Costly Buyer Search in a Differentiated Products Model: An Experimental Study

This study examines whether the content of buyer information and the timing of its dissemination affects seller market power. We construct laboratory markets with differentiated goods and costly buyer search in which sellers simultaneously post prices. The experiment varies the information on price or product characteristics that buyers learn under different timing assumptions (pre‐ and postsearch), generating four information treatments. Theory predicts that price information lowers the equilibrium price, but information about product characteristics increases the equilibrium price. That is, contrary to intuition, the presence of informed buyers may impart a negative externality on other uninformed buyers. Data support the model's negative externality result when sellers face a large number of robot buyers that are programmed to search optimally. Observed prices conform to the model's comparative statics and are broadly consistent with predicted levels. With human buyers, however, excessive search instigates increased price competition, and sellers post prices that are significantly lower than predicted.     

Are trade creditors relationship lenders?

We test the hypothesis that trade creditors are relationship lenders using SME data from Japan. We find that the validity of the relationship lending hypothesis depends on the relative bargaining power between the buyer and sellers. Specifically, we find evidence that longer buyer–seller relationships may matter depending on the buyer–seller relative bargaining power. When a buyer depends too much on its main supplier, the supplier does not provide more credit as its relationship with the buyer matures. However, a longer buyer/main-supplier relationship is beneficial because a non-dependent buyer can obtain more overall credit from sellers. Depending on the extent to which this increase is due to an increase in the credit from the main suppliers, our findings are consistent with the relationship lending hypothesis. However, even if the increase mainly comes from other sellers, our findings imply that sellers extract a positive signal from a longer buyer/main-supplier relationship.     

Measuring Market Power in Bilateral Oligopoly: The Wholesale Market for Beef

Econometric methods for assessing the degree of market power typically rely on a maintained hypothesis of price-taking behavior on one side of the market or the other. In the analysis of bilateral oligopoly, however, one would like to leave open the question of whether buyers or sellers (or both) behave competitively while allowing for the possible exercise of market power on either side. In this paper, we address the problem of measuring market power in bilateral oligopoly. This requires that we first distinguish among three candidate equilibrium concepts: bilateral price-taking, seller price-taking, and buyer price-taking. Choosing among them comes down to a test of nonnested, nonlinear, simultaneous equation models. Our application to the U.S. wholesale market for beef, characterized by high degrees of concentration among both sellers (beef packers) and buyers (primarily retail grocery chains), reveals seller price-taking among the three candidates to be the most consistent with the data. In particular, the hypothesis of price-taking conduct on both sides of the market can be rejected. This is a conclusion that would not have been reached had we considered monopoly conduct by sellers as the only alternative to perfect competition.     

Illustrating Adverse Selection in Health Insurance Markets with a Classroom Game

This paper describes a classroom game that illustrates the effects of asymmetric information and adverse selection in health insurance markets. The first part of this game simulates a market in which buyers can purchase insurance from sellers; in some periods, government regulation prevents sellers from using information about buyer type to determine premiums. The results demonstrate the classic prediction that asymmetric information will result in adverse selection. Here, low-risk buyers will forego the purchase of insurance at a measurable loss of potential earnings. In the second part of the game, sellers and buyers can trade two different types of health insurance policies, one moderate and another generous. Under government-mandated community rating and limits on premium increases, no buyers will purchase the generous plan. Questions are provided to stimulate discussion of the causes and consequences of adverse selection for consumers and insurers and possible solutions for employer- and government-sponsored programs.     

Auctions with options to re-auction

A seller has one unit to sell using an English auction mechanism similar to internet auction markets, such as eBay. Bidders appear according to a random arrival process. The seller chooses a reserve price and duration for each auction. If the reserve is not met, the seller passes in the object and conducts another auction with a new, randomly chosen, set of bidders. We distinguish reserves that embody an institutional commitment not to sell below that price, from those that do not. In each case, we find the optimal reserve price and the optimal auction duration. Without price commitment, the equilibrium reserve is too low for allocative efficiency, whereas the optimal reserve with commitment is shown to be too high when the distribution of bidder valuations exhibits an increasing hazard rate. It might even be socially preferable to allow reserve price commitments. With respect to duration, a version of the Diamond paradox afflicts sellers who cannot commit to price; auctions facilitate valuable duration commitments that increase buyer competition and raise expected revenue. With commitment, price posting (equivalent to a zero-length auction) is the dominant selling mechanism.     

Repeated contract negotiations with private information

Labor contracts are repeated, and the current negotiation apparently affects negotiations on the next contract. There is evidence that the likelihood of a strike is influenced by what happened before the previous contract was signed. To analyze whether private information might explain this, a model of negotiations between a buyer and a seller is developed where the “pie” in each contract follows a Markov chain, with transitions observed privately by the buyer. Each negotiation is a sequence of offers by the seller; the buyer can only accept or reject each offer, and a contract is signed when the buyer accepts.     

