. Mai, 1990, Effects of spatial price discrimination on output, welfare, and location, American Economic Review 80, 567–575.] with homogeneous product and asymmetric demands to compare prices, aggregate profits and social welfare between Cournot and Bertrand competition, and to analyze the firms' equilibrium locations. It focuses on the impacts of the spatial barrier generated from transport costs, and the market size effect resulting from asymmetric demands. It shows that the market-size effect is crucial in determining firms' locations under Cournot competition, but insignificant under Bertrand competition. Moreover, the equilibrium price of the large market and the aggregate profits are lower but the social welfare is higher under Cournot competition than under Bertrand competition if one of the markets is sufficiently large and the transport cost is high.     

Optimal tax progressivity in imperfect labour markets

All modern labour market theories capable of explaining involuntary unemployment as an equilibrium phenomenon imply that increased income tax progressivity reduces unemployment, but they also imply that higher progressivity tends to reduce work effort and labour productivity. This suggests that there may be an optimal degree of tax progressivity where the marginal welfare gain from reduced involuntary unemployment is just offset by the marginal welfare loss from lower productivity. This paper sets up four different models of an imperfect labour market in order to identify the degree of tax progressivity which would maximise the welfare of the representative wage earner. Simulations with these models suggest that the optimal degree of tax progressivity could be quite large, although the results are sensitive to the generosity of unemployment benefits and to the after-tax wage elasticity of work effort.     

使用差价补偿策略的寡头竞争模型

差价补偿策略,是近年来在国内兴起的一种企业间竞争策略。从博弈论角度来看,对消费者承诺差价补偿,即是向竞争对手发出了一种不打价格战的可置信的威胁信号,可以有效地避免企业间的价格竞争;从市场营销角度来看,差价补偿策略会影响消费者行为,改变消费者预期,最终促使市场竞争向着企业有利的方向发展。本文对差价补偿策略建立了一个数学模型,分析企业采用差价补偿策略的原因以及竞争双方博弈的均衡结果。     

The relationship between product market competition and unemployment with profit sharing

We investigate the implications of product market imperfections on negotiated wages and equilibrium unemployment under profit sharing. We show that intensified product market competition reduces equilibrium unemployment in a strictly monotonic way when the trade union's bargaining power exceeds the profit share. If the profit share exceeds the trade union's bargaining power, the effect of product market competition is ambiguous: there is a threshold for the benefit–replacement ratio above (below) which intensified product market competition increases (decreases) equilibrium unemployment. The profit share and the union's bargaining power affect the wage mark-up, and thereby equilibrium unemployment, in different directions.     

Strategic Quality Decisions under Heterogeneous Resource Endowments

The literature on product competition advocates a differentiation strategy assuming firm homogeneity in resources. However, firm heterogeneity in resource endowments has long been recognized in economics. Merging these two perspectives, we show that the increase in consumer preference for quality leads to firms' aggressive price competition instead of quality differentiation. As consumers look for higher quality, the cost advantage arising from superior resources increases and makes head-to-head competition more profitable than accommodating a less efficient rival. When consumers are highly concerned about quality, even a small resource difference leads a more efficient firm to initiate cutthroat price competition for market dominance.     

Pricing Internal Trade to Get a Leg up on External Rivals

The pricing of transfers from parent to subsidiary is an oft-explored issue. Linking the cost of internal transfers with external market prices is one common approach, typically justified when the market for the good is perfectly competitive. This paper shows that imperfect competition may also justify market-based transfer prices. Concern that transfer price will deviate from marginal cost and thereby distort subsidiary choices can lead a parent to undertake actions to influence the market price of the upstream good. Such efforts can provide a desirable strategic posture in the upstream market.     

Panel data estimates of the production function and product and labor market imperfections

Consistent with two models of imperfect competition in the labor market—the efficient bargaining model and the monopsony model—we provide two extensions of a microeconomic version of Hall's framework for estimating price‐cost margins. We show that both product and labor market imperfections generate a wedge between factor elasticities in the production function and their corresponding shares in revenue, which can be characterized by a ‘joint market imperfections parameter’. Using an unbalanced panel of 10,646 French firms in 38 manufacturing industries over the period 1978–2001, we can classify these industries into six different regimes depending on the type of competition in the product and the labor market. By far the most predominant regime is one of imperfect competition in the product market and efficient bargaining in the labor market (IC‐EB), followed by a regime of imperfect competition in the product market and perfect competition or right‐to‐manage bargaining in the labor market (IC‐PR), and by a regime of perfect competition in the product market and monopsony in the labor market (PC‐MO). For each of these three predominant regimes, we assess within‐regime firm differences in the estimated average price‐cost mark‐up and rent sharing or labor supply elasticity parameters, following the Swamy methodology to determine the degree of true firm dispersion. To assess the plausibility of our findings in the case of the dominant regime (IC‐EB), we also relate our industry and firm‐level estimates of price‐cost mark‐up and extent of rent sharing to industry characteristics and firm‐specific variables respectively. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Econometric Analysis of Brand-Level Strategic Pricing Between Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo.

