Dynamic control of a monopolist’s product and process innovation with reference quality

ABSTRACT

Our main purpose is to investigate the dynamic control problem of a monopolist’s product and process innovation under reference quality. The main features of this article are: (i) a monopolist dealing with customer behaviour in the spirit of the principle of behaviour economics determines the product price, and carries out the activities of product and process innovation; (ii) the consumers’ demand depends on price, product quality and reference quality, and adopts an additive separable demand function form. Our main results show that under the cases of the monopolist optimum and the social planner optimum, (i) there exists an unique stable, which is a saddle-point steady-state equilibrium; (ii) the change rates of the monopolist’s investments in product and process innovation are increasing with the reference quality, while the monopolist’s steady-state investments in product and process innovation are decreasing with the reference quality; (iii) as the memory parameter increases with other parameters kept constant, it is very likely that the monopolist’s investment in process innovation be greater than the investment in product innovation; and (iv) the social incentive towards both investments in product and process innovation is always larger than the private incentive characterizing the profit-seeking monopolist.     

Product Quality With Heterogeneous Consumers and Linear Pricing

This paper considers a linear‐pricing monopolist that conducts vertical product differentiation. Previous analyses consider customers who either have unit demand or firms who conduct nonlinear pricing. In this paper, customers’ opportunity cost of time generates a demand for quality. Customers differ in either their demand, income or taste for quality. Differences in income and taste for quality are sources of vertical differentiation. The presence of quality distortion and the variety that may exhibit it are dependent on the functional form of the customer types’ demand.     

The company you keep: Qualitative uncertainty in providing a club good

Clubs are typically experience goods. Potential members cannot ascertain precisely beforehand their quality (dependent endogenously on the club's facility investment and number of users, itself dependent on its prices). Members with unsatisfactory initial experiences discontinue visits. We show that a monopoly profit maximizer never offers a free trial period for such goods. For quality functions homogeneous of degree of at least minus one, a welfare maximizer, motivated by distributional concerns to mitigate disappointed consumers' losses, always does. We demonstrate the robustness of this finding by showing that (i) without qualitative uncertainty (thus, no disappointed customers), neither welfarist nor monopolist offers free trials; and (ii) if the planner pursues an objective mixing welfare maximization with profit maximization, the likelihood of free trials increases with the weight put on welfare maximization. Regarding club quality and usage, the monopolist provides a socially excessive level of quality to repeat buyers when the quality function is homogeneous of degree zero. With nonhomogeneous quality functions, the monopolist permits too little club usage; quality may or may not be socially excessive.     

Natural monopoly and differential pricing

Under uniform pricing a monopolist cannot make a positive profit in equilibrium. I analyze how differential pricing can be exploited by a natural monopolist to deter entry when entry is costless. In a two-stage game with price competition before quantity competition I show that the incumbent firm can deter entry and make a positive profit in equilibrium. The incumbent sets two different prices, the low price to deter entry and the high price to generate profit. Entry is not possible because of scale effects. If dumping is allowed for all firms no positive profits are realizable, but welfare is reduced. I show that for some parameter values the incumbent is forced to engage in a stunt (i.e., set a negative low price) to keep entrants out.     

Monopoly with local knowledge of demand function

In this note, we propose a model where a quantity setting monopolist has incomplete knowledge of the demand function. In each period, the firm sets the quantity produced observing only the selling price and the slope of the demand curve at that quantity. Given this information and through a learning process the firm estimates a linear subjective demand curve. We show that the steady states of the dynamic equation are critical points of the objective profit function. Moreover, results depend on convexity/concavity of the demand. When the demand function is convex and the objective profit function has a unique critical point: the steady state is a globally stable maximum; conversely when then steady state is not unique, local maximums are locally stable, while local minimums are locally unstable. On the other hand when the demand function is concave, the unique critical point is a maximum: there can be stability or instability of the critical point and period two cycles around it via a flip bifurcation. Moreover, through simulations we can observe that, with a mixed inverse demand function, there are different dynamic behaviors, from stability to chaos and that we have transition to complex dynamics via a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations. Finally, we show that the same results can be obtained if the monopolist is a price setter.     

Price or quantity setting under uncertain demand and capacity constraints: An examination of the profits

This article considers price formation and quantity setting of a capacity-constrained risk-neutral firm facing uncertain demand. It is shown that the optimal price of a price-setting risk-neutral monopolist decreases with demand uncertainty. With a strictly convex demand function expected profits increase with uncertainty for a quantity-setting monopolist whereas expected profits decrease for a price-setting monopolist. Furthermore, similar results on the effect of uncertainty are derived for a differentiated goods industry.     

