Free trade's intertemporal Pareto-optimality

Emmanuel's thesis of ‘unequal exchange’ — that free trade at equalized profit rates and unequal wage rates (1) involves deadweight loss to the world, and (2) explains a one-way trend toward deterioration of poor country's wellbeing and double-factoral terms of trade — is found on analysis to be incorrect. Careful time-period analysis shows that such free trade is actually intertemporally Pareto optimal, despite misleading steady-state comparisons.     

对外贸易中行业自律定价行为的博弈分析

当前我国经济生活中存在的一个突出的现象是价格战与行业自律定价并存。从中国参与出口的同质企业所结成的价格卡特尔表明:出口企业追求利润最大化行为的结果必然陷入"囚徒困境",表现为价格大战;在没有外在强制力量时,企业尽管可以相互依存,仍然走不出困境;如果惩罚条款这一承诺行动可以置信,则出现合作均衡;优势企业也可促使合作均衡的出现。     

Linking marketing capabilities with profit growth

Profit growth is one of the primary drivers of a firm's stock price and therefore is a clear priority for managers. Yet little is known about how a firm's marketing capabilities may be linked with its profit growth. In this study, we use data from a cross-industry sample of 114 firms to investigate how market sensing, brand management, and customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities determine firms' revenue growth and margin growth—the two components of profit growth. Our results reveal that these marketing capabilities have direct and complementary effects on both revenue and margin growth rates. Critically, we find that brand management and CRM capabilities have opposing effects on revenue and margin growth rates, such that a failure to examine these two underlying components would mask the relationships between these marketing capabilities and ultimate profit growth rates.     

Consumers' reaction to fair trade motivated price increases

Consumer perception of price increases and their reactions are a topic of great relevance for marketing research and practice. We investigate consumers' acceptance of price increases justified by higher costs due to company's corporate socially responsible activities by conducting two experimental studies. In the first study we examine perceived fairness and intentions following a price increase justified by a fair trade commitment. To assess the green attitude–behavior gap in consumer behavior our second study incorporates a real world experiment to explore actual consumer behavior against stated intentions. Our investigation adds nuance to our understanding of the effects of corporate social responsibility on consumer response to price increases. Our results reveal that a price increase due to a fair trade commitment is perceived as fair and does not have a negative impact on purchase behavior. We contrast our findings with a price increase due to higher taxes and due to profit increase. Our results demonstrate that fair trade justified price increases can skim twice the amount compared to tax justified increases. Furthermore, consumers' actual buying behavior reveals no difference to their stated intentions. Hence, prior research proclaiming an attitude–behavior gap in the context of consumers' socially responsible buying behavior has to be called into question.     

基于抵消性权力的家电产品价格机制动态博弈分析

我国家电产品零售价格一直持续下降,有学者认为其原因为巨型零售商向消费者让利,并用抵消性权力理论给出了解释。然而"让利给消费者"并非是巨型零售商获取最大利润的必经之路,它们完全可以通过与家电制造商签合理的定价协议以获取最大收益。本文给出了家电零售价格下降的另一可靠的说法:家电价格下降并非家电零售巨头主动让利给消费者,而是零售巨头对制造商的压制,使价格机制在"上游制造商——下游零售商——消费者"这一个整体系统中运作,其中存在于这个系统中的那些零散的小型零售商对最终零售价的下降起了关键作用。     

Duration of price promotion and product profit: An in-depth study based on point-of-sale data

Anecdotal evidence has shown that retail price promotions can help small and medium-sized retailers enhance their sales, and thus profits. However, most marketing managers usually stop a promotion after a certain duration. This study aims to explain why these retailers discontinue their price promotion. Our approach posits that overall contributions of a price promotion to the product profit progressively diminish with time. In this study, we present a theoretical framework to explain the relationship between duration and profit effects of price promotion and propose statistical models to empirically examine this framework using point-of-sale (POS) data. Our findings provide empirical support that the effect of price promotion on the product profit has a downward trend with elapsed time. The results are helpful for marketers to understand how price promotions dynamically influence product profit and when the promotion should be terminated.     