We investigate market structure and strategic pricing for leading brands sold by Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. in the context of a flexible demand specification (i.e., nonlinear AIDS) and structural price equations. Our flexible and generalized approach does not rely upon the often used ad hoc linear approximations to demand and profit-maximizing first-order conditions, and the assumption of Nash-Bertrand competition. We estimate a conjectural variation model and test for different brand-level pure strategy games. This approach of modeling market competition using the nonlinear Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) estimation method provides insights into the nature of imperfect competition and the extent of market power. We find no support for a Nash-Bertrand or Stackelberg Leadership equilibrium in the brand-level pricing game. Results also provide insights into the unique positioning of PepsiCo.'s Mountain Dew brand.     

Environment and technology strategy of firms in government R&D programmes in Korea

This paper examines firms' strategic behaviour under different types of environment to analyze firms' technology strategy in government R&D programmes. It identifies four dimensions of technology strategy and four types of environment associated with technological change and market competition. A set of hypotheses that represent how firms' technology strategy varies according to the different types of environment is developed. For the empirical test, 643 national R&D projects are selected and surveyed by the structured questionnaire. Data are collected from 219 respondents. The empirical results show that firms make their technology strategy differently according to changes in the environment. Finally, this study discusses its implication and the area of future research.     

Price-matching policies: An empirical case

Promises by retailers to match the prices of their competitors give an impression of fierce price competition. These policies, however, may deter rivals from cutting prices because the threat of price matching makes it more likely that market share will not be gained. This paper empirically tests these two conflicting theories using data collected from grocery stores in a market where several stores had announced that they would match the prices of the low-price supermarket. The evidence supports the theory that price-matching policies help supermarkets avoid price competition and therefore lead to generally higher prices.     

Workers' enterprises in price competition

Extending earlier equivalence results for perfect competition and for (imperfect) quantity competition, here it is shown that in price competition, too, the behavior of a workers‘ enterprise (defined by the coincidence of its workers with its partners) is tamed by the worker-partnership market so as to be identical with that of a twin entrepreneurial firm. Thus, not only is Bertrand–Nash equilibrium unaltered when an entrepreneurial firm is replaced by its workers’ enterprise twin, but such a replacement also leaves Bertrand-von Stackelberg equilibrium intact whether we switch the leader or a follower from one form of ownership/management to the other.     

Selection in a field experiment with voluntary participation

The external validity of experiments in economics can be ensured only if participants reflect the relevant market population. We study data from a promotional campaign of NH‐Hoteles to study sample selection problems in a gift exchange field experiment. The promotion allowed guests to pay any non‐negative amount for a stay in one of 36 hotels in Belgium and the Netherlands. We distinguish between involuntary participants, who booked prior to the announcement of the promotional campaign, and voluntary participants, who booked after the campaign was announced. The involuntary participants pay, on average, substantially more. This different behavior cannot be explained by differences in satisfaction or observed compositional differences between both groups. During the promotion we varied the posted price of a room that was communicated to the guests. Only the involuntary participants respond to this exogenous variation in the posted price. We argue that the promotional campaign mainly attracted individuals with relatively few prosocial reputational concerns, because they benefit most from a name‐your‐own‐price scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing: Forecast Release: EARNINGS AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CAR INDUSTRY: THE BEST AND WORST OF BRITISH INDUSTRY

