Risk,rent seeking and the social cost of monopoly power

Some recent empirical studies that have estimated the social cost of monopoly power have included in these estimates observed monopoly rents as a proxy for the unobserved value of the resources expended by rent seekers. This has involved adding these estimates of resources wasted by rent seekers to estimates of deadweight welfare loss triangles so as to produce an overall estimate of the social cost of monopoly. The present paper points out that each firm seeking a monopoly rent flow not only may be uncertain about obtaining the flow but also about retaining it in future periods. It is shown that this is likely to cause the proportion of the rent flow converted into social cost to be well below 100% regardless of whether the rent sought is small relative to initial wealth and regardless of whether rent seekers are risk-neutral or risk-averse. These findings demonstrate that large errors are likely to be made in monopoly welfare loss studies if observed monopoly rents continue to be employed as a measure of the value of resources used in rent-seeking activities.     

Quantity and price controls by the firm under demand uncertainty and welfare implications

A monopoly facing an uncertain demand can affect its profit distribution through the choice of ex ante controls. This paper compares two modes of behavior - price-setting and quantity-setting - in the context of a mean-variance model. The main results are: (a) With nonlinear cost, the monopoly will not be indifferent between the two modes. In the particular case of quadratic cost, conditions for the dominance of price-setting over quantity-setting behavior are derived. (b) Whereas it is well-known that the risk averse, quantity-setting monopoly will produce less under uncertainty than under certainty (or risk neutrality), the price-setting monopoly increases its expected output when faced by uncertain demand, possibly exceeding even the competitive output under uncertainty. (c) Using expected social surplus as a welfare criterion, price-setting emerges as the welfare-dominant behavior when there is a conflict between the privately and the socially preferred modes. (d) Finally, there exist conditions where price-setting monopolies welfare-dominate a competitive industry facing the same random demand.     

“店选网购”的竞争效应及其反垄断政策涵义

随着互联网和电子商务的发展，消费者在店商试选后以较低价格从网商购买商品的“店选网购”现象非常普遍，厂商或店商经常以其存在搭便车问题为由采取维持转售价格予以限制。本文通过构建具有横向差异化的霍特林模型，考察“店选网购”的竞争效应。研究表明，尽管“店选网购”存在搭便车问题，却能促进店商与网商间的竞争，降低店商和网商的价格和利润，使消费者从中获益，但对社会福利的影响结果是不明确的；其反垄断政策涵义是，“店选网购”具有促进竞争和存在搭便车问题的双重特性，不能简单地作为豁免维持转售价格的正当理由，而应根据实际情况具体分析。     

Regulating a Manager‐controlled Natural Monopoly with Unknown Costs

We study the regulation of a manager‐controlled natural monopoly with unknown costs, borrowing from Baron and Myerson (BM) (1982), where the monopoly is controlled by the owner. We consider the case where the regulator can tax the owner as well as the case where she cannot. We find that the optimal price schedule generally lies below the one in the BM model and that it can be as low as the marginal cost if the compensation parameter is sufficiently small and the regulator cannot tax the monopoly owner. We also identify the cases where the monopoly owner prefers to delegate the control to a manager. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Oligopoly firms with quantity-price strategic decisions

An agent-based model is used to determine market equilibrium with price-setting firms in an oligopoly market. The agent-based model is designed to match the experimental rules that Brandts and Guillen (J Ind Econ 55:453–474, 2007) used with human subjects. Their model uses posted prices and advance production of a perishable good. When the marginal cost is zero, the analytical Bertrand solution is almost perfect competition. When the marginal cost is nonzero, the game does not have a theoretical equilibrium in pure strategies. The agent-based model results show that with one or two firms, prices are at or near the monopoly level, which matches the human experiments. With four firms, prices are always at the perfectly competitive level when particle swarm optimization is used. Results using a genetic algorithm, however, are noisier than those using the particle swarm optimization, and the genetic algorithm falls short of the competitive solution. The triopoly market changes from mostly monopoly to a price in between monopoly and perfect competition when a marginal cost is added. The computerized agents tend to overproduce so that profits are negative in the three- and four-firm cases when production is costly. While the prices in the simulation are close to those observed in experiments with human subjects, the inefficiency due to overproduction is much greater in the agent-based model results. This result suggests that human agents are able to reach solutions, perhaps through social norms, that are missed by the simple agent-based rules used here.     