Replacement versus Historical Cost Profit Rates: What is the Difference? When Does it Matter?

This paper explains the Bureau of Economic Analysis methodology for computing historical cost and replacement cost measures of the net stock of capital in the US economy. It is demonstrated that there exists a threshold rate of inflation in the price of capital goods that keeps the percentage difference between the two capital stock measures constant. Hence, over periods when average inflation in the price index for capital goods is equal to the threshold value, historical cost and replacement cost profit rates would show equal percentage changes; an example of such a period for the US economy is 1946–2010.     

Antitrust Policy: The Impact of Revenue Penalties on Price

The paper examines the impact on a firm’s price when it faces the possibility of an antitrust investigation and associated potential revenue penalty. As well as presenting a general model of antitrust intervention, an illustrative example reflecting the provisions of the 1998 UK Competition Act is offered, the example being developed to explore the implications of the probability of antitrust intervention and punishment increasing non-linearly as a firm’s profit rises.     

Impact of personalization and privacy concerns on information disclosure and pricing

Advances in IT have enabled some firms to offer personalized products according to the private information disclosed by consumers, while others are still offering standardized products, which brings about asymmetric competition. For consumers, disclosing private information for personalized products leads to reduced misfit cost as well as privacy loss. To illuminate the impact of consumers' trade-off between the benefit of information disclosure and the associated privacy concerns on firms' asymmetric price competition, we consider a setting where only one firm is capable of product personalization based on consumers' personal information. The capable firm makes a profit from selling the product and monetizing consumers' information. We demonstrate that as the capable firm becomes more adept at personalization, he may raise or lower the price depending on his profit foci, and an improvement in his capability does not always guarantee a higher profit. Counterintuitively, an increase in the unit misfit cost (i.e., greater product differentiation) can, under certain circumstances, intensity price competition, making both firms worse off and leading to higher consumer surplus. We also show that when consumers are more privacy-concerned, there exists an indirect effect that weakens the impact of an increase in price on the monetization of consumers’ information, and hence price competition can be mitigated and both firms can be better off. Furthermore, we demonstrate that product personalization with misfit-reducing effect always increases consumer surplus under the asymmetric competition. Our findings provide firms and policy-makers with great managerial insights.     

On the Characterisation of the World Real Interest Rate

This paper characterises the world real interest rate as a common trend in real interest rates in Germany, Japan, and the United States even if there is scepticism in the existence of the world real interest. In theoretical terms, real interest parity is based on the presumed validity of uncovered interest parity and purchasing power parity, but the empirical evidence of these parity conditions is not strong and thus the presence of the world real interest rate. The significance of this paper is, therefore, to visualise the current level of international economic integration by characterising the approximate world real interest rate as a single common trend, taking full advantage of the fact that real interest rates in three large open economies have been moving together sharing a common component even if their levels are distinctively different. This single common trend has desirable properties as the world real interest rate. First, it is a parsimonious and monotonically increasing function of the real interest rates in three large open economies that can be world price or interest rate maker, in contrast with small open economies. Second, it is moving together with national real interest rates one for one. Hence, the deviations from the world rate are temporary because common trend represents the common driving force of national rates over the long run period. Third, it can explain as high a proportion as possible of the variances of national rates.     