Segmenting the market: The monopolist's optimal product mix

In an industry producing products which differ in quality, to consumers who vary in their willingness to pay, it may happen that only a bounded number of producers can coexist at (noncooperative price) equilibrium; in other words, the industry is a natural oligopoly. We are here concerned with a special example, in which only one producer can survive. Our focus of interest in the present paper is to examine this monopolist's optimal product range. Depending on the dispersion of consumers' willingness to pay (income), either (i) the monopolist will find it optimal to segment the market completely, offering the maximum number of products permitted or (ii) the monopolist will offer only a single product. The precise nature of this switch of policy, which occurs at a certain critical distribution of consumer incomes (willingness to pay), is explored fully.     

Raising rivals' costs: The entry of an upstream monopolist into downstream markets

A regulated upstream monopolist provides an input to firms in a downstream market. If the monopolist enters the downstream market, a natural concern is that it will act so as to raise its downstream rivals' costs. An offsetting incentive is that a higher downstream price will reduce demand for the input, which reduces the monopolist's profit. Conditions under which one incentive dominates the other are derived. The monopolist may desire to lower its downstream rivals' costs rather than raise them. These findings suggest that regulatory policy towards such downstream entry should not focus exclusively on the ability to discriminate.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE COST OF ACID RAIN CONTROL

This paper uses a utility capacity planning and dispatch model to examine the robustness of acid rain mitigation policies. The model meets electricity demand at the lowest economic cost while it responds to price or quantity signals for controlling emissions. The model is unique since it is couched in a risk analysis framework that captures the uncertainty in other economic parameters determining the utility's strategic choices–e.g., demand level and fuel prices. This permits one to compare various institutional settings for pollution control for both a world with perfect foresight and one with imperfect foresight. This exercise provides quantitative results on the cost of pollution control with price and quantity controls. It also provides a measure of the response of these cost functions to the uncertainty in other key parameters.
Exploring the performance of various pollution control mechanisms has led to three findings: (i) that the performance of a price control mechanism is dependent on the level of emission reductions that one seeks, (ii) that regionally traded emission permits and emission fees are equally efficient regardless of the level of foresight, and (Hi) that emission fees lead to more stable electricity generation prices. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the results under imperfect foresight suggest that uncertainties in the level of demand and load management success play an important role in determining future pollution control costs.     

RETAIL PRICE REGULATION AND THE OPTION TO DELAY

ABSTRACT ** :  This paper examines a two-period model of an investment decision in a network industry characterized by demand uncertainty, economies of scale and sunk costs. In the absence of regulation we identify the market conditions under which a monopolist decides to invest early as well as the underlying overall welfare output. In a regulated environment, we consider a monopolist who faces no downstream (final good) competition but is subject to retail price regulation. We identify the welfare-maximizing regulated prices when the unregulated market outcome is set as the benchmark. We show that if the regulator can commit to ex post regulation – that is, regulated prices that are contingent to future demand realization – then regulated prices that allow the firm to recover its total costs of production are welfare-maximizing. Thus, under ex post price regulation there is no need to compensate the regulated firm for the option to delay that it foregoes when investing today. We argue, however, that regulators cannot make this type of commitment and, therefore, price regulation is often ex ante – that is, regulated prices are not contingent to future demand. We show that the optimal ex ante regulation, and the extent to which regulated prices need to incorporate an option to delay, depend on the nature of demand uncertainty.     

RETURNS SYSTEM WITH REBATES*

We consider a variant of the newsvendor problem. Atomistic retailers each buy merchandise from a monopoly supplier for resale at a market‐determined common retail price that depends upon the total industry order quantity and upon a stochastic demand. After the orders are filled, the supplier learns the realization of demand but the retailers do not. We show that, in this setting, a returns system with rebates (with previously set buy‐back price for returns and ex post payments from the supplier to each retailer per unit actually sold) implements the optimal production and sales strategy, attaining maximum expected profit in the channel.     

Monopoly and the choice of product characteristics

Monopoly firms producing large, indivisible goods may be able to effect perfect price discrimination by charging an all-or-none implicit price for each product characteristic. In that case, a monopolist will provide the same vector of product characteristics (i.e., the same product ‘quality’) as will a competitive industry; and, perhaps more surprisingly, produce the same quantity of the good. With all-or-none pricing, monopoly power leads to a higher product price, but no change in product quality or output.     

策略性采购联盟、集体谈判与最优贸易政策选择——基于广义Cournot-Nash谈判函数的分析

文章发展了一个关于由本国企业组成的中间品策略性采购联盟与外国垄断性供给者进行集体谈判的模型一—该模型以中国的制造业外包服务,即出口加工贸易实践为基础,其中,中间品的采购价格与数量通过有效的Nash谈判过程同时决定。当采购联盟的效用函数的数量弹性高于（低于）价格弹性,则该联盟的偏好为数量（价格）导向的。文章证明：（1）当本国与外国的中间品与最终产品贸易具有互补性时,政府贸易政策调整的价格、数量以及福利效应是不确定的,它们依存于本国采购联盟的偏好、最终产品需求曲线的弹性与曲率、外国企业的技术以及生产专业化程度;（2）政府贸易政策的干预功能与企业策略性联盟的自主调整功能存在重叠与冲突。     

WELFARE EFFECTS OF STRATEGIC PRICE SETTING IN ANTICIPATION OF PRICE REGULATION

A single product monopolist with constant unit costs, in a simple two-period model, is aware that price regulation will be imposed in the second period. The form of the regulation is such that price in period 2 may not exceed 100 ; per cent of price in period 1, where 0 < < 1. The period 1 price will be set higher than it would be in the absence of anticipated regulation. However, it is not always the case that pre-regulation price will be raised as falls. The welfare effects are crucially dependent on the form of the demand function. Under constant elasticity of demand a reduction in will reduce both consumers' and the producer's welfare. Under linear demand, consumers benefit and the producer loses as is reduced and the resultant effect on aggregate welfare is ambiguous.     

