Marriage Market,Parents’ Bargaining Powers,and Children's Nutrition and Education*

Test of resource pooling and test of effect of sex ratio in the marriage market on intrahousehold resource allocation are combined to test the unitary household model. The consistency condition between the two tests is derived to test the Nash household bargaining and Pareto‐efficient household models. I examine intrahousehold resource allocation to children's nutrition and education in Indonesia. For children's nutrition, the unitary household model is rejected in favour of the non‐unitary models. The results for investment in education are mixed. The decision‐making process may differ depending on the type of decision being made.     

Bargaining Over Housework

A bstract .   This paper investigates the limited increase in housework provided by husbands in response to higher earnings and labor force participation by their wives. An explanation is provided that integrates the time availability, relative resources, and gender ideology perspectives that traditionally have been used to explain housework decisions. The outcome is the result of a bargaining process in which two concerns are identified as limiting the response of primary wage earning spouses to the employment of secondary wage earning spouses. First, the secondary wage earners' employment may in part be motivated by a concern about the durability of their marriage rather than their family's welfare. Second, a balancing of the inconveniences and the net earnings of the additional employment may be viewed as making only a limited contribution to the family's welfare. Empirical results of an analysis of the individual household tasks imply that both gender ideology and the spouses' earnings are important in determining the hours that each spouse devotes to household tasks. When making decisions about the amount of housework to perform, both spouses respond to changes in relative earnings, but the response of husbands, who are usually the primary wage earners, is smaller than that of wives, who tend to be the secondary wage earners.     

Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results

In the traditional approach to consumer behaviour it is assumed that households behave as if they were single decision‐making units. This approach has methodological, empirical and welfare economic deficiencies. A valuable alternative to the traditional model is the collective approach to household behaviour. The collective approach explicitly takes account of the fact that multi‐person households consist of several members which may have different preferences. Among these household members, an intrahousehold bargaining process is assumed to take place. In addition to providing an introduction to the collective approach, this survey intends to show how different collective household models, each with their own aims and assumptions, are connected.     

Location Choice and Contract Bargaining

We study how managerial bargaining power affects outcomes and payoffs in a Hotelling‐type duopoly framework with restricted and unrestricted locations. We show that bargaining power only affects the distribution of the surplus between owners and managers but does not affect the locations, prices, managerial incentives, and consumer welfare. This is in stark contrast to van Witteloostuijn et al. (2007) and related contributions where bargaining power has real effects. We argue that the difference between our irrelevance result and their findings originates from the fact that their approach seems to be based on a behavioral assumption and not on microeconomic principles of owner–manager bargaining. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bargaining power in alliance governance negotiations: evidence from the biotechnology industry

Alliance partners negotiate how they will govern their alliance. This study shows bargaining power, not just efficiency considerations, influences the outcome of this negotiation. Whereas previous research on this phenomenon associates bargaining power with firm size, this study employs more nuanced measures of bargaining power applicable to biotechnology firms while controlling both absolute and relative firm size. We find small biotechnology firms with partners that are over five times larger can still have the bargaining power to get their interests met when the two parties have opposing governance interests.     

Cleaner production: organizational learning or business as usual? An example from the domestic appliance industry

It is frequently argued that approaches to minimizing the environmental, health and safety impact of industry (i.e. cleaner production) require that firms engage in a process of participative learning involving all levels of the organizational hierarchy. This paper examines the key concept of organizational learning, particularly in terms of the associated concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’, drawing on a study of a large, environmentally pro‐active firm and recent critical literature on the experience of work. It is suggested that, although contemporary management philosophy pays lip service to increased workforce participation and empowerment, there are formidable structural and cultural barriers to such change. Initiatives within firms to stimulate learning and continuous improvement around cleaner production can be understood in terms of firstly the relative power of individuals and groups within organizations to define and activate learning agendas and secondly the emphasis given to low cost, low skill and low trust as a route to competitiveness, particularly in a UK business context. Finally, attention is drawn to the weakness of external mechanisms for supporting genuine participation and empowerment within enterprises around health, safety and environmental issues. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment     

The bargaining position of low-skilled and high-skilled workers in a globalising world

This paper extends the assessment of the impact of globalisation and technological change on the bargaining power and preferences of employees, by taking worker heterogeneity into account. In contrast with previous studies, two separate unions – representing low-skilled and high-skilled workers respectively – are considered. Using Belgian firm-level data, labour bargaining power and relative wage preference have been estimated by skill level. When these estimates are subsequently regressed on a set of potential determinants, the bargaining power of low-skilled workers appears to fall with imports and offshoring, whereas the bargaining power of high-skilled workers is only positively affected by R&D activities. In addition, a significant effect of globalisation is found on the relative preference of unions for wages over employment, indicating that the effect of globalisation on the behaviour of labour unions is more encompassing than frequently assumed.     

