Evaluating mobile number portability policy in the Thai mobile telecommunications market

Mobile number portability (MNP), which allows consumers to retain their mobile numbers when switching service providers, is expected to promote competition by lowering switching costs. This paper estimates switching costs and switching costs reduction from the MNP policy in Thailand using the mixed logit model with preference heterogeneity on a nationwide survey of mobile telecommunications service usages. The estimation result shows that the MNP policy reduces switching costs by 37% on average and that this benefit is heterogeneous across consumers. The considerable and persistent switching costs call for additional measures to facilitate switching.     

Environmental Product Differentiation and Environmental Awareness

In this paper, we have considered a duopolistic model of environmental product differentiation with two types of consumers (green and brown) to analyze how environmental awareness affects the environment. “Green” consumers value the physical and environmental attributes of the good they purchase while “brown” consumers only value the physical attributes. We find that more environmental awareness may not be good news for the environment as the firm that produces the good without environmental attributes may increase its sales. The result depends on the degree of product differentiation and the cost to achieve it. Social welfare can also be inversely related to environmental awareness if the negative environmental effect dominates the positive market effect.      

转移成本、价格歧视与银行竞争——基于霍特林模型的实证分析

在银行业竞争中,转移成本能够锁定消费者,使银行能够对锁定的消费者定一个较高的价格,但是,转移成本也使银行对没有被锁定的消费者的竞争更加激烈。研究发现,转移成本的存在增加了银行的利润,并且转移成本越高,银行从信贷中获得的利润越高。但是,当存在存款市场和贷款市场竞争时,由于价格歧视的存在,银行的利润随着转移成本的增加而降低,转移成本没有给银行带来优势。     

转换成本视角下互联网企业的创新竞争策略

在转换成本和网络效应存在下互联网产业通过产品创新活动争夺市场份额。某些“创新”的主要目的为排除竞争。互联网产业一个典型的发展过程是：企业依靠外部融资支撑的策略性创新，降低消费者向其产品转换的成本，争夺市场份额，并在投资约束的限制下走向合并，最终抬高了市场集中度。特别的，转换成本的存在让企业有动力通过事前控制转换成本的创新，争夺事后的市场势力，并且“收割”事后锁定的用户。     

Estimating consumer preferences for online music services

This article analyses consumer preferences with regard to important attributes of online music services. Conjoint analysis and a random coefficient discrete choice model using Bayesian approach with Gibbs sampling are used to estimate the preferences. Based on the quantitative results, we use simulation to look at how a new pricing strategy and the threat of legal penalty for file sharing would influence the online music market. Findings include these: estimated willingness to pay for downloading one music file is significantly less than the actual price of the file; consumers are sensitive to longer search and download times for music files and very sensitive to the threat of legal action; and consumers are not sensitive to online music services broadening their catalogues. Finally, the simulation shows that a combination of increased transaction costs for illegal file sharing and lower-priced digital music files would inhibit illegal file sharing and bolster the number of people purchasing music legally from the online services.     

ON CONSUMERS' VALUATION OF NUTRITION INFORMATION

The European Union (EU) is contemplating regulations requiring mandatory provision of nutritional information on food products. This study analyses consumers' valuation of nutritional information using data collected from a field survey. The results generally suggest that consumers value and are willing to pay about 5.9 percent of the original price for nutritional information on the food product we studied. Individuals who are non-price-sensitive, nutritionally knowledgeable and with longer time horizon are willing to pay more for nutritional information than others. Considering consumers' willingness to pay for nutritional information on food products and an EU impact assessment study, the costs of provision of this information are not prohibitive to firms. We estimate that the least conservative cost of labelling to the firm for a specific food product can be as much as €29,431, whereas the average economic value of nutrition information is estimated at €17,064. The firm can therefore recoup the associated costs in less than two months.     

ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION AND EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

We introduce asymmetric information about consumers’ transportation costs (i.e., the degree of product differentiation) in the model of Hotelling. When transportation costs are high, both firms have lower profits with asymmetric information than with perfect information. Contrarily, if transportation costs are low, both firms may prefer the asymmetric information scenario (the informed firm always prefers the informational advantage, while the uninformed firm may or may not prefer to remain uninformed). Information exchange is ex‐ante advantageous for both firms, but ex‐post damaging if transportation costs turn out to be low. If the information is unverifiable, the informed firm does not represent a reliable source of information, since it always prefers to announce that transportation costs are high and there is no contract that induces truthful revelation.     