Optimal monopoly market area spanning in multidimensional commodity spaces

A monopoly firm locates in multidimensional product characteristics' space by setting a price that maximizes its profits. The monopoly market area (MMA) it serves strikes the happy medium between lower price and larger MMA, assuming absence of price discrimination, by setting the price at the MMA margins. The MMA takes different shapes, such as hyperspheres or hypercubes, depending on how customers perceive the product distance from their ideal tastes. Commodity space dimensionality, a measure of customer taste elaboration, has a robust effect on optimization: the optimal MMA stretch increases and price decreases with dimensionality, with different customer sensitivity patterns in place. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rent Seeking in the Cameroon Economy: Krueger's Analytic Technique Helps to Account for Development Lag in Colonial States

Abstract . Traditional economic theory regards the social costs of monopoly as the reduction in both consumer and producer surplus as a result of monopolization of certain sectors of the economy. Recent research has shown that a proper accounting of the social costs of monopoly must include the costs of obtaining and maintaining monopoly positions. Anne O. Krueger used the term “rent seeking” to refer to the expending of scarce resources by entrepreneurs to fight for rents created through government activity in the economy. Excessive interference in the economy by government can result in an increase in the social costs of monopoly. In a developing country such as Cameroon, where government activity in the economy has been quite pervasive since the latter part of the 1800s, opportunities have been created for rent seeking. This type of activity has helped to impede the economic growth of the country.     

垄断平台视角下的社交网站双边市场定价模式分析

双边市场理论是近年来产业组织领域研究的最新热点和前沿理论。社交网站行业具有典型的双边市场特征,平台的定价和盈利模式一直是平台企业关注的焦点。本文构建基于垄断平台的定价模型,分析社交网站媒体平台和软件平台的定价模式。结果显示,在社交网站媒体平台,平台企业向广告商定价总是高于其提供的服务成本;在社交网站软件平台,平台企业可能出现同时向两边用户进行补贴的情况。     

内部控制信息强制性披露研究——来自沪深两市特殊行业和垄断行业的经验证据

消费的外部负效应性和收入差距持续扩大问题,显然是影响社会和谐的重要变数。如何解决特殊行业和垄断行业的巨大外部负效应性和收入差距持续扩大问题?2006年我国出台的对上市公司的内部控制指引和对中央企业全面风险管理指引都仅仅对极少数行业的内部控制信息披露给出了相关规定,中国证监会对内部控制信息强制性披露的有关规定也仅仅局限于银行、保险及证券等特殊行业和再融资的少数上市公司。为此,文章以房地产业、医药行业以及垄断行业的内部控制信息强制性披露为对象,重点研究企业产品成本和外部负效应的信息治理机理及披露问题,以此实现对特殊行业和垄断行业的巨大外部负效应性问题和收入差距持续扩大问题的治理。     

Monopoly and Anti‐Monopoly in China Today

For three decades after liberation in 1949, the Chinese economy consisted almost entirely of state monopolies. Economic reforms, starting in 1979, sought to increase the efficiency of the economy by introducing competitive practices in many sectors of the economy. But the Chinese economy has been partially administered by the state for over two millennia. As a result, both state‐managed and private monopolies are still an intrinsic part of the Chinese economy today. Despite two decades of anti‐monopoly reforms, state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) continue to dominate key sectors of the economy, particularly in resource extraction and financial services. The government is aware of the inefficiencies and corruption caused by monopolies, both public and private. But Chinese tradition takes a balanced view of social harms and weighs the damage caused by monopoly against the stability that SOEs have provided China in recent decades. There is less reason for China to tolerate private monopolies, but most of them have arisen in conjunction with digital technology because of its distinctive cost structure (high entry costs, low marginal costs). China has made some use of antitrust law, but most economic regulation in China is administrative. Thus the anti‐monopoly activities that are used to restrain monopoly power in China are different from Western practices.     

制定成本会计准则的必要性——基于价格管制和政府采购的视角

文章运用垄断价格管制理论和福利经济学相关理论分析了当前出现垄断行业的"三高"以及政府采购成本偏高的现象,指出成本会计准则的制定是对垄断行业进行价格管制的前提,同时成本会计准则的制定必将有利于对政府采购成本实行有效控制,最后就如何制定成本会计准则提出了一些建议。     

基于实物期权的自主创新投资决策及其组合管理

不确定性环境下投资决策的实物期权方法（Real Options)已被广泛应用于项目的价值评估与投资决策。企业的柔性决策等方面。本文应用实物期权方法系统分析了垄断情形下企业的自主创新投资策略与决策规律，在此基础上，阐述了企业的自主创新项目的组合管理方法。     

Rent seeking and the value of time

This paper focuses on the question of how rivals’ rent-seeking expenditures and investment expenditures are affected by the temporal dimension of those cash flows as well as the timing of the cash flow of monopoly rents. The paper applies methods from statistical reliability theory to derive five propositions establishing the conditions that must be satisfied if the rivals apportion their rent seeking and investment expenditures to maximize their certainty equivalents of the monopoly rent. The propositions explicate the responses of the rivals to changes in economic parameters characterizing the rent-seeking contest such as a change in the duration of the monopoly rent cash flow or a change in the number of rivals.     