A generalized framework for endogenous timing in duopoly games and an application to price-quantity competition

This paper extends the analysis of duopoly market by distinguishing two types of competition: (i) the basic form of competition where each firm is unrestricted in its choice of price and quantity and (ii) the non-basic form of competition where firms’ strategic choices over price and quantity are limited a priori. Our analysis focuses on the former rather than the latter. Under a very general setting of concave industrial revenue and asymmetric convex costs, we show that each firm typically makes more profit in the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) of the leader-follower price-quantity competition, one of the basic competition forms, than in the SPNE of the leader-follower price competition and that each firm always makes more profit under simultaneous move price-quantity competition than under simultaneous move price competition. We establish a generalized framework for endogenous timing in duopoly games which is capable of embodying and overcoming the inconsistency across the existing three frameworks in the field. We highlight the advantages of a 3-period general framework.     

ON THE SUSTAINABILITY OF COLLUSION IN A DIFFERENTIATED OLIGOPOLY WITH A CARTEL AND A FRINGE

We discuss the effects of the existence of non‐colluding (fringe) firms on cartel sustainability. We obtain, using trigger strategies, that with product differentiation collusion is always more easily sustained when firms compete in prices than when firms compete in quantities. This is true basically because (i) price competition is more intense than quantity competition, and (ii) fringe firms exacerbate the fact that cartel firms have more incentives to deviate from the agreement under quantity competition. This result reverses previous findings where, in the absence of fringe firms, product differentiation plays a crucial role in determining the effectiveness of price or quantity competition in sustaining collusion.     

Pricing policy of a U.S. telephone company

This paper analyses the pricing policy of a major U.S. telephone company in 1967. A mathematical programming model was used to calculate the prices per telephone call on each of three representative routes in each of four periods of the day which would be implied by a variety of alternative maximands (consumers' plus producers' surplus, profit, sales units, sales revenue), under a variety of alternative profit constraints and assuming capacity to be either fixed (at 1967 levels) or variable. Cost and demand data were supplied by several telephone company officials, and supplemented by published material. Sensitivity analysis was carried out on the demand elasticities. A total of one hundred versions of the model are reported on. Our major conclusions include: (i) Maximising consumers' plus producers' surplus subject to a pair of minimum profit constraints provided a good approximation to 1967 policy. (ii) There is perfect discrimination between large and small users for interstate toll calls. (iii) The effect of the state regulatory commission was to keep down the price of intrastate toll calls at the expense of interstate toll calls. (iv) As alternatives to regulation, perfect competition, if attainable, would increase benefits by about $100 million whereas perfect monopoly would reduce them by $300 million per annum, within the area of the company's operations.     

Experimental comparison between markets on dynamic permit trading and investment in irreversible abatement with and without non-regulated companies

This paper examines the investment strategies of compliance companies in irreversible abatement technologies and the environmental achievements of the system in an inter-temporal cap-and-trade market using laboratory experiments. The experimental analysis is performed under varying market structures: firstly, in a market that is exclusive to compliance companies and subsequently, in a market that is open to both compliance and non-compliance entities. In line with theoretical models on irreversible abatement investment, the paper shows that regulated companies trade permits at a premium. Also, steep per unit penalties for excess emissions prompt early investments in irreversible abatement technologies. Further, the paper shows that by contributing to the permit demand and supply, non-compliance companies (i) enhance the exchange of permits, helping the system to achieve a zero-excess permit position, (ii) increase the price levels, but has no apparent effect on price variability.     

Unionized labor market and licensing by a monopolist

We show that a monopolistic final goods producer may find it profitable to create competition by licensing its technology if the input market is imperfectly competitive. With a centralized union, we show that licensing by a monopolist is profitable under both uniform and discriminatory wage settings by the union. However, the incentive for licensing is higher under the former situation. We also show that licensing by the monopolist is profitable under both quantity and price competition, and the incentive for licensing is higher under price competition than under quantity competition. Our qualitative results hold even with decentralized unions.      

On complex dynamics of monopoly market

The equilibrium state of a bounded rational monopolist model is studied in this paper. It is assumed that the entire demand function is considered based on some market experiments to produce a quantity which maximizes profit. The stability of equilibrium state of the model is discussed. In addition, some complex dynamical behaviours of the model are illustrated.