The Antitrust Implications of Capacity Reallocation by a Dominant Firm

When a firm acquires rival firms in one market, and moves their capacity to another market, should antitrust authorities be concerned? We address this question by studying a multi‐stage game. A dominant firm has the opportunity to acquire fringe firms that operate in the same market. Then, the dominant firm has the opportunity to move capacity from that market to a second market. The model is motivated by a series of acquisitions in the Specialized Mobile Radio industry aimed at establishing a new cellular carrier. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the dominant firm to acquire too little capacity relative to the social optimum. The results shed light on the Consent Decree negotiated in US v. Motorola Inc. and Nextel Communications Inc., 1994.     

The Tomteboda Mail Centre Revisited

The first issue of NTWE featured a piece on work organisation at the Swedish Mail Centre at Tomteboda. In the light of a recent visit there, the author responds to that original account.     

企业网络与企业边界理论

在对现有企业边界理论进程重新梳理之后，我们从管理理论中抽象出经济学意义上的企业网络概念。在此基础上，我们对企业的类型进行了重新分类，并界定了每种企业的边界以及相应的经济含义．希望对进一步理解企业和市场的关系提供新的研究视角和思路。     

The Firm Size Distribution and Inter-Industry Diversification

We show that the stylized facts of the Firm Size Distribution (FSD) by age cohorts, as shown in Cabral and Mata (2003), bind within 4-digit manufacturing industries in the UK and Belgium. This paper investigates whether the time to build a portfolio of products from inter-industry diversification is a mechanism that helps explain the stylized facts of the FSD by age cohorts. We find that the degree of inter-industry diversification has a separate impact on firm size when controlling for age, amongst other factors. Using the techniques of Cabral and Mata, we find that inter-industry diversification does shift the FSD to the right, and more so in older age groups.     

The Measurement of Firm Information About Product Demand

The role of firm information about product and financial markets is the subject of considerable research. Typically empirical research measures information through price dispersion. However, the dispersion represents an imperfect measure of information. Several studies utilize stochastic frontier estimation techniques to measure worker information about the labor market. This paper determines whether the frontier information measure can be applied to the measurement of firm information about product markets. Several intuitive hypotheses are tested concerning the relationship between firm characteristics and information investments. The results are consistent with expectations and provide support for using stochastic frontier techniques to measure firm information.     

The Spillover Effects of Industrial Action on Firm Profitability

While it is generally accepted that strikes can have a negative impact on a firm's performance, the direct effects of a strike on the affected firm may be only one component of the total impact resulting from the action. The existence of indirect or spillover effects can also have important implications for the economic performance of competing firms. This paper uses a panel of firm-level financial and strikes data for a large sample of firms in Australian manufacturing to determine the extent of direct and spillover effects of industrial action.     

Creating Growth in New Markets: A Simultaneous Model of Firm Entry and Price*

Sales in a new market generally follow a hockey‐stick pattern: After commercialization, sales are very low for some time before there is a dramatic takeoff in growth. Reported sales takeoffs across products vary widely from a few years to several decades. Prior research identifies new firm entry or price declines as key factors that relate to the timing of a sales takeoff in new markets. However, this literature considers these variables to be exogenous and only finds unilateral effects. In the present article, new firm entry and price declines are modeled as being endogenous. Thus, the simultaneous relationship between price declines and firm entry in the introductory period of new markets when industry sales are negligible is studied. Using a sample of new markets formed in the United States during the last 135 years, strong support for a simultaneous model of price and firm entry is found: Price decreases relate to the competitive pressures associated with firm entry, and, in turn, firm entry is lower in new markets with rapidly falling prices. Furthermore, a key driver of firm entry during the early years of a new market involves the level of patent activity, and a key driver of price decreases is the presence of large firms. In contrast to the recommendations from other research, these results indicate that rapid price declines may further delay sales takeoff in industries by dampening new firm entry. Instead, rapid sales takeoffs in new markets come from encouraging greater innovative activity and the entry of large firms.     

The Pin Factory Revisited: Product Diversification and Productivity Growth

Manufacturing plants have been producing an increasingly homogeneous product mix over recent years. Individual plants have been manufacturing fewer and less dissimilar products. The trend is ubiquitous across industries and is unlikely to be a random event. An index of product diversification is introduced into a fixed-effects model of productivity growth derived formally from a factor-minimal cost function. Specialization at the production site is found to have spurred productivity growth. Over the 1963–87 period, decreasing product heterogeneity has accounted for about 17 percent of productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing, second in importance only to technical change and equaling the contribution of scale economies.     

The Industry Component of Regional New Firm Formation Processes

We demonstrate that the link between geographic specific factors and the propensity for entrepreneurs to start new firms varies from industry to industry. Linking regional startup rates in Germany during the late 1980s to geographic-specific factors for disaggregated manufacturing industries, we find that the impact of geographic specific factors of startup activity varies substantially across industries. In addition, the evidence suggests that it is factors specific to each industry, such as capital intensity, that shape the link between geographic-specific factors and new-firm startup activity.     

Measuring Monopoly Power,Revisited

The accuracy of monopoly power measures derived from case studyeconometric models has been questioned recently by Hyde andPerloff (1995) and Boyer (1996). Using the standard industry-formof that model, Hyde and Perloff show that the parameter estimatesassociated with monopoly power are highly sensitive to mis-specificationsof the demand and supply functional forms. Boyer'scriticism is made in principle: he reproves the model for generallyfailing to.... capture the diversity and complexity of oligopoly ... in respect to entry, product differentiation, fixity of capital, capitaladjustment costs, dynamic demand linkages, and variations inmonopoly power over time and in the cross-section of firms. Whilethese several criticisms might appear to point at inherent weaknessesin the case study econometric approach, it is here arguedthat the problem lies in the usual empirical practice.     

