Why payment card fees are biased against retailers

I formalize the popular argument that retailers pay too much and cardholders too little to make use of payment card platforms, resulting in excessive use of cards. To do this, I analyze a standard two‐sided market model of a payment card platform. With minimal additional restrictions, the model implies that the privately set fee structure is unambiguously biased against retailers in favor of cardholders, a result that continues to hold even if the platform can perfectly price discriminate on both sides. The market failure arising is primarily a regulatory problem and does not raise any competition concerns.     

Generic advertising without supply control: implications of funding mechanisms for advertising intensities in competitive industries

Producer profit-maximising rules for generic commodity advertising programs and associated funding levies are derived. Lump-sum, per unit and ad valorem levies, and government subsidy funding arrangements are compared and contrasted. The initial single-product competitive market model is extended to incorporate international trade, government price policies, and multiple commodity interactions.     

Quota Reforms in Australian Agriculture

This short paper reviews the Australian experience in reforming quotas on fluid milk, tobacco and laying hens. In these industries, quotas in at least some Australian states have been eliminated, but in every case the transition has entailed substantial compensation to at least some of the producers affected adversely by the change and the new policy has not always been afree market. Notably, the states having the greatest comparative advantage within Australia were the first to eliminate quotas on laying hens and fluid milk.
L'auteur passe brièvement en revue l'expérience australienne dans les processus de réforme des contingents sur le lait de consommation, sur le tabac et sur les poules de ponte. Dans ces secteurs, les contingents ont étééliminés dans au mains quelques États, mais au prix de compensations substantielles versées à un certain nombre de producteurs que les changements avaient mis en mauvaise posture et le nouveau régime n'a pas toujours fonctionné en marché libre. Il est remarquable de noter que les États australiens jouissant de plus grands avantages comparatifs par rapport aux autres ont été les premiers àéliminer le contingentement des poulaillers de ponte et du lait de consommation.     

Doing business in Malaysia

The importance of international trade to the Malaysian economy can hardly be exaggerated. Trade represents a lifeline for the Malaysian economy. Export‐oriented industrialization in the 1990s converted the labor‐surplus economy into a labor‐deficit one and then back to a labor‐surplus one in 2000 and beyond. The incidence of poverty has fallen by half since the early 1980s. Trade has also contributed much to the structural transformation and modernization of the economy. Had Malaysia been a closed economy, Malaysia would have shared the same fate as some other less developed countries that remain economically backward. Its external trade policy has paved the way for greater inflows of foreign direct investment, as foreign direct investors are not so much interested in serving the small domestic market as serving the vast external market. The large inflows of foreign direct investment have conferred positive effects on the domestic economy. This has meant significant improvements in the overall living standards for the Malaysians. Internationalization has provided employment opportunities, thereby raising their living standards through higher and more stable earnings. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Analysis of rural activity spaces and transport disadvantage using a multi-method approach

Current knowledge about the relationship between transport disadvantage and activity space size is limited to urban areas, and as a result, very little is known about this link in a rural context. In addition, although research has identified transport disadvantaged groups based on their size of activity space, these studies have, however, not empirically explained such differences and the result is often a poor identification of the problems facing disadvantaged groups. Research has shown that transport disadvantage varies over time. The static nature of analysis using the activity space concept in previous research studies has lacked the ability to identify transport disadvantage in time. Activity space is a dynamic concept; and therefore possesses a great potential in capturing temporal variations in behaviour and access opportunities. This research derives measures of the size and fullness of activity spaces for 157 individuals for weekdays, weekends, and for a week using weekly activity-travel diary data from three case study areas located in rural Northern Ireland. Four focus groups were also conducted in order to triangulate quantitative findings and to explain the differences between different socio-spatial groups. The findings of this research show that despite having a smaller sized activity space, individuals were not disadvantaged because they were able to access their required activities locally. Car-ownership was found to be an important life line in rural areas. Temporal disaggregation of the data reveals that this is true only on weekends due to a lack of public transport services. In addition, despite activity spaces being at a similar size, the fullness of activity spaces of low-income individuals was found to be significantly lower compared to their high-income counterparts. Focus group data shows that financial constraint, poor connections both between public transport services and between transport routes and opportunities forced individuals to participate in activities located along the main transport corridors.     

International Telecommunications,Settlement Rates,and the FCC

This paper models settlement arrangements between international telecommunication carriers. The FCC in the United States claims these arrangements cost United States consumers billions of dollars annually, largely to subsidize foreign carriers in low-income countries. A model is given which makes sense of this claim, as well as the role of costs, competition, and income disparities in settlement rate determination. Findings are tested using data spanning 17 years and 167 countries. Some implications are drawn for the FCC's recently proposed settlement rate caps, as well as for proposals for multilateral solutions.