Corporate Disclosure of Environmental Liability Information: Theory and Evidence*

Abstract. The decision to disclose information concerning a firm's environmental liabilities is modeled as a sequential game involving the firm, a capital market, and outside stakeholders who can impose proprietary (political) costs on the firm. A partial disclosure equilibrium is derived in which firms reveal information strategically, maximizing the share-value net of expected political costs. Inherent uncertainty regarding the existence and size of the liabilities creates a setting where outsiders are uncertain if management is informed about these liabilities, so firms can plausibly withhold “bad news”, that is, they do not disclose liabilities that exceed a threshold level. Three novel hypotheses are that a firm is more likely to disclose as (1) its pollution propensity increases, (2) outsiders' knowledge of its environmental liabilities increases, and (3) the risk of incurring proprietary costs decreases. Empirical support is found for the hypotheses, based on the accounting disclosures made by sample firms selected from the records of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Energy. Improved accounting and auditing standards for environmental disclosure would build on at least three implications of the study:

• 1 To the extent that inherent uncertainty leaves managers with discretion as to what to disclose, the partial disclosure equilibrium result suggests that not all firms will comply with disclosure standards.
• 2 Publishing broad environmental performance indicators for companies in nonaccounting outlets would increase public awareness of a manager's private information endowment, making voluntary accounting disclosures of the liabilities more likely.
• 3 If a significant decline in stakeholder tolerance of pollution occurs, the expected proprietary costs of disclosing increase, and companies become less likely to disclose.

     

商品房预订意向书法律问题初探

商品房预订意向书是预约合同。其效力可分为两种:一是优先性协议,预订意向人有优先承诺权;二是带未决条款的预约,当事人不仅负有诚信谈判的义务,而且必须订立商品房买卖合同。出卖人未取得商品房预售许可证明,与买受人订立的商品房预订意向书,应当认定无效,但是在起诉前取得许可证明的,可以认定有效。     

Product quality, lender liability, and consumer credit

Under ‘linked credit’ (also known as ‘connectedlending’), the buyer obtains a loan from a lender withthe specific purpose of purchasing a certain product. Creditis arranged directly by the seller, who acts as an intermediaryfor the finance company. Within this form of financing, thelender often accepts a measure of liability for defective products.We show that ‘connected-lender liability’ can workas a signalling device for the reliability of sellers, so asto alleviate the market failure that arises when sellers arebetter informed than consumers about the quality of their products.     

The market for corporate subsidiaries in Japan: An empirical study of trades among listed firms

We investigate trades of wholly- or partially-owned subsidiaries between firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) for the years 1996–2010, to explore the economic impact in terms of strategic refocusing, stock market valuation and performance effects. By pairing both sides to each deal, we show differences in firm characteristics, returns, and subsequent performance of buying and selling firms. Unlike mergers between whole firms, most subsidiary deals straddled different industries. Most sellers were larger, more diversified and less profitable than buyers. Our event study reveals that abnormal returns were positive for buyers yet insignificantly different from zero for sellers. However, subsidiary sales in the core business earned negative returns, the more so the larger the deal. An analysis of ex-post operating results shows that the performance of sellers often declined after the trade, in particular for firms that divested a core-related subsidiary. We conclude that subsidiary trades in Japan in this period contributed importantly to strategic repositioning and a more efficient use of corporate assets.     

二手车定价时存在禀赋效应吗?

通过对行为经济学中"禀赋效应"研究进行归纳拓展,构建了二手车定价模型,将卖方禀赋效应分离出来,并基于二手车交易网站的微观数据,实证检验了二手车定价时的禀赋效应是否存在。得到如下结论:二手车市场中卖方定价时会受到禀赋效应的影响,从而制定一个高于参照点(使用时间、行驶里程和原始价格形成的中立参照价)的价格。通过稳健性检验,认为禀赋效应的存在是普遍且稳定的,但有可能受到驾驶体验、交易物品特征等因素的影响。研究构建的定价模型对行为经济学中禀赋效应和参照点的设定具有理论和实践的参考意义。     

COMPETITION BETWEEN INTERMEDIATED AND DIRECT TRADE AND THE TIMING OF DISINTERMEDIATION

This paper analyses how intermediation by a middleman who buysfrom sellers and sells to buyers is affected if direct tradebetween buyers and sellers becomes possible. Without coordinationamong sellers and buyers, disintermediation may not occur whenit would be welfare-improving. With such coordination, disintermediationmay occur too early. If direct trade is active, the supply anddemand for intermediation become interdependent: an increasein the bid price thus increases both supply and demand. Thisprocess of interdependence by which the two trade mechanismscompete for trade is a feature of competing markets generally.     