The impact of information sharing and bullwhip effects on improving consumer services in dual-channel retailing

Data sharing among the supply chain players can be an exceptionally significant factor for the retailing industry. In this consideration, an improved retailing methodology for a dual-channel supply chain with a single retailer and manufacturer is built under the bullwhip effect and asymmetric data sharing. Retailer provides asymmetric information to the manufacturer regarding demand to increase their profit. In this scenario, measuring the bullwhip effect is essential in retailing strategy. By adopting an online-to-offline retailing strategy, industries can earn more profit and increase the satisfaction level of customers. The present study focuses on dual-channel retailing, where the demand for the product in both channels varies with the selling price. Keeping in mind the goal of sustainable development, an advanced transportation strategy is utilized in this study, along with some carbon emission costs. Autonomated inspection is utilized to identify defective products. Finally, centralized and decentralized profit functions are formulated for this study. Several cases and numerical examples are provided to validate this study. It is clear from the numerical findings that information sharing within the players provides 1.26% more profit compared to a decentralized case. Due to asymmetric information, which leads to the bullwhip effect, the retailing system faces loss. Thus, information sharing is 0.19% beneficial for dual-channel retailing. Sensitivity analysis for key parameters ensures the findings' applicability in the real world.     

The Potential Approach to the Term Structure of Interest Rates and Foreign Exchange Rates

It is possible to specify a model for interest rates in various ways, by giving the dynamics of the spot rate or of the forward rates, for example. A less well–developed approach is to specify the law of the state–price density process directly. In abstract, the state–price density process is a positive supermartingale, and the theory of Markov processes provides a rich framework for the generation of examples of such things. We show how this can be done, and provide simple examples (some familiar, some new) where prices of derivatives can be computed very easily. One benefit of the potential approach is that it becomes very easy to model the yield curve in many countries at once, together with the exchange rates between them.     

中国城市水务产业民营化的绩效评价实证研究

本文从总量水平、生产效率、利润和普遍服务水平四个方面构建了中国城市水务产业民营化的绩效评价指标体系,运用1990-2009年的数据检验了民营化对有关指标的影响。检验结果表明,民营化对增加城市水务产业供水总量和利润均有显著影响,但民营化对提高生产效率和普遍服务水平均没有显著影响。从分析结果看,城市水务产业利润增加很可能是由于水价提高造成的,因此政府必须建立有效的价格管制体系。同时,政府在推进民营化的过程中,应出台激励政策引导民营资本进入管网建设领域,以提高普遍服务水平。     

城市污水处理行业的激励性价格管制

本文在借鉴雪理佛和巴杰夫特提出的区域间比较竞争模型基础上,引入利润率和质量系数,构建了两阶段污水处理区域间比较竞争定价模型,主要运用数据包络分析方法确定标杆企业,以促进污水处理企业之间的比较竞争。并以浙江省污水处理行业为例,运用聚类分析方法对污水处理企业的异质性进行区分与分类,对典型的污水处理企业进行价格测算,为污水处理行业实行激励性价格管制提供理论依据。     

Trade pattern reversals in time-phased Ricardian systems and intertemporal efficiency

A timeless Ricardian system specializes geographically to minimize localized labor, just as a timeless neoclassical system specializes to minimize primary factor totals (in a vectoral sense). The steady states of a time-phased system, for zero interest or profit rate, similarly specialize to minimize primary factors. By contrast, when there is a positive interest rate, the observed steady states do not minimize primary totals. Thus, positive profit rates make a system superficially appear inefficient, much like systems with distorting taxes. However, from an intertemporal efficiency standpoint, which goes beyond steady states, it is shown that so long as the profit rates are geographically equal, the observed steady state is Pareto efficient, not Pareto inefficient. In contrast to the Emmanuel view that profit equalization leads to ‘unequal exchange’ and deadweight loss from trade, deadweight loss is shown to come from the absence of international lending markets. The present paper illustrates these truths, works out implications for factor-price equalization or nonequalization, gives conditions of trade equilibrium for time-phased systems, shows their multiplicity, and the possible Metcalfe-Steedman ‘instability’ from the standpoint of the global correspondence principle. A factor-price frontier is deduced, which gives the negative interest rate as a quasi-concave function of the real returns (in terms of any good) of the primary factors, and its well-behaved quantities dual is contrasted with the actual ill-behaved steady-state quantity relation.     

