Local Market Structure and Strategic Organizational Form Choices: Evidence from Gasoline Stations

An extensive literature shows that agency issues and transaction costs impact vertical integration decisions. Another mature literature indicates that market structure influences competitive behavior. Less consideration has been given to how vertical integration and market structure may interact. I address this gap by focusing on the potential for moral hazard arising from intra-firm competition. Focusing on retail gasoline sales, I argue that when multiple stations share a common brand in a market, a vertically separated station has an incentive to deviate from the cooperative strategy that the brand-owning refiner would prefer. I empirically test this prediction using rich data, and find evidence of both such moral hazard and the desire to avoid it.     

Food,energy and environment: Is bioenergy the missing link?

We study price linkages between the food, energy and bioenergy markets. A vertically integrated multi-input, multi-output market model allows us to derive testable hypothesis, which we test by applying time-series analytical mechanisms to nine major traded food commodity prices along with one weighted average world crude oil price. The data consists of 939 weekly observations from January 1993 to December 2010. The empirical findings confirm the theoretical hypothesis that the prices for crude oil and food commodities are interdependent: a USD 1/barrel increase in oil prices and food commodity prices increase by between USD 0.09/tonne and USD 1.65/tonne.     

国际初级产品分类价格对中国物价传导效应的实证研究

文章基于2001年1～12月的月度数据,对国际初级产品分类价格对中国物价的传导效应进行了实证分析。结果表明:国际初级产品价格对国内物价的传导效应具有由短期波动到长期均衡的动态机制特征,其对PPI和CPI均具有显著的正向影响。各分类价格指数对国内物价的影响之间存在较大差异,燃料价格对国内物价的影响最大且持续时间最长,非燃料价格的影响较小且持续时间相对短。燃料价格和农业原材料价格对PPI的影响显著,燃料价格、农业原材料价格和食品价格对CPI的影响显著,其他子成分的影响力很弱。     

短期国际资本流动新趋势、对我国的影响及其防范

当前,全球资本流动总量小幅但不均衡回升,未来有可能缓慢增长;发展中国家资本市场的发展正在逐渐改变国际资本流动的结构;国际金融市场参与者的角色发生很大的变化;国际资本向新兴经济体特别是亚洲新兴经济体大量流动.在短期国际资本的持续冲击下,新兴经济体已有形成资产泡沫的风险,并且在未来仍有继续扩大的趋势.对于中国而言,热钱在中国的投机空间有限,短期内大规模持续流入的条件还不具备,温和流入并时有反复可能将成长期趋势.要摆脱国际热钱大规模流动带来的包括人民币升值压力在内的一系列困扰,必须采取疏堵结合的方式:一方面,采取有效的防御性措施,监控各类热钱,加强流入管制;另一方面,应重视疏导的作用,抑制泡沫膨胀,吸引中长期国际资本,防范和限制短期资本泛滥.     

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。     

Consumption and time in economics: prices and quantities in a temporary equilibrium perspective

The main tenet of the paper is that cost-plus non-competitiveprices, while obviously set by firms according to expected marketdemand for their output, can be assumed to be independent ofpossible discrepancies between the expected and the actual demandfor firms' output. The analysis is placed within Hicks's temporaryequilibrium framework, though suggesting an explanation of demandtotally different from Hicks's. It is argued that the rationalefor the independence of prices from actual sales might be foundin Gossen's notion of optimum frequency of consumption.     

货币政策与资产价格:经典理论、美联储实践及现实思考

近期国内外资产价格的快速上涨又一次引发了大家对货币政策和资产价格关系的热烈讨论.本文对有关重要理论和经典分析框架进行回顾,并对现实情况进行一些探讨.资产价格可以通过两种方式影响货币政策:资产价格既可以作为传导货币政策的途径,也可以是货币当局所使用信息的重要部分.我们用经典的Bordo-Jeanne理论框架分析了货币当局在资产价格膨胀时所面临的困境.然后我们以美国为例,用两种不同的实证方法探讨了美联储是否"真的"受到了资产价格波动的影响.最后我们还结合中国的现状进行分析.     

美国量化宽松政策对新兴经济体股票市场价格的影响

2008年金融危机后美国采取量化宽松货币政策造成大量流动性进入新兴经济体股票市场。通过建立面板VAR模型,运用脉冲响应函数和方差分解技术分析了美国货币供应M1、股票市场以及联邦基金利率透过汇率、利率和预期方式对新兴经济体股票市场价格指数产生的影响。结果表明,美国量化宽松货币政策对新兴经济体股票市场价格具有正向溢出效应,利率渠道影响效果显著。     

Pump Prices and Oil Prices: A Tale of Two Directions

It has been argued that retail gasoline prices adjust more quickly to crude oil price increases than to price decreases. We investigate this issue using the statewide data on weekly retail gasoline prices in the United States between January 2000 and June 2007. Our analysis does not confirm the prediction that gasoline prices adjust more quickly to price increases in crude oil prices. On the contrary, the results suggest that in some geographic areas gasoline prices could change faster when crude oil prices decrease. These findings suggest that a national or a one size fits all energy policy for the United States may be misguided.