Spatial Competition with an Outside Good and Distributed Reservation Prices

In this paper, we analyze spatial competition within the framework of a Hotelling model with quadratic transportation costs and an outside option. The new feature of our approach is that consumers are uniformly distributed not only along the Hotelling line but also with regard to reservation prices. It turns out that in this particular model, duopolists always locate their shops exactly at the first and third quartile of the consumer distribution – i.e., at the socially optimal locations. Moreover, with uniformly distributed reservation prices, less than seventy percent of the consumers buy the good, and profits are less than fifteen percent of those in the standard model without an outside option. Received February 7, 2001; revised version received March 27, 2002 Published online: November 11, 2002     

隐私关注与中国B2C电子商务客户忠诚度实证研究

个人信息对于B2C电子商务网站商家改善服务水平和促进销售有较大促进作用,但是当个人信息披露给网站商家后,还少有研究消费者不同的隐私关注程度对其网络购物行为和客户忠诚度是否或如何影响。本文通过问卷调查方式,基于沟通隐私管理理论,发现消费者在提供更多个人真实信息给网站商家后,隐私关注程度高的用户具有更强的网络购物忠诚倾向,而隐私关注程度低的用户具有较低的网络购物忠诚倾向。结果显示在线零售商应该重视对隐私关注度高的用户,并通过改善个人消费者隐私保护、网站安全水平,从而改善与消费者的信任关系,促进网站销售。     

中国食品市场秩序混乱的成因与对策

中国食品市场秩序混乱的成因有生产者因素、消费者因素、政府监管和食品市场信息不对称等几个方面, 应采取相应的整治对策,如加速生产模式集约化、加强消费者的教育、加强政府监管、充分发挥行业协会的作用、完善有关食品安全的各种法规和技术标准、加大执法力度、降低信息获取成本及建立严格的质量认证体系等,以规范食品市场。     

Untangling gender differentiated food security gaps in Bhutan: An application of exogenous switching treatment regression

Using nationally representative data from Bhutan, and applying an exogenous switching treatment regression model, this study assessed the food security status between male‐headed households (MHHs) and female‐headed households (FHHs). The study demonstrates that there is no significant difference between MHHs and FHHs in terms of food security, but when MHHs are compared with de jure FHHs, the food security is significantly lower among the de jure FHHs. The food security gap between MHHs and de jure FHHs is due to the differences in both observable and unobservable characteristics of the households. The food security gap between de facto and de jure FHHs can be explained by the influence of connections and wider access to off‐farm income. Most of the previous studies consider all FHHs as a homogenous entity and ignore the concept of de jure FHHs (i.e., a household run by single, widowed, or divorced woman) and de facto FHHs (i.e., a household where there is a husband, but he is not physically present because of his work off‐farm). As the present research takes this into account, the econometric findings from our study, thus have important implications in formulating special food security policies targeting the most vulnerable FHHs.     

Competing Industrial Standards and the Impact of Trade Liberalization

The main purpose of this study is to illustrate, with simple trade theory, the relationship between competing industrial standards and trade liberalization. We assume that there are two competing industrial standards in an international context, each of which applies to a group of differentiated products. A product can be used only in combination with other products based on the same industrial standard. We examine the impact of trade liberalization (i.e., a decline in trade costs) on consumers’ choice of a standard. It will be shown that the degree of indirect network effects, captured with substitution between differentiated products, plays an important role as a determinant of the impact of trade liberalization.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIRM BOUNDARY AND FINANCING CONSTRAINTS ON UTILITY COSTS: THE CASE OF MUNICIPALLY OWNED ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION UTILITIES

ABSTRACT: A number of studies have examined costs and potential for scale and scope economies in electricity distribution; however, few if any, have examined this area in terms of the unique constraints associated with municipal ownership or historical and regulatory constraints associated with former municipal ownership. This paper focuses on 19 distribution‐only municipally owned utilities for a ten‐year period (1988–97). Distortions from variable outputs but largely fixed inputs are minimized. The data used were collected specifically to assess productivity, cost, and efficiency performance and include value‐based capital inputs and service prices. Outputs include energy conveyed and number of connections; inputs include capital, system losses, labour, and materials. We examine the effect of using third‐party financing (e.g., connection charges), with its inherent principal‐agent problems, on utility costs, as well as the effect of shared services and multi‐utility output (e.g., electricity and water). A translog total cost function is estimated. Our findings suggest significant returns to scope but also significant increases in costs associated with the use of third‐party financing. The results also suggest scale diseconomies. Shared outputs, which have been greatly restricted or eliminated under restructuring, may have provided larger, and now lost, economies than the scale returns blindly pursued by some through restructuring or incented/forced mergers or divestitures. Finally, it is clear that third‐party financing can raise costs; such financing is widely used among utilities providing electricity, gas, water, and telecommunications, and should be closely scrutinized.     

