Open Source Software: Competition with A Public Good

This paper looks at price and quality competition in software markets under two different forms of competition—one where two proprietary firms first choose quality and then engage in price competition, and second where a proprietary firm faces competition from an open source software (OSS) firm that allows its users to determine quality level and provides the software at zero price. We find that OSS competition never improves quality for consumers who value quality highly. However, it may provide greater quality to users with a low valuation for quality. In addition, we find that although OSS has a zero market price, the public good nature of OSS competition can lessen price competition, making the proprietary firm better-off with increased profit but leaving consumers worse-off with lower surplus.     

Markups and export-pricing strategies

We analyze empirically export-price strategies across export destinations using detailed firm-product data. Most recent studies using disaggregated data to investigate why firms charge different prices for the same product on different markets focus on the cost component of prices and neglect the markup component. In this paper, we concentrate on the markup component and examine how variations in firms’ export prices may reflect price discrimination by comparing the markup of firms with different pricing strategies. We make use of detailed firm-level data for exporting firms in the Swedish food sector consisting of both manufacturing and intermediary trading firms. The paper documents the export-price variations within the two sub-sectors and explores how different price strategies correlate with markups. The results offer new information beyond the fact that exporters tend to have a higher markup. In particular, we find that firms in the food-processing sector with a greater ability to discriminate across markets mark their products up even more. This result points to the importance of underlying firm decisions in order to explain differences in export premiums across firms. In addition, the results reveal that markups are a complex function of firm and destination characteristics, and that the relationship between markups and pricing strategies in the manufacturing sector is not necessarily observed in other sectors of the supply chain.     

Industry Differences in the Effect of Export Market Entry: Learning by Exporting?

An extensive evidence base affirms the importance of sunk costs and firm heterogeneity to exporting. Only higher productivity firms can profitably cover sunk costs and enter export markets. This is the standard explanation for the regularity with which econometric analyses report that exporters are more productive than non-exporters. But what happens to their productivity trajectory once they have entered? Some theory points to the possibility of a further productivity boost, attributable to the effects of learning and competition. We investigate whether this is because the potential for a post-entry boost depends upon how exposed to competition the firm is. We find that industry differences are an important marker for determining whether learning effects boost productivity after export market entry.     

Skilled-Labor Intensity Differences Across Firms,Endogenous Product Quality,and Wage Inequality

This paper proposes a theory to explain the relative wage-rate increase for skilled labor that results from trade liberalization that relies on within-sector reallocations of production resources (skilled and unskilled labor) across firms. Motivated by some stylized facts, in a model with firm heterogeneity, including firms that differ in their skill intensity even within a narrowly defined industry, firms with relatively high skill intensity that are more likely to be exporters, and a positive association between a firm’s skill intensity and its product quality, I develop a general equilibrium model where firms with a higher skill intensity endogenously choose a higher-quality product, and tend to be more profitable. In this framework, a reduction in trade costs allows members of the workforce to reallocate to more efficient firms that produce higher-quality products, using their skilled labor more intensively, resulting in a rising skill premium. The main sources of the increasing wage inequality that followed trade openness are a positive link between a firm’s skill intensity, its product quality, and quality competition.     

Product and destination mix in export markets

This article studies the joint destination and product strategies of exporters, using the universe of export transactions for firms located in Portugal in the period 1995–2005. The article breaks down the annual growth rate of total exports along different margins and details choices made by multi-product, multi-destination firms regarding their export portfolio. In addition, the article looks at similar features for the subsample of new exporters. We find that both the firm-level extensive and intensive margins are important in driving the year-to-year variation in aggregate exports. However, variation over time in the sales of continuing exporters is mainly driven by their sales in continuing destinations. In addition, a product’s export tenure within a firm varies largely across currently exported products in the context of an intense activity of product and destination switching. Moreover, the higher the importance of a product, the more its sales are concentrated in the firm’s top destination. Finally, the article finds that, while continuing exporters enter new markets mainly by selling old products, new exporters access new destinations mainly by exporting new products.     

