Cost and Preference Heterogeneity in Risky Financial Markets

This paper estimates the magnitude of participation costs and preference parameters exploiting information on households’ participation decisions in the equities market. A structural model for portfolio choices over the life cycle is solved numerically. The parameters of interest are estimated using an Indirect Inference approach which makes use of the computed participation gains/losses. Participation costs are found to be significant, education and lagged participation being the major sources of heterogeneity. Also, the least educated are the least risk averse, and the positive effect of risk aversion on wealth accumulation dominates its negative influence on the risky asset demand. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heterogeneity in Professional Service Firms

Research on professional service firms emphasizes similarities in their organization and management and distinctiveness from other types of organization. In this paper we take a different tack and focus on the differences between professional service firms, that is, on heterogeneity across different professional sectors. We argue that differences between professions on a number of dimensions affect the nature of professionals' work and, in turn, the organization and management of firms across different professional sectors. Drawing on the sociology of professions literature we focus on three key dimensions of knowledge, jurisdictional control and client relationships to compare legal, auditing and engineering consulting firms. We consider how differences in these dimensions across the three professional services sectors impact upon the way firms are organized. We offer a number of propositions explicating how differences in the nature of knowledge, jurisdictional control and client relationships have implications for organizational form, team-working and pricing systems.     

Price Discrimination in Input Markets: Downstream Entry and Efficiency

The extant theory on price discrimination in input markets takes the structure of the downstream industry as exogenously given. This paper endogenizes the structure of the downstream industry and examines the effects of permitting third‐degree price discrimination on market structure and welfare. We identify situations where permitting price discrimination leads to either higher or lower wholesale prices for all downstream firms. These findings are driven by upstream profits being discontinuous due to costly entry. Moreover, permitting price discrimination fosters entry which often improves welfare. Nevertheless, entry can also reduce welfare because it may lead to a severe inefficiency in production.     

Profit‐raising Entry in Vertically Related Markets

We extend the standard vertical oligopoly model to allow for free entry in the upstream sector, and research and development with knowledge spillover in the downstream sector. The fact that an increase in the number of firms lowers industry profit is the common wisdom that may not hold in vertical structure of production. We provide a complementary reasoning and find that aggregate downstream profit can increase with downstream entry when the knowledge spillover effect and the entry cost are moderate. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

快递市场的进入壁垒分析

快递是指承运方将托运方指定在特定时间内运达目的地的物品,以最快的运输方式,运送和配送到指定的目的地或目标客户手中。为满足客户不同层次的需求,要求快递公司在接到客户委托时,所有与该业务有关的部门和个人,都必须同步地行动起来,共同确保货物按客户的要求快速送达指定地点。     

Games Hospitals Play: Entry Deterrence in Hospital Procedure Markets

Strategic investment models, though popular in the theoretical literature, have rarely been tested empirically. This paper develops a model of strategic investment in inpatient procedure markets, which are well-suited to empirical tests of this behavior. Potential entrants are easy to identify in such markets, enabling the researcher to accurately estimate the entry threat faced by different incumbents. I derive straightforward empirical tests of entry deterrence from a model of patient demand, procedure quality, and differentiated product competition. Using hospital data on electrophysiological studies, an invasive cardiac procedure, I find evidence of entry-deterring investment. These findings suggest that competitive motivations play a role in treatment decisions.     

Platform Owner Entry and Innovation in Complementary Markets: Evidence from Intel

This paper explores Intel's strategy with respect to complements. We find that, as the literature predicts, Intel's entry decisions are shaped by the belief that it does not have the capabilities to enter all possible markets, and thus that it must encourage widespread entry despite the fact that potential entrants (rationally) fear Intel's ability to "squeeze" them ex post. We explore the ways in which Intel addresses this issue, highlighting in particular the firm's use of organizational structure and processes as commitment mechanisms. Our results have implications for our understanding of the dynamics of competition in complements and of the role of organizational form in shaping competition.     

Theory, Reality, and Performativity in Markets

A bstract .   The purpose of this article is to analyze the relation between scientific knowledge in the form of theories and the world that such theories are about. The focus is on market theories. I argue that everyday knowledge, conceptualized using the notion of "lifeworld," is the bedrock of scientific knowledge. I also make two distinctions, one between types of markets and one between principles of order in markets. There are two different types of markets, fixed-role markets and switch-role markets, and no existing theory can be used to explain both of them. In fixed-role markets, such as a producer market of garments, actors are identified as either sellers or buyers. In switch-role markets, such as the stock exchange market or currency market, actors are not identified with one role. The other distinction is between standard and status markets. In a status market, order is maintained because the identities of actors on both sides of the market are ranked according to status, which is a more entrenched social construction than the commodity traded in the market. In a market characterized by standards, the situation is reversed: the commodity is a more entrenched social construction than the social status of actors in the market. These distinctions are the backdrop of my analysis of the idea that markets are performed. It is concluded that the performativity approach is useful today for analyzing switch-role markets. A further conclusion is that neoclassical economic theory can be used in understanding switch-role markets, but not fixed-role markets.     

