Market Entry Regulation and International Competition*

We analyze a non‐cooperative two‐country game where each government decides whether to allow free market entry of firms or to regulate market access. We show that a Pareto‐efficient allocation may result in equilibrium. In particular, if the cost difference between home and foreign production is “significant,” production will be located in the cost‐efficient country exclusively; and if this cost difference is even “substantial,” the induced allocation is also Pareto efficient. Only if the cost difference is “insignificant,” production may take place in both countries and the allocation is inefficient.     

Dynamics of Export Market Entry and Exit*

We apply discrete time duration models to explain the duration until new plants start to export and the duration until exit from the export markets, using data on Finnish manufacturing plants. Plants that are large, young, highly productive, and with high‐capital intensity are likely to enter the export market earlier and to survive in the export market longer. Foreign ownership increases chances of export entry, especially for small and low human capital plants, and decreases the risk of export failure for large, high‐productivity plants. The upper and lower tails of the productivity distribution are represented by plants that start exporting and those that are exiting, respectively.     

金融契约执行效率、企业进入与产品市场竞争

供给侧改革的核心之一是引导企业有序进入新行业,金融契约执行效率的高低会影响企业外部融资成本和进入决策,进而决定市场竞争程度。本文将不完全契约机制和古诺竞争引入动态一般均衡框架,从理论上阐释了金融契约执行效率对企业进入和市场竞争的影响机制。此外,本文使用1998—2007年中国制造业企业的微观数据对理论结果进行了实证检验,回归结果表明:金融契约执行效率越高的地区,企业进入激励越强、市场竞争越充分;从地区角度看,中部地区对金融契约执行效率的变动相对敏感;从行业角度看,技术密集型行业对金融契约执行效率的变动相对不敏感。     

进入壁垒、生产能力扩张与证券审计市场的竞争

本文从产业组织的视角,利用2001～2005年我国A股审计市场的面板数据,分析了进入壁垒、生产能力扩张这两种竞争因素对我国证券审计市场竞争的影响。结果表明,2000年后证券审计市场政策性进入壁垒提高后,短期内证券审计市场价格竞争有所削弱。但在长期,外生的需求增长导致各事务所生产能力快速扩张,使得市场竞争加剧。从整个研究时期看,进入壁垒提高带来的减缓竞争效应仍大于生产能力扩张带来的竞争效应。     

Empirical Analysis of Entry in the Local Exchange Market: The Case of Pacific Bell*

This article examines local exchange entry in SBC's California territory. Analysis is conducted based on five‐digit zip code areas. Information on economic, demographic, and regulatory variables, including prices of unbundled loops, is included in the analysis. Results of censored Poisson analysis indicate that these economic, demographic, and regulatory variables play a statistically significant role in leading to higher probabilities of low levels of entry in areas where loop prices are higher, fewer large businesses exist, and costs of self‐provision are higher. (JEL L51, L96)     

Product Choice and Market Competition: The Case of Multiproduct Electronic Plants in Taiwan*

We examine the strategies of multiproduct plants in the Taiwanese electronics sector by introducing two new measures of product dissimilarity to capture the technological gaps of product pairs within the plant. The plant‐level index is used to analyze product mix decisions of plants. We find that plants whose products have large technological gaps are more likely to give up product lines. The product‐level index is used to show that, with increased competition, multiproduct plants exit markets where production technologies are farthest away from their core products and they also perform better than plants that continue to produce a wider range of products.     

入世：我国市场竞争将发生十大变化

加入WTO意味着我国将在更大范围参与国际竞争与合作，意味着我国的市场将真正和世界市场接轨，意味着我国真正走向全面开放。市场竞争将由此发生根本性变化。一、市场竞争将由国内的、局部的、不完整的竞争转向国际化的、全方位的竞争，由国内市场的国际化变为国际市场的国内化     

新闻市场的竞争与事实真相

“新闻市场的竞争有助于澄清事实真相”，这是一条深刻影响美国政治传统、法律教义和监管政策的观念。研究表明，竞争机制有助于减少发生在传媒市场供给层面的偏见或事实扭曲；而当信息扭曲发生在需求一方时，竞争对事实真相的促进作用是模棱两可的。文章最后指出，在美国，借助政府干预来促进竞争的效果并不明显。     

竞争市场与垄断市场:一个基于福利的分析

传统经济理论认为垄断会导致社会福利的损失。在它的分析框架中。实际上瞻舍着成本不变假说，即完全竞争市场中的企业与垄断市场中的企业的成本(或边际成本)是相同的。规模经济理论告诉我们，规模大的企业更容易形成规模经济效果，因而垄断企业的规模经济效果是完全竞争企业不可比拟的，成本不变假说就显得很不真实。本文试图证明在某种前提(如资金密集型产业和知识密集型产业)下垄断所带来的规模经济效果能够弥补社会福利的损失，甚至使社会总福利增加。这一结论对我国市场化改革具有现实意义。     

Efficient Entry,Monopoly, and the Universal Service Obligation in Postal Service

This paper analyzes the nature of and justification for the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and its relationship to the Reserved Area for Postal Service. This is motivated by problems of funding the USO in the face of increasing competition in the postal sector. After reviewing various approaches to defining and funding the USO, we develop a model to consider the optimal scope of both the Reserved Area and the USO. The model assumes an incumbent postal provider and potential entrants. The incumbent is guaranteed a monopoly franchise for services in its Reserved Area R and offers services in a possibly larger set of services U at uniform prices. All services not in R face competition from entrants. We characterize the welfare-optimal scope of R and U subject to a breakeven constraint for the incumbent. Implications for USO policy are discussed in light of the results of the analysis.     