Sharing the Market or Getting Closer for a Fight? Strategic Reaction to Reduced Trade Costs

Electronic coordination links markets that have initially been separated by transport costs, which in turn raises competitive pressure and affects incentives to differentiate products. We analyze private and social incentives to invest in a repositioning of products in a heterogeneous goods duopoly with two spatially separated markets. We consider both price and quantity competition to be able to distinguish between digital and physical products, respectively. For low transport costs, firms want to enhance product differentiation as expected. However, if transport costs remain close to prohibitive levels, they have an incentive to reduce heterogeneity.     

THE ECONOMICS OF IMPORT PARITY PRICING: A PEDAGOGICAL NOTE

This paper demonstrates that pricing to import parity is not necessarily prima facie evidence of the exercise of market power. It is shown that in the presence of imports both market structures, perfect competition and monopoly, can price to import parity. If markets can be segmented enabling the firm to discriminate between the export and domestic market it is shown that the imperfectly competitive firm can differentially price. Furthermore, as the number of domestic firms is increased, and if these firms are able to segment the market, the differential between domestic and foreign prices is reduced. The import parity price may or may not be charged in the domestic market. A measure of the exercise of market power is therefore the differential between export parity and the domestic price.     

Innovation strategies and productivity growth in developing countries: Firm-level evidence from Pakistani manufacturers

We examine the determinants of product, process, and organizational innovations, and their impact on firm labor productivity using data from a unique innovation survey of firms in Pakistan. We find significant heterogeneity in the impact of different innovations on labor productivity: Organizational innovation has the largest effect followed by process innovation. But unlike much of the literature, we found a negative impact of product innovation suggesting a disruption effect of new products. We find a strong impact of engaging in knowledge creation on product and process innovation. We also find that external knowledge networks and innovation cooperation play no significant role in firms’ decision to engage in innovation and its intensity, however, vertical linkages with suppliers (clients) promote product (process) innovations. Foreign competition has a negative effect on product innovation and a positive effect on organizational innovation. Exposure to foreign markets both in term of exporting and quality standard certification leads to better innovation performance.     

Does quality differentiation matter in exporters' pricing behaviour? Comparing China and India

The product quality dimension has been rarely mentioned as a factor explaining the heterogeneous pricing strategies of exporters. This could underestimate the degree of mark-up adjustment and the extent of incomplete exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) at a disaggregated level across products and destination markets. This paper investigates the role of quality differentiation in price discrimination using data for China and India's exports disaggregated at the 6-digit product level across destination markets. The paper adopts an empirical approach that incorporates gravity model explanatory factors and allows disentangling the effect of quality on trade prices and volumes from that of other sources of price variation. After excluding short duration export spells, China's export prices denominated in foreign currency terms increase with the yuan's depreciation, implying an increase in exporters' mark-ups, but they decrease as expected in the case of India. However, mark-up increases decline with product quality and destination market income, as the elasticity of demand perceived by exporters increases. These findings remain robust to different measures of quality, samples, specifications, and to the potential endogeneity of quality.     

EQUIVALENCE OF COMPETITION MODE IN A VERTICALLY DIFFERENTIATED DUOPOLY WITH DELEGATION

This paper aims to examine the equivalence of competition mode in a vertically differentiated product market with the relative performance delegation. It demonstrates the equivalence of product quality and social welfare in this delegation game, irrespective of modes of product competition. In addition, in a three‐stage game of quality‐delegation‐quantity (or price), it shows that the delegation coefficient is different between high‐quality and low‐quality firms in an asymmetric vertical differentiated model, and a high‐quality firm makes better use of the delegation than a low‐quality firm.     