Modelling Currency Crises in Emerging Markets: A Dynamic Probit Model with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Autocorrelated Errors*

The paper investigates the causes of currency crises in emerging markets. We estimate the probability of a currency crisis by applying maximum smoothly simulated likelihood to a dynamic LDV model. This approach allows us to take explicit account of the existence of intertemporal links between crises. The results show that currency crises are influenced by real, monetary, debt and global variables. Past banking crises are significant determinants of the probability of currency crises. Moreover, countries that sharply devalued in the past are less prone to experience another currency crisis. We find evidence of unobserved heterogeneity, which may reflect differences in the countries’ institutional/historical background. Finally, the determinants of currency crises differ by type of exchange rate regime.     

Markets, Materialism and Messages

Lord Harris's critical review of the Bishop of Durham's book 'God, Politics and the Future', in the February/March issue of Economic Affairs, inspired the following reply from the author. Readers must fudge for themselves.     

Entry,exit and profitability

In this paper arguments are set forward explaining the interrelationship between the entry and exit decision. The simultaneous effect of entry and exit on profitability for some Belgian sectors is studied. The empirical results seem to suggest that future research in this area has to take into account the link between entry and exit.     

Efficient Markets, Fundamentals, and Crashes

A bstract .Economists have struggled to characterize and model the dynamic evolution of economic phenomena throughout this century. For at least eight decades, American economists have faced the persistent choice between structural or formal models of evolving dynamics and those alternative portrayals that focused on historical narratives or qualitative features. In this article we compare the models and methods used by representative authors who have sought to address the swings in stock prices. Our rather terse comparison between the orthodox theorists and those we label heterodox demonstrates the wide divergence between the foci of approaches adopted. Their methods, conclusions, and implications differ markedly. Where the orthodox approaches focus all but exclusively on statistical issues, the heterodox group stresses the importance of incomplete information and markets in an institutional and historical context. Such fundamental differences prohibit any meaningful dialogue between proponents of the two basic approaches. Moreover, substantial deficiencies–technical and otherwise–of contributions within the two groups limit ability to discriminate between rival views within each group. The clearer identification of transparent roles for credit, technology, and institutions in the heterodox approaches, however, makes the awkward translation from theoretical model to social commentary much easier.     

CEO与CFO职业背景异质性对企业价值影响研究——基于战略性新兴产业和传统产业的比较视角

本文基于2012-2016年我国A股上市公司为初始研究样本,从高阶梯队理论的视角阐述了CEO与CFO职业背景异质性对企业价值的影响,比较研究该影响在战略性新兴产业与传统产业的差异。研究发现:(1)全样本分析显示,CEO和CFO职业背景异质性与企业价值的关系显著负相关。(2)分组分析显示,对于战略性新兴产业,职业背景异质性对企业价值有显著的正向影响;对于传统产业,职业背景异质性对企业价值有显著的负向影响。(3)进一步细分战略性新兴产业,发现新一代信息技术和高端装备制造产业的显著性更明显;在剔除企业规模变量后发现,企业规模对于新一代信息技术、高端装备制造、生物、新能源汽车、新材料产业的职业背景异质性与企业价值的关系有抑制作用。规模越大,抑制作用越小;规模越小,抑制作用越大。     

Emerging Markets, Unemployment and Inflation

World inflation is being held down by emerging market competition interacting with continuing OECD monetary policy. Here at home, fast productivity growth makes the UK something of an emerging market within Europe.     

Quality Competition, Insurance, and Consumer Choice in Health Care Markets

In this model, insurance offering a choice of hospitals is valued because consumers are uncertain which hospital they will prefer ex post. A competitive insurance market facilitates tacit price collusion between hospitals; high margins induce hospitals to compete for customers through overinvestment in quality. Incentives may exist to lock in market share via managed-care plans with less choice and lower prices. As technology becomes more expensive, the market increasingly offers too little choice. A pure managed care market may emerge, with underinvestment in quality. Relative to a pure insurance regime, however, all consumers are better off under managed care.     

Corporate Governance,Investment, and Firm Valuation in Asian Emerging Markets

We investigate the effects of corporate governance and family ownership on firm valuation through investment efficiency in Asian emerging markets. Using 3 years of time series data from the Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia corporate governance score for 10 Asian emerging markets, we find that good corporate governance leads to better or more efficient investment decisions and eventually to higher firm value. We also find that investors reward firms for improvement in corporate governance. The findings do not hold for Asian firms with a family or concentrated ownership structure. The results are not driven by changes in accounting standards in these markets.     

European Periphery Crises,International Financial Markets,and Democracy

This article analyzes the origin and causes of the recent economic and financial crises, mainly for the countries located in the periphery of the European Union (EU), as well as their evolution and transformation into social, political, and institutional crises. After explaining the differential impact of the crises on EU economies, we analyze how the economic policies developed thus far not only are unable to resolve the current crisis pattern but also actually entail a risk to the present democratic models by transferring the legitimate control over governments from citizens and democratic parliaments to unelected, nonrepresentative international financial markets.     

企业异质性、贸易成本与服务业生产率

基于异质性企业的内生技术选择视角和世界投入产出表的大样本数据,考察了国际服务贸易成本对服务业生产率的影响。结果表明,更低的贸易成本与更高的生产率及更快的生产率增长相联系,且该效应主要体现在生产性服务部门,但服务贸易成本下降的效应系数远远低于商品部门;对中国样本的检验结果显示,不论是生产性服务业还是生活性服务业,其双边贸易成本下降并未带来服务业生产率及其增长的提升,而商品部门的表现与跨国经验结果一致,我们将该现象称为“中国对外服务贸易成本的生产率效应悖论”,对此提出了3种可能的解释。