电信主导运营商价格压榨的竞争效应

在纵向相关市场结构下,电信在位主导运营商的价格压榨行为是一种恢复纵向垄断市场势力和获取纵向一体最大化垄断利润的策略性行为,它会严重伤害下游市场的竞争,并降低社会总福利。在反垄断执法中,判定反竞争的价格压榨行为需要分析市场结构条件和进行竞争伤害检验,本文提出了基础的归因检验规则和具体的四种不同类型价格压榨检验方法。基于上述分析,对中国电信和中国联通网络接入价格歧视行为反垄断审查的结构条件和归因检验进行了分析,并认为不合理接入管制政策是价格压榨长期存在的重要原因。     

Organizing Flexibility: The Flexible Firm in a New Century

Research on organizational flexibility should examine the linkages between numerical and functional flexibility. Unfortunately, studies of each type of flexibility generally neglect the other. Moreover, the most popular conception of the interplay between these two forms of flexibility — the core–periphery model — is incomplete in important ways. I discuss evidence and limitations of the core–periphery model of the flexible firm, and outline some promising attempts to conceptualize how organizations may combine functional and numerical flexibility. I focus mainly on the USA and the UK, though I also review evidence and issues involved in cross‐national differences in organizational flexibility.     

Dissatisfied Union Workers: Sorting Revisited

A substantial literature argues that the reported job dissatisfaction of union members is spurious. It reflects either the sorting of dissatisfied workers into union membership or the sorting of union recognition into worse jobs. We contribute by presenting the first panel data estimates that hold constant first worker fixed effects and then worker in job fixed effects. The estimates demonstrate that covered union members typically report greater dissatisfaction even when accounting for sorting in both dimensions. At the same time, cross‐sectional evidence of less satisfied covered non‐members and uncovered members vanishes when accounting for sorting.     

Firm Survival in the Netherlands

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the dynamics of industrial organization differ in the Netherlands from what has emerged as a Stylized Fact in other countries. Because the Netherlands has pursued a unique set of institutions and policies comprising what has become known as the Polder Model, the factors leading to firm failure may systematically differ from those in other countries. We address this question using a longitudinal database from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) that identifies over two thousand firms in manufacturing and then tracks their performance over time.     

关于企业内部控制的几点思考

内部控制作为企业自我调节和自行制约的内在机制,处于公司中枢神经系统的重要位置.加强内部控制是现代企业管理的重要手段,有关企业经营的失败、会计信息失真、违法经营等行为的发生,在一定程度上都可以归结为企业内部控制的缺失.本文通过分析企业的内部控制的现状,从而提出了解决我国企业内部控制存在问题的有效对策.     

Firm heterogeneity and worker turnover

Previous empirical analyses of job mobility focus on worker rather than firm characteristics. This paper exploits a unique data set on enterprise employment. We describe sectoral differences in turnover rates and in the persistence of turnover. We also present evidence of persistent turnover differences at the level of the individual firms—a result that is expected if firms have managers with differing ability to screen workers. When we consider the consequences to the firm of such turnover, we discover that high turnover firms are less likely to survive.     

The Small Firm in a Quantity Choosing Game: Some Experimental Evidence

We demonstrate with a grim trigger strategy that the small firm should be more willing to collude tacitly as its market share declines; large firms should be less willing to cooperate. The small firm is not a maverick. The intensity of rivalry between two firms with asymmetric market shares is studied in experimental markets. Treatments give duopolists (1) 50% shares, (2) a 60 or 40% share, and (3) an 80 or 20% share. Choices for the small firm in the latter treatments are not significantly larger than the collusive choice. Irrespective of relative size, firms in all three market environments exhibit collusive behavior.     

Whether to Integrate R&D and Marketing: The Effect of Firm Competence

Integration of research and development (R&D) with marketing remains a frequent topic in the new product development (NPD) literature, largely because it represents a critical antecedent of new product performance (NPP). Two divergent opinions about this integration exist, such that those who contend that firms should pursue high levels of integration in every case provoke criticisms from those who propose that various NPD processes require different levels of integration. This paper proposes that the two perspectives can be reconciled by taking into account the fact that R&D and marketing are integrated mainly to combine critical knowledge (technological and market) that otherwise would be separate to achieve market success. Following Danneels's approach, we investigate how the effect of R&D–marketing integration on performance change across four types of NPD processes: pure exploitation, pure exploration, technological competence exploitation, and market competence exploitation. Data derived from a deep study of 11 NPD projects by five firms, analyzed through qualitative methods, highlight the necessity to vary the level of integration according to the type of competence to be developed during the NPD process. Our analysis suggests two main conclusions. First, the effect of integration depends strictly on the type of competence that the firm uses to develop and launch a new product. Second, integration does not have a unique effect on performance, but it is necessary to distinguish between market performance (e.g., sales and market share) and process performance (e.g., meeting the planned budget and time to market). In some projects, the effect of integration on the two types of performance is diametrically opposite. In particular, we propose that (1) higher performance will be associated with lower integration in pure exploitative projects; (2) in projects that exploit existing market knowledge, higher market performance will be associated with a higher integration, although these projects tend to offer poor process performance regardless of integration level; (3) in projects that exploit technical knowledge, higher performance will be associated with higher integration; and (4) higher integration will be associated with higher market performance but poorer process performance in pure explorative projects.