Competitive price-matching guarantees under imperfect store availability

This paper analyzes the role of verification of product availability in the context of competitive price-matching guarantees (PMGs). PMGs involve a retailer matching any lower price offered by competition for an identical item. Until now, researchers focused on the scenario where customers can receive the lower price with a simple proof (e.g., weekly flyers). However, in reality, retailers reserve the right to verify the availability at the competitor location; if the product is not available there, then the price-match request might be declined. We develop a price competition model to investigate the effects of verification of availability on price decisions and profit levels of competing retailers. In our model, demand is driven by the availability levels of retailers as well as the price-search cost and store-switching cost incurred by customers. Price-search cost leads to two customer segments: uninformed ones who have no knowledge about prices, and informed ones who are knowledgeable about prices. On the other hand, store-switching cost determines how many customers search for the product at an alternative location because of high price or unavailability at their preferred retailers. Our analysis reveals, among others, that the outcome of availability verification is linked to three factors: price-search cost, store-switching cost, and the reservation prices of customer segments. Verification of availability allows retailers to price discriminate customers who could not be discriminated otherwise, specifically those belonging to the informed customer segment. Furthermore, it is a significant profit-enhancing mechanism only if there are switching customers in the market. Interestingly, even though customers view the verification of availability as a hassle, it can actually result in them paying lower retail prices by increasing the level of retail price competition.     

Optimal revenue-raising trade restrictions under uncertainty

A country seeks to achieve a fixed expected revenue by restricting trade when it faces uncertainty about domestic demand for a good and about foreign supply. If the uncertainty in the demand and supply functions is multiplicative then the policy which maximises domestic expected surplus is a fixed schedule of tariffs depending only on world price. Under additive uncertainty the ranking of ad valorem tariffs and quotas depends systematically on the targeted expected revenue and the degree of uncertainty in demand and in world price but a specific tariff is superior to both these policies.     

Retailer's decoy strategy versus consumers' reference price effect in a retailer-Stackelberg supply chain

Decoy strategy for bundling is an important marketing option because it can reflect the behavior resulting from consumers' reference price effect. This paper develops a game-theoretic model of a dyadic supply chain to study the joint decisions on pricing and decoy strategies in the presence of consumers' reference price effect. The retailer chooses one of the decoy strategies (phantom decoy-mixed bundling, decoy-mixed bundling) and selling prices to maximize her profit. Our study shows that: under both decoy strategies, the retailer and the manufacturer benefit from consumers' low reference price effect; however, the high reference price effect hurts their profits.     

Fairness perceptions of retail price increases by foreign and domestic brands: The roles of ethnocentric beliefs,profit stickiness,and contextual information

Although consumers do not usually take kindly to price increases, their perceptions of fairness of price increases are contingent on relevant factors. This study investigates consumers' perceptions of the fairness of retail price increase by a domestic versus a foreign brand, as moderated by consumers' ethnocentricity, bias toward inferring a profit motive from a price increase (i.e., “profit stickiness”), and relevant contextual information. Over the course of two sets of experiments, the authors find that ethnocentricity does not necessarily lead to the intuitively expected favorable (unfavorable) bias toward (against) a domestic (foreign) brand's decision to raise prices, subject to profit stickiness and contextual information. These findings have implications for theory, practice, and further research.     

Market presence, contestability, and the terms-of-trade effects of regional integration

This paper examines the impact of market presence and contestability on the price behavior of US exporters in Brazil’s market when MERCOSUR and MFN trade liberalization take place. Using detailed panel data on trade and tariff rates, we find that both the preferred supplier’s market presence and threat of entry lower (raise) the US price reaction to MFN (preferential) trade liberalization, with similar quantitative effects. Thus, presence in, or threat of entry into, partners’ markets implies lower optimal MFN tariffs, and regional agreements can have pro-competitive effects in contestable markets. We also examine the ‘symmetry’ hypothesis between the effect of tariffs and exchange rates.