Stable market structures from merger activities in mixed oligopoly with asymmetric costs

This paper examines endogenous merger formations in a mixed oligopoly. Applying the core as a solution concept, we analyze which market structure(s) remain(s) stable when three firms—two symmetric private firms and one inefficient public firm—are allowed to merge with each other in a mixed Cournot industry. We show that according to the value of the marginal cost of the public firm, there always exists a pair of share ratios of the owners of both the (pre-merged) public firm and the (pre-merged) private firm such that the market structure with the merger between the public firm and one private firm belongs to the core. When the initial market structure is a mixed triopoly, it can only be blocked when one public firm and one private firm merge. Furthermore, we conduct a similar analysis in a general mixed oligopoly with one public firm and n private firms.      

Mixed Oligopoly and Environmental Policy

We show in this paper that when there are both public and private firms in product markets (a mixed oligopoly) the decision whether to privatize a public firm interacts with the environmental policy of governments. Therefore, the outcome of the decision whether to privatize a public firm may be different if the government internalizes the environmental damage than if the government ignores it. When the government sets a tax to protect the environment, the tax is lower in the mixed oligopoly than in the private one even though the environmental damage is greater. In the mixed oligopoly the marginal cost of the public firm is lower than the market price.     

On the Neutrality of Profit Taxation in a Mixed Oligopoly

This paper investigates the neutrality of profit taxation in a mixed oligopoly where one (partially) public firm competes with private firms. We find that the neutrality of a profit tax is robust under a general cost and a general demand function as long as the degree of privatization is endogenously determined. This result is also true when product heterogeneity is considered under both Cournot and Bertrand competition. By contrast, if the degree of privatization is exogenously given, the profit tax neutrality holds only in the cases where the public firm is fully privatized or fully state-owned; otherwise, the neutrality breaks down.     

Mixed ownership in a mixed duopoly with differentiated products

We determine optimal privatization in a symmetric differentiated duopoly when the public firms do not bear the full cost of production and hence their objective functions differ from the government’s objective function. In the social optimum firms will generally have mixed ownership, and it will depend on the type of uncovered cost, the degree of substitutability of the two products and the output decision rule of the partially public firms. Different types of mixed duopoly emerge, ranging from both firms being partially privatized, to one being fully privatized. We also derive an optimal tax-subsidy scheme as a substitute for privatization.      

Agglomeration in a vertically-related oligopoly

This paper examines the location of three vertically-linked firms. In a spatial economy composed of two regions, a monopolist firm supplies an input to two consumer goods firms that compete in quantities. It is concluded that agglomeration is more likely to occur when the ratio between the transport cost of the intermediate good and the transport cost of the final good is higher. If this proportion is low, the likelihood of an agglomeration decreases with transport costs. If the ratio has an intermediate value, a non-monotonic pattern is obtained that is different from Krugman and Venables (1995).Received: October 2004, Accepted: March 2005, JEL Classification: C68, F12, F15, R12, R13This paper had the support of the Research Unit on Complexity in Economics (UECE). The author wishes to thank Masahisa Fujita, Armando Pires and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Debt as a collusive device in an oligopoly supergame

This paper explores the impact of debt holdings on the output decisions of firms in an oligopoly supergame with stochastic demand fluctuations. It is demonstrated that when perfect collusion is not feasible then there exist circumstances in which increased debt holdings may facilitate tacit collusion. This occurs because higher debt levels act as a credible commitment device which lowers the payoffs accruing to a firm when it defects from the tacitly collusive equilibrium. It is further shown that in these circumstances firms may have an incentive to hold debt for strategic purposes which promote collusion.     

Exchange rates and bertrand oligopoly

The impact of exchange-rate changes on industrial prices seems ambiguous. Incomplete and even perverse pass-through has been observed: the import prices in the depreciating country decrease while those in the appreciating country increase. To explain these counterintuitive price reactions we consider a situation of international Bertrand competition: two firms, based in different countries, are selling in both countries simultaneously. The profit-maximizing duopolists set the prices for their products in each of the two markets which are segmented on the demand side. We then study the qualitative effect of an exogenous exchange-rate change on the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium. Under the strong assumption of linear demand and cost functions we have normal exchange-rate pass-through. However, allowing for more general cost structures in this simple static model enables us to show that the import prices in both countries might move in counterintuitive directions.     

