Are Venture Capitalists a Catalyst for Innovation?

In this paper we test two hypotheses concerning the presence of innovation in venture capital investments and the growth of innovative venture backed firms. To examine these hypotheses we considered sample of 37 Italian venture backed firms that went public on the Italian Stock Exchange between 1995 and 2004 and by a statistical matching procedure we picked 37 twin firms among the non‐venture backed IPOs for the same period. Our evidence shows that innovation is an important factor during the selection phase but once the investment is made, the company does not promote continued innovation and concentrates all efforts to improve other economic and managerial aspects.     

QUANTIFYING THE OUTSOURCING OF JOBS FROM MANUFACTURING TO SERVICES

There has been debate internationally and in South Africa about the extent to which a relative decline in manufacturing employment and rise in services employment can be accounted for by intersectoral outsourcing of jobs in the domestic economy. This article develops a new methodology for testing for and quantifying outsourcing at an economy-wide level. This methodology is used to analyse intersectoral shifts in employment in South Africa between 1997 and 2005. Trends in employment in the business services subsector of services are also examined for what they suggest about the extent of outsourcing. Overall, the results suggest that intersectoral outsourcing accounts for some but by no means all of the apparent shift in employment between the manufacturing and services sectors in South Africa.     

International Pricing in a Generalized Model of Ideal Variety

We examine international markups and pricing in a generalized version of an "ideal variety" model. In this model, entry causes crowding in variety space, so that the marginal utility of new varieties falls as market size grows. Crowding is partially offset by income effects, as richer consumers will pay more for varieties closer matched to their ideal types. We show theoretically and confirm empirically that declining marginal utility of new varieties results in: a higher own-price elasticity of demand (and lower prices) in large countries and a lower own-price elasticity of demand (and higher prices) in rich countries. The model is also useful for generating facts from the literature regarding cross-country differences in the rate of variety expansion.     

Price rigidities and institutional variations in markets with posted prices

Summary Standard laboratory posted-offer markets respond slowly and incompletely to demand shocks. In these one-sided markets, where sellers control the setting of prices, very little information is transmitted via the process of exchange. For this reason, traders have trouble distinguishing randomness in their own experience from changes in market fundamentals. This paper reports the results of twelve laboratory markets conducted to assess whether some common variants to standard posted-offer rules can correct the adjustment deficiences. Although discounting, multiple postings and excess demand information all improve performance, we find that response remains poor, and efficiencies low.Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (SBR 9319842 and SBR 9320044), and the University of Virginia Bankard Fund. Data are archived at FTP address: fido.econlab.arizona.edu. We wish to thank Charles Plott and Shyam Sunder for useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

Does individualization help productivity of transition agriculture?

There are large differences across transition countries with respect to agricultural‐sector performance and corresponding scope of farm restructuring and shift to individual farming. In this article we analyze the impact of individualization on productivity growth within an augmented neoclassical growth model framework. This approach allows us to circumvent criticisms on the grounds of lack of theoretical and objective criteria for inclusion of explanatory variables. Furthermore, in the empirical analysis using a panel data covering 15 transition countries over the period 1990–2001 and applying a generalized method of moments with instrumental variable estimator we are able to control for the impact of various factors and the potential endogeneity of variables. Our estimation results are robust and support the view that the shift to individual farming, as well as the overall economic reforms, has positively contributed to the productivity growth in agriculture during the first decade of transition.     

Heterogeneity and Share Contracting in Medical Group Practices

This paper offers an empirical analysis of the relationship between income sharing rules and physician heterogeneity in medical group practices.The economies to group formation associated with risk–sharing, mutual monitoring,and internal referral are served by sharing at least a portion of group income equally. Sharing group income equally is problematic, however, when group members differ in their contribution to group income. Member contributions to group income may differ because of differences in ability, effort, or the price of services across specialty fields. The analysis below is addressed to the question of how income sharing rules in physician groups are affected by variation in member contributions. The analysis finds evidence that heterogeneity in member contributions to group income limits the use of equal income sharing rules in multispecialty groups relative to single specialty groups, and large groups relative to small groups. Nevertheless, 65% of all groups in the survey share at least a pn of group income equally, which broadly suggests that the joint surplus enhancement from risk sharing, mutual monitoring, and internal referral are sufficient to overcome the incentive problems of such rules     

Econometric analysis of copyrights

This paper explores the impact of copyrights on firm value and on the demand for firm output. Using panel data on franchise value and ticket sales from the National Football League over the 1991–2000 period, we analyze the effect of copyrights (in this case, team logos) using several parametric estimators, the Arellano and Bond [1991. Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. Review of Economic Studies 58, 277–297] dynamic panel data estimator, and a semi-non-parametric method based on difference-in-differences propensity score matching. We find a negative effect of logo changes on franchise value that is robust across multiple specifications. In addition, logo changes also appear to have a moderate positive, albeit not particularly robust, impact on ticket sales.     

Regulating Availability with Demand Uncertainty

Abstract. I evaluate a new German regulation that requires retail discounters to guarantee the availability of their products in bargain sales. The regulation is meant to prevent loss leaders. Retailers undermine the regulation's rationale by claiming that rationing is due to demand uncertainty. This paper shows that under demand uncertainty the regulation has ambiguous welfare effects. Effectively, it raises production, which, under imperfect competition, tends to be beneficial. However, the regulation overshoots and decreases welfare if it requires availability for a state of high demand that is relatively unlikely. In this case more sophisticated regulation is required.     

Private labels, price rivalry, and public policy

The article examines (i) why low-quality private labels are introduced in some product categories and not in others, (ii) how the existence of a low-quality private label affects the pricing of a competing national brand, and (iii) how consumers’ surplus and welfare are affected by private labels. We find that the potential for private label introduction may—in return for national brand exclusivity in that particular retail store (exclusive dealing)—lead to price concessions from the producer of the national brand. If the national brand producer decides not to offer an exclusivity contract, a private label is introduced. In this case, private label introduction may lead to higher retail prices on national brands, which can be detrimental to consumer welfare as well as total welfare. We argue that our results have important implications for the interpretation of empirical results and the public policy towards national brands