Wage versus efficient bargaining in oligopoly

This paper combines internal bargaining between firms and their employees with a situation of imperfect competition, in particular a Cournot‐oligopoly. Wage bargaining is compared with simultaneous negotiations on wages and employment (efficient bargaining). It turns out that for a large range of parameter values a prisoner's dilemma concerning profits exists. The dominant strategy is efficient bargaining, while the joint profits are maximized with wage negotiations. A simplified example considers economic welfare and utility of the unions. Different welfare measures are considered like the usual IO measure of consumer and producer surplus as well as others. The term ‘efficient bargaining’ is not justified (at least for the present example) if the profits and the rents of the unions are considered, as these are maximized with wage bargaining. However, consumer and producer surplus are highest with efficient bargaining. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MATERNAL EDUCATION AND CHILD ATTAINMENT IN JAMAICA: TESTING THE BARGAINING POWER HYPOTHESIS†

In a bargaining model of household decision-making, any variable reflecting the outside opportunities of household members will influence household demand patterns. Mother's education has been found to be an important determinant of children's education and health outcomes. This paper argues that within a bargaining framework, mother's education may influence children's health and education by shifting bargaining power within the household. An empirical strategy is developed and applied to data on teenage grade attainment and school enrolment in Jamaica. The results support the bargaining power hypothesis, and imply a broader role for mother's education than has previously been considered.     

Price versus Quantity in a Duopolistic Market with Bargaining over Managerial Delegation Contracts

This paper studies the endogenous choices of strategic contracts in a duopoly with bargaining between the owner and manager of each firm over the content of the managerial delegation contract. We show that when the bargaining power of the manager relative to that of the owner within each firm is sufficiently high, quantity competition based on the quantity contracts chosen by the owners of both firms can be uniquely observed in the equilibrium, whereas quantity competition and price competition can be observed in the equilibrium when this relative bargaining power is sufficiently low. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Price discrimination and bargaining power in the U.S. vaccine market: Implications for childhood immunization policy

The U.S. vaccine market exhibits a pricing structure in which the major purchaser of vaccines, the public sector, receives substantial discounts. This outcome is consistent with three theories of market behavior: third-degree price discrimination; bargaining power; and cost differences. The true nature of this pricing structure has important efficiency and policy implications. This paper uses a longitudinal data set of private catalog and federal contract prices to empirically determine whether price discrimination or bargaining power is being practiced in this market. I find that, while it is not possible to eliminate other factors, the results favor the bargaining power hypothesis.     

网络外部性、内生成本差异与企业定价策略

在产品成本内生条件下,通过建立扩展的Hotelling模型,分析网络外部性对企业定价策略的影响,结果显示:当网络外部性强度较低时,企业将选择歧视定价策略,当网络外部性强度较高时,企业将选择单一定价策略;在两种定价策略下,Nash谈判能力强的企业将获得更高的市场份额和利润;社会福利大小由网络外部性强度和企业Nash谈判能力共同决定,与产品定价策略无关,当网络外部性强度较高时,社会福利与企业间Nash谈判能力的差异正相关,反之则负相关。     

Threats and bargaining in capitalism a differential game view

The paper examines the Nash bargaining equilibrium in a simple model of growth and distribution formulated as a differential game between workers, who may save or consume, and capitalists, who may consume or invest. Optimal threats announced by the social classes to affect the negotiated solution to their own advantage are also derived. It is demonstrated that the workers' threat takes the form of refusing to save while capitalists threaten to refrain from investing. The threats as well as the possible gains from cooperation determine the players' relative importance or bargaining power. It is shown that capitalists are in general in a stronger bargaining position than workers. The dependence of the bargaining power on the parameters of the model is examined.     

Private Information and Bargaining Power in Venture Capital Financing

We model the natural evolution of private information over the life of a venture capitalist financed project. In the early stages, the entrepreneur is better informed regarding the project, and when the project matures, the venture capitalist has an informational advantage over the entrepreneur. Within this framework, we examine how the venture capitalist's relative bargaining power affects cash flow rights and investment. When the bargaining advantage lies with the entrepreneur, the project may not be screened, and the venture capitalist may acquiesce to excessive initial investment but subsequently terminate the project. Increased venture capitalist bargaining power encourages project screening, attenuates the incentive to overinvest, and reduces the incidence of project termination subsequent to the initial investment. The payoff sensitivity of venture capitalist's financing contract also increases as his bargaining power improves.     