The Chancellor has described the cost in terms of lost output and higher unemployment of getting inflation down as ‘well worth paying’. Yet the trade-off so far is a miserable 1.25 per cent off the underlying rate of growth of earnings for an unemployment increase approaching 600,000, some 2–3 per cent off the underlying rate of inflation for a 3 per cent drop in GDP and a 7 per cent fall in manufacturing output. The question is clear: why is it that in the UK we seem to have to pay such a high price in terms of lost output and higher unemployment to make only modest progress on reducing wage and price inflation? One possible answer is in terms of the NAIRU; another stems from the way in which we measure retail price inflation. Using the example of the car industry as a backdrop, we examine the relationship between unemployment and inflation and ask whether there is a role for government to play in improving the trade-off. Our conclusion is that the present non-interventionist stance is probably appropriate but that the government should be doing more to educate both sides of the wage bargain - a challenge picked up by the Prime Minister in his recent speech to the CBI. This is especially appropriate at the present time, because price inflation is falling but wage inflation is lagging behind. It is not a cut in real wages that is required but an equi-proportionate deceleration in both wages and prices. By joining the ERM, we will ultimately obtain German rates of inflation; low wage settlements would both shorten the time-scale and reduce the unemployment cost of convergence.     

我国审计市场有效竞争问题探讨

笔者认为,我国注册会计师行业产业组织架构的不合理,市场结构的不完善,注册会计师行业产业组织呈现为事务所竞争的非有效性。审计市场上何种竞争是有效的,如何实现审计市场的有效竞争,本文从我国当前注册会计师行业产业组织现状入手,尝试对这些问题进行探讨。     

Market imperfections and firm-sponsored training

Using worker and firm data from Dutch manufacturing, our paper investigates how product market competition and labor market imperfections affect firm-sponsored training. We find that product market competition does not affect the firms' training expenditures. Increasing competition, for instance due to increased international integration and globalization, is not a threat to investments in on-the-job training. Instead, labor market imperfections influence firm-sponsored training. An increase in labor market flexibility significantly reduces the incentives of firms to invest in training. The magnitude of this effect is nevertheless small.     

Competition and Innovation in Retail Electricity Markets: Evidence from Italy

Italy's 2015 Annual Competition Law, if finally approved, provides for phasing out retail electricity price regulation, as well as the implementation of full retail liberalisation, from 1 July 2018. This is a significant reform, not just because it is consistent with the broader market design for electricity. Indeed, retail liberalisation is a qualifying element of the full integration of the European Union's electricity market. The full opening of retail markets provides a great opportunity for innovation, both on the demand side and on the supply side. This article investigates the theoretical background, and presents some empirical evidence, on the competition–innovation nexus in retail electricity markets.     

Forecast Summary

The forecast illustrates the costs and benefits of joining the ERM at the relatively high central parity of DM2.95. It shows that, providing the government does keep the pound within its wide 6 per cent EMS band, retail price inflation can be brought down to the average European level of 3 per cent by the mid 1990s. But there is a cost in terms of lower output and rising unemployment. GDP growth is expected to slow to about 1 1/2per cent this year and next and to average 2 per cent or slightly more from 1992 onwards. This is less than the rate of growth of productive potential and implies a weak labour market with unemployment rising steadily bock above 2 million. The forecast assumes a $25 oil price; in an alternative we sketch out the implications of a rise in the price to $45 for a limited period.     

The Sociological Foundations of Consumer Behavior: Their Implications for Economic Efficiency

A bstract . Neoclassical economic theory asserts that when the assumptions of perfect competition apply to a market economy , the allocation of inputs and/or outputs is such that by additional inputs or outputs no individual's welfare can be improved without diminishing some other individual's. That is, it is considered Pareto Efficient. When imperfect markets exist, however, externalities —influences from outside the economic process—in production and exchange, and indivisibilities—benefits or costs which cannot be allocated to or assessed against the individuals who enjoy or occasion them—appear and the market ceases to be an efficiently operated one. It is argued here that a fourth category of factors exists which may interfere with economic efficiency and that these factors are sociological in nature, factors arising from such considerations as class, status, role and power.     

No End to the Consensus in Macroeconomic Theory? A Methodological Inquiry

After the acrimonious debates between the New Classical and New Keynesian economists in the 1980s and 1990s, a consensus developed, namely, the New Neoclassical Synthesis. However, the 2007 credit crunch exposed the severe limitations of this approach. This article presents a methodological analysis of the New Neoclassical Synthesis and how the paradigmatic heuristic of the representative agent, namely, market clearing subject to sticky prices, excluded the Keynesian notion of involuntary unemployment arising from lack of effective demand. It shows these models may be modified to produce Keynesian results, but are ruled out of consideration by proponents of the New Neoclassical approach by weak incommensurability. It concludes that because of this the New Neoclassical Synthesis, in spite of its failure to explain the sub‐prime crisis, is likely to resist successfully the resurgence in Keynesian economics.