Pricing Experience Goods: The Effects of Customer Recognition and Commitment

In a two‐period model of nondurable experience goods, we compare the profit and social welfare effects of behavior‐based price discrimination (BBPD) and price commitment (PC) (relative to time‐consistent pricing) in a monopoly. We find that when the static, full‐information monopoly price is higher (lower) than the mean consumer valuation, PC yields higher (lower) profits and social welfare than BBPD. We also identify the market conditions under which BBPD does not increase firm profits and provide an explanation as to when the firm should discriminate against its first‐time and repeat customers, respectively.     

MARKET POWER AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper examines the social cost of the pharmaceutical industry in South Africa. From a regulatory perspective the industry is seen to exhibit monopolylike behaviour resulting in monopoly prices on the supply (manufacturing) side and diminished consumption on the demand (consumer) side. The evidence presented here, which is complementary to that of previous studies, does not support that view. The findings contained here are relevant to the highly contentious subject of access to drugs.     

Vertical integration and disruptive cross‐market R&D

We study how vertical market structure affects the incentives of suppliers and customers to develop a new input that will enable the innovator to replace the incumbent supplier. In a vertical setting with an incumbent monopoly upstream supplier and two downstream firms, we show that vertical integration reduces the R&D incentives of the integrated parties, but increases that of the nonintegrated downstream rival. Strategic vertical integration may occur whereby the upstream incumbent integrates with a downstream firm to discourage or even preempt downstream disruptive R&D. Depending on the R&D costs, vertical integration may lower the social rate of innovation.     

Impact of mass customization on cost and flexiblity performances: the role of social capital

More than ever, companies have to cope with ever changing market conditions. Some companies have reacted to shortened product life cycles, constant changes in customer preferences and cost pressures by implementing mass customization practices. Mass customization has been hailed as a way to overcome the tradeoff between cost and flexibility performance. However, there is lack of consistent empirical evidence to demonstrate that this really is the case. We advance this debate by proposing that in order for mass customization to be more effective, a company needs to possess and utilize social capital (i.e., cognitive, relational and structured social capital) within their supply networks. This study uses primary survey data from 513 plants from nine countries collected by the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG). We used structural equation modelling analysis to test our hypotheses. Results indicate that mass customization has the ability to improve a company’s cost and flexibility performance. Furthermore, results regarding the moderating role of social capital are mixed. Cognitive capital only moderates the impact of mass customization on cost performance while relational capital increases this impact on both cost and flexibility performance. Structural capital does not moderate the impact of mass customization on performance.     

Interfirm and Intrafirm Switching Costs in a Vertical Differentiation Setting: Green versus Nongreen Products

In a vertical differentiation model where both duopolists supply the same two qualities of an otherwise homogeneous product, we derive the critical level of the interfirm switching cost needed to sustain monopoly pricing. In particular, we show how a decrease in the intrafirm switching cost may cause a decrease in this critical value, thereby facilitating monopoly pricing. We apply the results to a setting with green and nongreen products—in particular electricity—and discuss implications for policy measures intended to stimulate the production and consumption of green products.     

On the maximizing behavior of a monopoly planner

Conclusions The model developed here leads to some useful conclusions. If we consider an economy without trade where the supply of inputs varies in response to the level of current real consumption paid to inputs, then the relevant social input constraint for the planners is not a single production possibilities locus, but the planners feasibility constraint developed here. This constraint traces the locus of points on a family of production possibility surfaces that would be generated by each alternative quantity of inputs. The rate of product transformation along the planners' feasibility function will differ from the rate of product transformation along the production possibilities locus by an amount that reflects the marginal input supply. In such an economy, whenever the arguments of the planners' welfare function are not identical with the arguments of the input supply function, the necessary conditions for the planners' optimum will be non-optimal with reference to usual market socialist welfare criteria. At equilibrium, the marginal rate of product substitution in the planners' welfare function will not equal the marginal rate of product transformation on the production possibilities function. In addition, when the tastes of planners and of consumers diverge, the necessary conditions for the planners' optimum imply the exercise of some monopoly power by the planners. For given input supply conditions and given production functions, the magnitude of the monopoly effect increases to a limiting value as the diverge of tastes between planners and consumers increases.     

Competition with Aftermarket Power When Consumers Are Heterogeneous

We study a model of competitive foremarkets and partly monopolized aftermarkets. We show that high aftermarket power prompts firms to engage in inefficiently aggressive below‐cost pricing in the foremarket. This inefficiency is driven by the presence of consumers with valuations below marginal cost. While for intermediate aftermarket power their presence leads to a competition‐softening effect, for high aftermarket power firms attract increasing numbers of unprofitable consumers by aggressively pricing below cost. For high aftermarket power, firms' equilibrium profits can therefore be decreasing in aftermarket power but are always higher than for low aftermarket power. If firms engage in price discrimination by bundling the foremarket and aftermarket goods or by reducing their aftermarket power, they avoid selling to unprofitable consumers but also reduce the competition‐softening effect. This decreases firms' equilibrium profits but increases consumer and social welfare.