Partial privatization in mixed duopoly with price and quality competition

We analyze price and quality competition in a mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing private firm competes against a state-owned public firm. We first show that the welfare-maximizing public firm provides a lower quality product than the private firm when they are equally efficient. In order to maximize social welfare, government manipulates the objective of the public firm that is given by a convex combination of profits and social welfare. It is demonstrated that an optimal incentive of the public firm is welfare maximization under the absence of quality competition, but it is neither welfare maximization nor profit maximization under the presence of quality competition. The result supports a completely mixed objective between welfare and profit maximizations or partial privatization of the public firm.      

Privatization and optimal share release in the Chinese banking industry

This paper establishes a mixed oligopoly model to explore how the government determines the percentage of shares of the state-owned banks to be released to foreign investors under the goal of seeking to maximize social welfare. The theoretical model finds that the release of shares of state-owned banks to foreign investors will reduce the outputs of the state-owned banks. The direction of the change in the profitability of the state-owned banks depends on the percentage of the shares released. The direction of the changes in the levels of social welfare also varies. If the gap in production efficiency between the state-owned banks and private banks is not large enough, we can be certain that a partial release of shares is the government's best policy.     

Market competition, social welfare in an entry-constrained differentiated-good oligopoly

This paper studies a differentiated-good oligopoly where the socially optimal number of firms (varieties) may be smaller or greater than under the free-entry equilibrium. We show that, under certain conditions, social welfare may be higher when entry is restricted into the industry.     

An asymmetric oligopoly model and a method for its empirical application

The purpose of this paper is to develop an asymmetric game-theoretic static oligopoly model suitable for empirical work on oligopolistic markets. Prevailing models in applied research on oligopolistic industries are mainly of the type conjectural variations, Cournot models, although these models are known to be logically flawed from a game-theoretic point of view. As an alternative to these, a Bertrand model with three types of asymmetries is developed: firms can be concurrently asymmetric in cost levels and in the amount of product differentiation, where the impact from product differentiation on a firm's quantity demanded is divided into one relative-price component and one size component. This model is solved for different game-theoretic equilibria solutions. The conduct and performance of individual firms can be analyzed, and welfare effects in terms of consumer-surplus levels are calculated on the firm level. The model contains enough structure for direct use in applied research. A simple method for empirical use of the model is proposed, which minimizes the econometric task: By estimatingn+1 demand elasticities, the asymmetric market-demand structure for then firms will be completely specified.     

Long run equilibria in an asymmetric oligopoly

Summary. Consider an oligopolistic industry composed of two groups (or populations) of firms, the low cost firms and the high cost firms. The firms produce a homogeneous good. I study the finite population evolutionarily stable strategy defined by Schaffer (1988), and the long run equilibrium in the stochastic evolutionary dynamics based on imitation and experimentation of strategies by firms in each group. I will show the following results. 1) The finite population evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) output is equal to the competitive (or Walrasian) output in each group of the firms. 2) Under the assumption that the marginal cost is increasing, the ESS state is the long run equilibrium in the stochastic evolutionary dynamics in the limit as the output grid step, which will be defined in the paper, approaches to zero. Received: September 19, 1997; revised: June 18, 1998     

Asymmetric oligopoly, international trade, and welfare: a synthesis

This paper analyzes the relationship between market shares and welfare under the assumption of Cournot-oligopolistic interdependence in production. The model is general enough to deal with multiple countries, oligopolists with different levels of marginal costs within each country, and any distribution of world demand across countries. It is found that the elimination of a minor firm harms the country if the country's total production is very little. However, such a policy always benefits the country if it exports the commodity. The welfare effect of production subsidies and the case of foreign ownership of firms are also discussed.     