企业异质性、地理距离与中国出口产品价格的空间分布

新一新贸易理论对企业异质性内涵有两类阐述,一类是企业生产效率（efficiency）的差异性,一类是企业产品品质（quality）的差异性;这意味着不同的出口产品价格（fob价格）空间分布特点,前者认为出口产品价格随着地理距离增加而减少,后者相反。本文利用中国对各国HS92版本六分位出口数据进行了经验分析,发现中国出口产品价格随着地理距离增加而减少;这说明中国出口企业实行低价竞销策略;改变中国企业的竞争策略成为中国出口贸易可持续发展的微观基础。     

Pricing of Initial Audit Engagements by Large and Small Audit Firms*

We investigate the extent to which auditors of U.S. companies reduce fees on initial audit engagements (“fee discounting”). We hypothesize that rivalries among sellers, in terms of client turnover and price competition, are more intense among small audit firms. The data support this hypothesis. New clients account for 34 percent of all clients for small audit firms, but only 9 percent of all clients for large audit firms. We theorize that differences in client turnover rates between large and small audit firms can be explained by the market structure of the audit industry, which consists of an oligopolistic segment dominated by a few large audit firms and an atomistic segment composed of many small audit firms. We further hypothesize and confirm that fee discounting is more extensive in the atomistic sector, and our results confirm this hypothesis. Our analysis of audit fee changes indicates that clients who switch auditors within the atomistic sector receive on average a discount of 24 percent over the prior auditor's fee. However, clients who switch auditors within the oligopolistic sector receive on average a discount of only 4 percent. Given that price competition is known to be less intense in oligopolistic markets than in atomistic markets, we believe that market structure theory can explain why fee discounting is lower when larger audit firms compete for clients.     

Price‐Setting Behavior of Korean Firms†

This paper investigates a pattern of price revision by firms in Korea and sheds light on the cause of price stickiness by providing reliable statistical estimates for calibration of the parameters of the widely‐used macro‐models. Based on firm‐level survey data and using a probit model, we identify the firm characteristics or market conditions that discourage firms from carrying out state‐dependent price adjustment. We also estimate the factors driving firms to engage in state‐dependent adjustment rather than wait until the next scheduled revision under three different shocks: demand, general cost and exchange rate shocks. We find a few interesting features, as follows. First, price revision by Korean firms tends to be time‐dependent rather than state‐dependent, with a sizable dispersion across sectors and firm sizes. Second, the pattern of price revision in Korea is not significantly different from that in selected advanced economies. Third, the reason why firms favor time‐dependent price adjustments appears to be endogenous, accounted for by a number of market institution variables. Fourth, in response to shocks, Korean firms tend to wait until the next periodically scheduled revision rather than make a state‐dependent price adjustment, unless marginal costs are affected significantly by the shock, and state‐dependent revisions are often significantly delayed when they do occur.     

Endogenous Price Leadership and the Strategic Acquisition of Information

We model a differentiated Bertrand duopoly in which a firm's earlier knowledge of market demand than its competitor results in endogenous price leadership with the information advantaged firm leading. In such a setting with second‐mover advantage, we then study the firms’ incentives to acquire information and analyze an information acquisition game. Both (i) neither firm acquiring information and (ii) one firm acquiring information can arise as subgame perfect equilibrium, but both firms acquiring information is never an equilibrium outcome, even if information is free. Information may have a negative value if it causes a change in the timing of price competition.     

Market competition,differences in technology,and productivity improvement: An empirical analysis based on Japanese manufacturing firm data

In this paper we examine empirically the effect of market competition on firm productivity improvements using data drawn from the Japanese manufacturing sector. We find that a non-linear relationship between competition and productivity growth induced by R&D activity as suggested by Aghion et al. (2005) holds for Japanese manufacturing firms. We also show that greater market competition widens technology differences across firms, and firms facing more intense competition are more productive than other firms. Our empirical results imply that productivity improvement through R&D activity depends on not only a competitive environment but also technological differences between firms.     