金融市场中的区块链技术:场景应用与价值展望

在抽象的区块链技术与友好的金融应用之间进行弥合,探讨新的信用生态在缓解信息不对称过程中的应用场景,进一步展望了区块链对整个金融业态的价值贡献、限制以及其他可能性。     

Impact of National Health Insurance on Entry and Competition in Remote Areas,Evidence from Taiwan's Dental Market

This paper assesses the change in the supply of dental clinics after the implementation of Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI). Even though the government has enforced lower prices of treatment since the implementation of NHI, the increase in use could actually result in higher revenue for dentists. The higher profit could prompt dentists to attempt to enter markets that were previously unprofitable. This paper tested if NHI increased the dental clinic supply in geographically isolated areas by investigating whether the required minimum market size was reduced. We found that following the implementation of NHI, the per‐dental clinic minimum market size significantly decreased. In addition, the decreased minimum market sizes were enabled by a corresponding increase in variable profits which is equal to the difference between price and average variable costs. This implies that the NHI‐enlarged health care demand compensates for the possible losses of dental clinics due to price regulation. Furthermore, the results also suggest that the post‐NHI dental market becomes more competitive when there is a second entrant in the market, and the level of competition approaches perfect competition when three and more dental clinics serve one market.     

Second Opinions and Price Competition: Inefficiency in the Market for Expert Advice

We consider a market in which an expert must exert costly but unobservable effort to identify the service that meets the consumer's need. In our model, experts offer competing contracts and the consumer may gather multiple opinions. We explore the incentives that a competitive sampling of prices and opinions provides for experts to exert effort and find that there is a tension between price competition and the equilibrium effort. In particular, the equilibrium fails to realize the second best welfare optimum. An intervention, that limits price competition via price control, increases welfare.     

Service Quality,Competition, and Regulatory Policies in the Postal Sector

This paper presents a simple model which illustrates the possible policy- and welfare-implications of endogenous product selection in the postal sector. The cost of a unit of mail depends on its "quality" (e.g., speed of delivery) and on the type and location of the addressee (firms, urban households, and rural households). Senders have inelastic demands and differ in their willingness to pay for quality. Addressees are passive but their utility may affect social welfare. Two operators play a two-stage game, first choosing qualities and then prices. We first show that the equilibrium with two private (profit maximizing) operators results in an inefficient provision of quality. Then, we consider the mixed (Nash) equilibrium with one private and one (welfare maximizing) public operator. If the budget constraint of the public firm is not binding, this equilibrium is shown to be first-best efficient even if social welfare accounts for the utility of addressees. If the budget constraint is binding, the mixed equilibrium is not efficient but yields a higher level of welfare than the private equilibrium. Finally, we study the impact of minimum quality standards within our setting.     

Micro Foundations for Wage Flexibility: Wage Insurance at the Firm Level*

To what extent do firms insulate their workers' wages from fluctuations in product markets? Which firm and worker attributes are associated with wage flexibility at the micro level? We first rely on Guiso, Pistaferri and Schivardi (2005) to estimate dynamic models of sales and wages, finding that in Portugal, workers' wages respond to permanent shocks on firm performance, as opposed to transitory shocks. We then explore the factors associated with wage flexibility, finding that collective bargaining and minimum wages are associated with higher wage insurance by the firm, while the threat of firm bankruptcy reduces it. Managers receive less protection against permanent shocks than other workers.     

审计市场结构：自由竞争抑或垄断竞争

国内文献大多认为我国独立审计市场属于自由竞争市场.我们的市场检验发现,我国的审计市场不具备经济学意义上的完全竞争市场特征.按照贝恩的划分,以客户资产和主营业务收入计量的市场集中度表明我国寡占型审计市场已初步形成.但居高不下的本地客户率表明.我国审计市场地区垄断情况很严重,应引起监管部门的注意.     

Competition for versus on the Rails: A Laboratory Experiment*

European countries and Japan are contemplating more competition in passenger rail service. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Transport was assigned responsibility for making a recommendation to Parliament for choosing between competition for the rails and competition on the rails. The Ministry commissioned the experiments reported here to acquire better understanding of the properties of the alternative policies. Competition on the rails involves allocation of rights to use station and time‐slot routes by price bids in a combinatorial auction. Competition for the rails involves allocation of rights to regional monopolies by fare‐structure bids for supplying a prespecified minimum schedule.     

Worksharing and Access Discounts in the Postal Sector with Asymmetric Information*

This paper analyzes the optimal worksharing and access amounts granted to mailers and entrants in a liberalized postal sector when there is asymmetric information about the Post Office’s (PO) costs. I show that when the regulator is unable to ascertain which part of the total cost of sorting has to be attributed to each sorting facility, the optimal “access discount” given to entrants is set in a pro-competitive way. This facilitates the entry of firms that are less efficient than the PO. However, the optimal “worksharing discount” may prevent the entry of mailers that are more efficient than the PO.