Strategic militancy and the probability of strikes in union-firm bargaining

The paper provides a model that explains the probability of strikes by the union's use of militancy as a strategic tool in bargaining. Militants are useful because they provide a credible threat, hence enhancing the union's bargaining position. Using a multi-stage bargaining game, we show that, in general, militants will be used by the union as a strategic tool. The strategic benefit of militancy is reflected by the fact that the wage and employment level will be higher in a union that uses militants, compared to a union that does not. We use the model to show that the level of militancy and the probability of a strike decrease with the union's power. This suggests that policies that increase the strength of the union will have, at least, a partial positive effect on social welfare. We also show that the model can be viewed as providing an equilibrium of a repeated game, an interpretation that can explain the probability of strikes even in the absence of militants.     

What happens to CEO compensation following turnover and succession?

When boards hire CEOs, the board and successor CEO have an opportunity to redesign the predecessor's compensation contract. The CEO's relative bargaining power will influence the outcome of compensation negotiations. Analyzing 508 successions, we find that total compensation of successor CEOs increases by 69% over their predecessor, but the structure of successor compensation is heavily influenced by the predecessors’ contracts. When the board's bargaining power is large, successors have a greater proportion of pay-at-risk and smaller proportion of salary. When the CEO's bargaining power is large, there is a smaller proportion of pay-at-risk and relatively greater proportion of salary.     

Investment and capital structure decisions with strategic debt service under asymmetric information

This paper examines the agency problem due to manager-shareholder conflicts in a real option framework by incorporating strategic debt service. We show that when the equityholders’ bargaining power is weak, the optimal coupon is larger and the manager overinvests the project relative to the case without renegotiation, while the results are totally opposite when the bargaining power is strong. An increase in equityholders’ bargaining power reduces the manager’s value and the total social value. Especially, the social value can be improved by debt renegotiation when the systematic risk is high, which provides an explanation why Chinese government encourage the market-oriented debt restructuring.     

Bargaining over managerial contracts in delegation games: managerial power,contract disclosure and cartel behavior

Modern corporate governance codes include clauses requiring the disclosure of managerial compensation. Such codes have been installed to protect shareholders' interests. In this paper, we explore the impact of such disclosure on consumer welfare. We consider two‐stage delegation games in which owner‐shareholders negotiate about compensation with their managers in the game's first stage. At the end of the first stage, the managerial compensation contract outcomes of the bargaining process are publicly announced. In the second stage, Cournot competition evolves. We prove that sales delegation generates equilibria radically different from relative performance delegation. Using classical Cournot as the benchmark, contractual bargaining over sales compensation gives tougher product market competition—and hence higher consumer surplus. The opposite holds true for relative performance delegation. Then, cartel behavior is promoted, reducing consumer surplus. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Downstream Competition, Bargaining, and Welfare

I analyze the effects of downstream competition when there is bargaining between downstream firms and upstream agents (firms or unions). When bargaining is over a uniform input price, a decrease in the intensity of competition (or a merger) between downstream firms may raise consumer surplus and overall welfare. When bargaining is over a two-part tariff, a decrease in the intensity of competition reduces downstream profits and upstream utility and raises consumer surplus and overall welfare. Standard welfare results of oligopoly theory can be reversed: less competition can be unprofitable for firms and/or beneficial for consumers and society as a whole.     

Inter-firm governance and structural power in industrial relationships: the moderating effect of bargaining power on the contractual safeguarding of specific assets

In the basic model of transaction cost analysis (TCA), neither market power nor power based on resource-dependence plays a significant role. In this article, we extend the TCA-perspective by combining resource-dependence theory (RDT) and TCA, and examine whether the buyer's bargaining power influences the alignment of the contractual safeguarding of buyer-specific and supplier-specific investments. Data from a survey of 160 industrial purchasing relationships provide empirical support for our theoretical predictions.The empirical findings demonstrate that the buyer's bargaining power does interfere with the safeguarding of relations-specific assets. As the buyer's relative bargaining power increases, the safeguarding of buyer-specific assets is substantially reinforced. On the other hand, the contractual protection of supplier-specific assets is significantly relaxed as the buyer's bargaining power grows.Our findings indicate that there is a tension between the alignment of contractual safeguarding arrangements and structural power in inter-firm business, and that resource-dependence considerations offer an important complement to TCA when we consider the transacting parties’ ability to provide contractual safeguards for assets at risk.Further, the findings indicate that the establishment of relational ties in long-term relationships is an important antecedent to governance structure. The empirical findings demonstrate that the longer a business-to-business relationship lasts, the more the contractual governance is relaxed.