Optimal manipulation rules in a mixed oligopoly

We study the optimal manipulation rules of a public firm’s objective function in a mixed oligopoly with imperfect product substitutability. We start with a baseline duopoly model and compare the solutions under quantity and price competition, and the way they are affected by product substitutability. This allows us to show that partial privatization, strategic delegation and other specific government’s commitments on the objective function of the public management can be looked at as special cases of these optimal rules, and to evaluate the viability of these policies under the two modes of competition. In this framework, we also discuss the equivalence between manipulation of the objective function and Stackelberg leadership. Since optimal manipulation rules change as new dimensions are added, we also derive the optimal rules under oligopoly, quadratic costs, and competition of international firms. This fairly general unified framework allows to discuss the impact of these factors on the government’s implementation policies of the optimal manipulation rules.     

跨国公司的兼并收购成本

跨国公司的并购活动不但规模日益增大,而且通过利用资本市场并购活动能更顺利地进行。这种国际间资本流动需要考虑成本,跨国公司的并购成本可以从并购过程所涉及的各项进行分析,包括对目标公司的评估成本、协商确认并购活动、并购进行过程。评估目标公司成本常采用现金流折现法,也可采用基于古诺模型的公司评估方法,更多地考虑市场因素,多角度分析目标公司的可能价格。     

Profit sharing and strike activity in Cournot oligopoly

Within an incomplete-information framework, we develop a model of wage determination in a unionized Cournot oligopoly. The assumption of incomplete information allows the possibility of strikes or lockouts, which waste industry potential resources, at equilibrium. Facing such deadweight loss, the government or the social planner may decide to adopt a policy, such as a profit-sharing scheme. Under two different bargaining structures (firm level vs. industry level), we investigate the effects of adopting profit sharing on the wage outcome and the strike activity. If the base-wage bargaining takes place at the industry level, then the introduction of a profit-sharing scheme increases the strike activity. But if the base-wage bargaining takes place at the firm level and the number of firms in the industry is greater than two, then the introduction of a profit-sharing scheme reduces the strike activity.     

Strategic delegation in consumer cooperatives under mixed oligopoly

The main aim of this paper is to study the propensity of consumer cooperatives (Coops) to use incentive schemes in situations of strategic interaction with profit-maximizing firms (PMFs). Our model provides a reason why Coops are less prone than PMFs to pay variable bonuses to their managers. We show that this occurs under price competition when in equilibrium the Coop prefers to pay a flat wage to its manager relying instead on her intrinsic motivation, whereas the profit-maximizing rival adopts a variable, high-powered incentive scheme. The main rationale is that, by recruiting a manager whose preferences are aligned with the company goals (e.g., a consumer-owner), the Coop is per se highly expansionary in term of output. Therefore, the Coop does not need to rely on an externally hired manager who sets prices aggressively to expand market share and quantity. Furthermore, adopting a monetary reward based on sales and profits leads to distorted incentives with respect to the Coop’s goal, which after all is the welfare of its members.     

经营者集中案件中的定量经济分析——以希捷收购三星硬盘驱动器案为例

定量经济分析有利于增加案件判例实践的客观性和准确性,在经营者集中案件中的具体分析框架和实际操作方法需要进一步明确和探索。通过对市场界定环节和单边效应模拟环节的定量分析方法的研究,提出适用以希捷收购三星硬盘驱动器案件的一系列方法。应用SSNIP方法和价格关联法对该案件进行相关市场的界定分析,提出与判例不同的相关市场界定结果。根据该相关市场界定结果进行单边效应模拟,其结论部分证明该判例公告具有合理性。     

多维经济效率视角下的企业合并反垄断规制——兼评"可口可乐与汇源合并案"

由于新古典经济学静态模型依托的有限相关市场假设、绝对进入壁垒假设、单一定价策略假设均不能成立,企业合并形成的行业巨头在大多数情况下不会对静态配置效率、动态效率和X-效率的多维经济效率造成损害.因此,在一般市场中,应放松对企业合并的反垄断规制,而在两类特殊市场中,则应加强标准化管理.