商务谈判中的语言表达艺术

商务谈判不仅可以维护买卖双方自身权益,也可以有效解决分歧,还可以通过沟通、协商、妥协、合作等方式确保买卖双方取得各自的经济利益。在商务活动中,谈判不仅是一种方法和手段,也是一门语言表达艺术。能否有效利用这种语言表达艺术,对谈判成功与否起到决定性的作用。     

Market-Channel Choices of Indonesian Potato Farmers: A Best–Worst Scaling Experiment

We present an empirical analysis of how buyer (and trader) attributes influence decisions of market participation and channel choice among smallholder potato farmers in West Java, Indonesia. We use a best–worst scaling experiment to evaluate the determinants of these decisions and gauge the influence of buyer attributes. Our latent-class cluster analysis reveals that producers have heterogeneous preferences for buyer attributes, which address classic smallholder constraints such as access to inputs, credit, and information. This heterogeneity can be somewhat explained by household characteristics and assets. The broad mass of our sample sought buyers whose attributes imply lower market risk for farmers. Yet roughly a quarter of our sample, a portion that included farmers with large, specialised farms, sought buyers who could provide inputs such as high-quality seeds.     

二手房交易中中介机构的信息屏障及其破解对策

目前房地产中介公司已成为二手房交易的主要渠道,许多中介公司利用买卖主体的信息不对称,有意制造信息屏障,获取额外收益。了解中介公司设置信息屏障的方式方法十分必要,它可以帮助买卖主体有效规避交易风险,减少不必要的经济损失。     

The Effect of Limited Liability on the Informativeness of Earnings: Evidence from the Stock and Bond Markets*

Previous empirical research on the informativeness of earnings has focused on stockholders, and has not examined differences in earnings' informativeness for stockholders and bondholders. Because stockholders are residual claimants and bondholders are fixed claimants, the informativeness of earnings should differ for these two types of investors. When a firm's default risk is low, changes in its financial condition should be of limited relevance to bondholders, but should be relevant to stockholders. In contrast, as the likelihood of financial distress increases, stockholders' limited liability allows them to abandon the firm to the bondholders (Fischer and Verrecchia 1997). Accordingly, as a firm's default risk increases, changes in its financial condition should be increasingly important to bondholders and less important to shareholders. Because earnings provide information on firm value, the stock return-earnings association should decrease as the firm's financial strength declines, while the bond return-earnings association should increase. We use two measures of a firm's financial strength: the firm's bond rating and its reporting of a loss. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the association between stock returns and changes in annual earnings decreases as bond ratings decline, while the association between bond returns and changes in annual earnings increases. These results suggest that as the company's financial condition deteriorates, earnings become less relevant for stock valuation and more relevant for bond valuation. When we partition firms based on their loss status, we find a stronger association between stock returns and annual earnings changes for firms with positive earnings (profit firms) than for firms with losses, consistent with earlier studies. In contrast, we find that the association between bond returns and earnings changes is greater for loss firms than for profit firms. These results suggest that losses reduce the informativeness of earnings for stockholders but increase informativeness for bondholders, suggesting that investors view losses as indicating increased credit risk.     

Consumer discrimination,duopoly, and black firm entry: The welfare effect of subsidies

Consumer discrimination, to the extent that it lowers expected profit for black owned firms, discourages the entry of new black firms. From a social welfare perspective, consumer discrimination may be welfare reducing, since market output is lower than otherwise. If so, a policy intervention that subsidizes new black firms may improve social welfare. This article presents a simple model of duopoly where consumer discrimination exists with uncertainty, and the only cost of production is a “loss of sales” cost. Given the Nash equilibrium, in which a black and white firm must select a price to charge, conditions are derived for which a profit subsidy to a new black firm increases, decreases, or has no effect on social welfare.     

机制设计视角的O2O模式科学性分析

O2O模式的升级与转型是目前电商行业的热点问题。运用机制设计理论,分析O2O不同经营类型的科学性,验证不同O2O类型与盈利模式间的关系。理论分析发现:相对于独立型与复合型团购,平台型团购能够较好地处理传统营销中买卖双方的信用关系,具有机制设计上的优势性。实证分析显示:平台型团购的盈利模式侧重于新型的增值业务收入,独立型与复合型团购侧重于商品的进销差价等传统盈利模式,消费者投诉绝大部分集中在独立型与复合型团购。     

Seller Beware: Supply and Demand Reduction and Price Manipulation in Multiple‐Unit Uniform Price Auctions

We experimentally compare under‐revelation of supply and demand across alternative variations of ascending and descending two‐sided price clock auctions. We find that buyers reduce demand more when the price is ascending but sellers’ behavior is consistent across clock directions. As a result, the clock price rule has empirical effects on efficiency even though it is theoretically neutral.     

Targets' Accounting Conservatism and the Gains from Acquisition*

We present evidence on the effects of target firms' accounting conservatism in a merger and acquisition transaction. Conservatism is distinct from other accounting or accrual quality constructs examined in prior work. Its unique features can lead to potential benefits for both the targets and the acquirers. The use of conservatism by targets reduces acquirers' risks of acquiring underperforming assets or overpaying for well-performing assets. In addition, targets' conservatism results in greater production of verifiable information that can help the acquirers better estimate and realize synergies of the combined firm. Consistent with these arguments, we find that firms with greater accounting conservatism are more likely to receive a bid. We also find that targets' conservatism increases the deal premium and the announcement returns of both the targets and the acquirers, respectively. Overall, these results indicate that conservatism provides benefits to both sellers and buyers of equity in an acquisition transaction.