外生单向溢出效应下纵向差异化产品Cournot和Bertrand竞争均衡的比较研究

研究价格(Bertrand)和数量(Cournot)竞争模式下,单向溢出对企业质量选择、利润的影响。以纵向差异化市场结构为例,建立了基于单向质量溢出的不对称寡头竞争模型,运用赋值计算对模型的均衡解进行了比较分析,结论是:1给定溢出因子和学习效应的合理取值范围,领先和跟随企业的质量与利润在价格竞争下都小于数量竞争;2质量间的单向溢出效应、跟随者的学习努力都会导致领先者初始质量的下降,但在价格竞争时,这种"逆向选择"效应的程度较低;3跟随者的学习激励随着溢出效应的提高而降低,并不受竞争策略变化的影响。这些发现可以解释中国轿车产业竞争模式对合资和自主创新企业关系变化的影响。     

Too big to change: How heterogeneous firms respond to time-of-use electricity price

To manage the peak load by demand response, time-of-use (TOU) pricing with hourly and seasonal adjustments has been applied in industrial and commercial sectors in Shanghai. However, the requirement of continuous production and exogenous output level might be a serious barrier for responding to TOU price, as these are different across industrial sectors, firm scale or even seasons. Thus, the extent to which heterogeneous firms respond to price signals is still ambiguous and worthy of exploration. Based on a regression discontinuity approach, we disentangle the firm-level effects of TOU pricing for industrial and commercial firms. While the overall result shows a nonsignificant average response to TOU pricing, the firm-level analysis concerning individual heterogeneity indicates that smaller firms are much more sensitive to TOU pricing than larger firms. Moreover, this effect is much more significant in the commercial sector. This study expands understanding of the heterogeneous effects of TOU pricing with consideration of firm-level information and fills the gap between different estimation results from the previous literature. The results also indicate a price policy failure and unbalanced effects on industrial and commercial firms.     

融资约束、生产率与异质性企业的出口竞争力——微观基础的中国经验考察

本文基于企业异质性贸易模型,探讨了融资约束和生产率对出口竞争力的共同影响机制,从企业的内部治理和外部环境两个层面,利用中国2004～2009年的企业样本数据经验考察了出口竞争力的影响因素。研究发现,生产率对企业出口促进贡献还有赖于其融资水平,尤其需要克服融资的阈值效应,避免危机时期优秀企业被"逆淘汰";政策启示在于强调对高生产率企业建立政府"临危保护制度",并引导企业强化内部治理能力;最后需要强化物质要素之外的服务型要素竞争优势,从而继续维持我国贸易的"大国优势"。     

Asymmetric Competition on Commuter Routes: The Case of Gasoline Pricing

The intensity of competition among firms depends on commuting patterns, as has been noted, because commuters can reach any store located on their route to work without incurring any incremental travel costs. We incorporate this insight into our estimation of a retail gasoline price function for Lexington, Kentucky, by treating each commuter route as a separate market. Competition in these markets, however, displays an asymmetry because all the commuters travel to the Central Business District (CBD). To accommodate this asymmetry, we treat the market segments on each side of a firm as distinct submarkets and include independent variables (number of competitors and submarket length) from each submarket. Both sets of structural variables influence gasoline prices in the expected direction, but the variables representing the submarket near the CBD have significantly stronger effects. Refinements show that a firm's strongest competition comes from sellers of different brands and from its nearest neighbor.     

Economic performance and international trade engagement: the case of Portuguese manufacturing firms

By combining economic and financial data for Portuguese manufacturing firms with data on their exports and imports, we uncover some aspects of the relationship between international trade engagement and firms’ performances. In line with recent theoretical and empirical developments in the international trade literature: (i) we testify that Portuguese international trade is highly concentrated, especially on the import side, and both in inter- and intra-sector terms; (ii) we corroborate previous studies and theses according to which two-way traders outperform only importers, only exporters and above all domestic firms; (iii) we find that the greater the diversification of markets and goods (especially with regard to imports), the better the performance achieved by internationalised firms; (iv) we notice that the higher the intensity of firms’ international trade (especially imports), the better their performance; (v) we also present evidence that destination markets for exports and origin markets for imports are also important in explaining firm’s performance.