消费者满意度实证研究——以网络自助服务类型为研究枢轴

研究以五种网络自助服务类型为调查样本,分别比较它们在消费者满意度上的差异性,并以风险承担态度与信任态度做为干扰变数.结果发现:消费者满意度的影响因子分别为系统品质、信息品质、服务品质,转换成本对于交易性质的WBSS较敏感,对于转换成本较低的WBSS有较高的消费者满意度,但对于服务性质的WBSS则较不敏感;不同的网络自助服务在消费者满意度构面上有显著的差异;而风险承担与信任态度皆对消费者满意度有干扰效果,消费者在不同的WBSS中,其风险承担态度对满意度有部分显著影响,只有系统品质构面显著,其信任态度对满意度有部分影响,只有信息品质构面显著.通过对消费者使用满意度的实证研究,以期为网络自助服务的和谐发展提供有益的路径指引.     

The internalization of externalities in the production of electricity: Willingness to pay for the attributes of a policy for renewable energy

This paper investigates the willingness to pay of a sample of residents of Bath, England, for a hypothetical program that promotes the production of renewable energy. Using choice experiments, we assess the preferences of respondents for a policy for the promotion of renewable energy that: (i) contributes to the internalization of the external costs caused by fossil fuel technologies; (ii) affects the short-term security of energy supply; (iii) has an impact on the employment in the energy sector; and (iv) leads to an increase in the electricity bill. Responses to the choice questions show that our respondents are in favour of a policy for renewable energy and that they attach a high value to a policy that brings private and public benefits in terms of climate change and energy security benefits. Our results therefore suggest that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for electricity in order to internalize the external costs in terms of energy security, climate change and air pollution caused by the production of electricity.     

Efficient menu structures for pricing interruptible electric power service

A menu of interruptible service offerings provides a means for matching the reliability of electric power to the preferences of consumers with diverse interruption costs. Appropriately designed pricing induces a distribution of customer service selections such that the welfare loss (i.e., total interruption cost) of all customers is minimized, when averaged over a distribution of shortfall situations. This paper derives one and two dimensional price menus that consider lost service time and interruption frequency as separate attributes. The relative efficiencies of three types of menus are compared and discussed.     

B2C模式下转换成本对网上顾客忠诚影响实证研究

基于转换成本的视角,本文构建了一个影响网上顾客忠诚的概念模型。实证研究表明,网络程序转换成本、网络财务转换成本与网络关系转换成本这三种网络转换成本均正向影响网上顾客的行为忠诚度,只有网络财务转换成本和网络关系转换成本正向影响网上顾客的态度忠诚度。三种类型转换成本的构成因子对顾客的态度忠诚和行为忠诚的影响机理是不同的:利益损失成本、个人关系损失成本和品牌关系损失成本起着正向影响顾客态度忠诚的作用;评估成本、学习成本、利益损失成本和品牌关系损失成本起着正向影响顾客行为忠诚的作用。     

A comparison of different contract forms for consumers with switching costs and changed preferences

This paper compares three contract forms, including short-term contract with price discrimination, short-term contract without price discrimination, and long-term contract with price commitment for consumers with switching costs and changed preferences. We find that long-term contract generates the largest profit for firms. Moreover, we find that switching costs make the market more competitive when consumers have changed preferences, and the higher the switching costs, the more competitive. Our theory combines linear-city duopoly and switching-cost model and the results are consistent with literature, for example price commitment is valuable. Our findings shed light on the practice of different forms of dynamic pricing in various industries including telecommunication industry and airline industry.     

21st Century workers: How will they be organized?

The study posits an organizational structure that shows how creative workers will lead in the 21st century. The growing importance of this group shifts the locus of analysis from a product/output physical perspective to a problem defining/solving creative one. The analysis next clearly identifies who is responsible for wealth creation, i.e., creative workers, and how to differentiate value among them, i.e., problem identifiers and solvers are most valuable. It next addresses how these workers are organized (finders, minders and grinders) looking at an emerging knowledge structure rather than the traditional 20th century hierarchical organizational structure. Finally, the firm as a unit of analysis is evaluated in the context of a free agent/creative workers structure and a problem-centric world.