Winner-take-all price competition

Summary. We analyze an oligopoly model of homogeneous product price competition that allows for discontinuities in demand and/or costs. Conditions under which only zero profit equilibrium outcomes obtain in such settings are provided. We then illustrate through a series of examples that the conditions provided are “tight” in the sense that their relaxation leads to positive profit outcomes. Received: April 7, 2000; revised version: September 14, 2000     

Delegation and polarization of platforms in political competition

Summary. We consider a model of political competition among two ideological parties who are uncertain about the distribution of voters. The distinguishing feature of the model is that parties can delegate electoral decisions to candidates by nomination. It is shown that if the credible platform commitments of the candidates is feasible, then at least one of the parties nominates in equilibrium to a candidate who has an ideology that is more radical than the delegating party's ideology. In a variety of circumstances, this, in turn, yields a polarization of equilibrium policy choices of the candidates. It is thus argued formally here that strategic nomination of the candidates may well be one of the major reasons behind the well documented observation that the platforms associated with the political parties in two-party democracies are often surprisingly polarized. Received: January 10, 2002; revised version: May 8, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We thank Alberto Alesina, Levent Ko?kesen, Antonio Merlo, Ronny Razin, Vijay Krishna, Alessandro Lizzeri, and seminar participants at Alicante, Columbia, Copenhagen, and NYU for helpful comments. We also thank an anonymous referee for its useful suggestions. A good fraction of this research was conducted while Ok was a visitor in the Department of Economics at University of Alicante; he thanks for the kind hospitality of this institution. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant CICYT BEC2001-0535 (Faulí-Oller) and BEC2001-0980 (Ortu?o-Ortín). Correspondence to:I. Ortu?o-Ortin     

Bandwagon mergers,international competitiveness,and government policy

This paper suggests that while the static welfare losses of merger predilections among Western firms may not be dramatic, they may lead to substantial dynamic losses when merger-prone firms need to compete with firms which instead focus on equipment investment and investments in R&D. It is suggested that such diverging investment priorities have been the real cause of the deteriorating competitiveness of many of the largest Western enterprises vis-à-vis their Japanese rivals. While mergers are generally taken to be determined by either efficiency or monopoly considerations, this paper argues that Western merger predilections are likely to be generated by a combination of imitative and defensive routines as well. That would make it difficult for firms to unilaterally break away from these competitiveness-threatening investments. If correct, this would imply that competition policies would need to be refocused. However, it is also suggested that the implications for international competitiveness should make merger questions a subject of industrial policies too. In that respect, the paper suggests some basic attitudinal changes.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a Global Forum for Competition and Trade Policy conference in Vienna and at a EUNIP workshop at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (contract nos. 54473 and 57305) and the European Commission (contract no. ERB CHRX CT94-0454), research assistance from Michel Renirie and Chee-Wai Chan, and helpful comments from the conference and workshop participants, especially Kurt Bayer and Keith Cowling, are gratefully acknowledged. Only the author is responsible for the contents of, and any flaws in the paper.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

公共品供给中的政府责任

在公共品供给中,政府责任是提供它需要并且能够提供的公共品。需要提供的公共品是指在现有的资源技术条件下,达到社会效用最大化所需提供的公共品。能够提供的公共品是指征到拉弗曲线隐含的最大税收量所能提供的公共品。需要并且能够提供的公共品是指需要提供的公共品与能够提供的公共品中量较小的一方。通过比较政府实际提供的公共品与需要并且能够提供的公共品,可以评价政府在这一领域称职与否。     

Cost Structures and Nash Play in Repeated Cournot Games

This paper reports an experiment designed to assess the effects of a rotation in the marginal cost curve on convergence in a repeated Cournot triopoly. Increasing the cost curve's slope both reduces the serially-undominated set to the Nash prediction, and increases the peakedness of earnings. We observe higher rates of Nash equilibrium play in the design with the steeper marginal cost schedule, but only when participants are also rematched after each decision. Examination of response patterns suggests that the treatment with a steeper marginal cost curve and with a re-matching of participants across periods induces the selection of Nash Consistent responses.     

Unemployment insurance: The role of electoral systems and regional labour markets

Levels of insurance against unemployment vary considerably across countries. Replacement rates, the ratio relating income from unemployment to what people earned when they were employed, are higher in countries with proportional electoral systems than in countries with majoritarian systems. Also, replacement rates are positively correlated with per capita income and negatively correlated with the countries' unemployment rates. I develop an electoral competition model that replicates these stylized facts.     

Taxation of Mobile Factors as Insurance under Uncertainty

This paper considers the effects of the taxation of mobile factors, i.e., capital, under uncertainty. The wages earned by residents of a jurisdiction are uncertain due to random shocks. Since the uncertain wages in a jurisdiction depend on the amount of mobile capital employed in the jurisdiction, and since taxation alters the quantity of capital employed, taxation affects the riskiness of uncertain wages. In particular, the taxation of capital moderates the fluctuation of uncertain wages, thereby providing insurance. For this reason, jurisdictions use distortionary capital taxation even if lump‐sum taxation is available. In addition, this insurance effect counteracts the tendency toward too low tax rates on capital arising from tax competition, and possibly improves the efficiency of tax competition.     

银行竞争、专用性人力资本投资激励与国有商业银行的公司治理

本文结合中国银行业竞争日趋激烈的现实背景,从商业银行专用性人力资本投资激励的独特视角入手,分别讨论了银行高层管理者和普通员工的专用性人力资本投资激励与他们参与银行公司治理机制的有关问题.研究发现,在国有商业银行公司治理结构改善过程中,更需要增加专用性人力资本投资的有效激励,并通过积极引入境外战略投资者和加强职工代表在银行监事会中影响力的办法,进一步激励银行员工进行能够提高银行经营绩效的专用性人力资本投资.     

Growth,Employment and Taxation with Distortions in the Goods and Labour Market

Abstract. This paper analyses taxation in the presence of distortions in goods and labour markets in an endogenous growth model. The government disposes of capital, labour and consumption taxes. It is shown that the market solution leads to suboptimally low levels of growth and employment. However, available tax instruments are sufficient to attain the first‐best growth path in this economy. The paper further explores the relative distortion of capital and labour taxes. For plausible parametrisations of the model, lowering capital taxes dominate reductions in labour taxes in welfare terms.