Takeover Contests, Toeholds and Deterrence

We consider a setting in which two potential buyers, one with a prior toehold and one without, compete in a takeover modeled as an ascending auction with participating costs. The toeholder is more aggressive during the takeover process because she is also a seller of her own shares. The non-toeholder anticipates this extra-aggressiveness of the toeholder. Thus, he is deterred from participating unless he has a high valuation for the target company. This leads to large inefficiency losses. For many configurations, expected target returns are first increasing then decreasing in the size of the toehold.     

Strategic Choice of the Price Structure and Entry Deterrence Under Price Cap Regulation

This paper shows that a price‐capped firm under the threat of entry in some of the markets it serves can strategically manipulate its price structure to deter entry. In doing so, the regulated firm uses the price cap constraint as a commitment device to an aggressive pricing behaviour in case of entry. A (dynamic) price cap generally entails that the prices allowed today are a function of the previous‐period prices and that the tighter is the constraint on each price, the larger is the quantity sold of this good in the previous period. Hence, the regulated firm may strategically choose its price structure before entry to place a tighter regulatory control on the prices set in the (potentially) competitive markets and to make it optimal to charge in these markets – in case of entry – prices so low that entry is unprofitable.     

法制转型、不平等与中国的经济增长——1952-2003中国法院诉讼的实证研究

自1840年鸦片战争以来,法制现代化与经济现代化的转型,成了近代中国在寻求民族独立和国家富强过程中的主旋律.世界各国的发展经验表明,因政治、经济、文化、宗教、风俗惯例等因素的差异,法制转型与经济增长在世界各个地区之间的展开呈现出迥然不同的路径和特征.本文通过对1952-2003年间中国法院诉讼案与经济增长以及不平等诸变量之间实证关系的计量检验,认为:现代中国的法制转型,是一个生发于经济增长过程之中的由传统"人治"型模式向现代"法治"型模式转变的演化过程.经济的持续增长,以及伴随经济成长而致的个人素质的普遍提升,为外来移植的法律资源与本土自生的法律资源之间的融合提供了一个制度性的激励.同时,司法公正和收入不平等的变动,成了法制成功转型和经济持续成长的约束条件.文章的最后,笔者基于实证检验的结果给出了观察和预测法院诉讼案件数量变动的判断准则,并对政府政策的制定提出了有参考价值的意见.     

Campaign War Chests, Entry Deterrence, and Voter Rationality

It is often claimed that the accumulation of "war chests" by incumbents deters entry by high–quality challengers in Congressional elections. This paper presents a game–theoretic analysis of the interaction between an incumbent, potential challengers, an interest group, and a representative (rational) voter, where the incumbent's "quality" (or "legislative effectiveness") is known to the interest group, but not to the voter or to potential challengers. Under certain conditions, a perfectly revealing equilibrium exists; the incumbent signals her quality by raising funds from the interest group to accumulate a war chest. The entry deterrence effect thus operates solely through the role of war chests in signaling incumbent quality.     

Negotiated Enforcement and Credible Deterrence

This paper develops a model of law enforcement in which indicted offenders and the prosecutor can negotiate the penalty prior to the completion of the investigation. The analysis focuses on the credibility of the conviction threat: the prosecutor cannot commit to any predetermined level of investigative effort should the negotiation fail. The settlement stage introduces several new features of the optimal enforcement policy, including the possibility that maximal sanctions may not be optimal. We show that the screening process associated with the negotiation stage reduces the incentives for the prosecutor to undertake thorough investigations and increases the rate of noncompliance.     

Import Quotas and Entry Deterrence

Using a simple version of the Milgrom and Roberts entry deterrence model, it is shown that adjusting a quota so that a greater volume of imports is allowed, can facilitate entry into the domestic industry. That is, the easing of a quota, can cause the domestic incumbent to shift from deterring entry to accommodating entry.     

Litigation,liability, and incentives for care

In this paper, potential injurers are subject to a negligence standard and differ in cost of taking care; in the event of accident, the injurer's degree of care is private information in litigation that follows. Award of damages for pain and suffering will lead to a general increase in care and hence reduce the likehood of accident. A tighter negligence standard will lead some potential injurers to take more care and others to take less. Adoption of a rule under which the loser at trial must pay the litigation costs of the winner will reduce the pressure for punitive damages.     

Managing Foreign Direct Investment: Commitment, Deterrence, And Diversion

The paper models the multinational choice between foreign direct investment in and exporting to a domestic market as an equilibrium outcome of strategic play between domestic and foreign firms. Two cases are considered, one in which the domestic firm can precommit to output levels (as, for example, through investment in a distribution network), and one in which such precommitment is not possible. The domestic firm's strategy in the case of precommitment includes aggressive efforts to deter or divert foreign investment and results in fewer observed equilibria with foreign investment than would otherwise occur. Tariffs designed to switch the foreign decision from exporting to direct investment may lead instead to monopolization of the market by the domestic firm.     

Crime, Punishment and Deterrence in Australia: An Empirical Investigation*

This paper provides empirical estimates of the determinants of crime rates in Australia. It differs from most modern criminological analysis by being aggregative rather than offender-based and by deriving from the economic approach to criminal behaviour. Its major finding is that court committals and imprisonments have operated as major deterrent factors in explaining variations in recorded crime rates. These deterrence results seem especially strong and robust. Improved measurement, however, could alter the findings for some other influences examined. The paper considers the relationship of these research findings to criminal justice policy.     

官司、声誉与上市企业更名

本文以声誉为着眼点,对我国上市企业更名与被诉官司之间的关系进行了理论和实证分析。研究发现,被诉官司引致的负面声誉冲击会显著、稳健地提高企业更名概率,而其中尤以资金和产权类官司的效应最强。影响机制方面,官司的声誉效应更多表现为加剧企业融资困境和内部代理冲突,并形成企业更名的主要诱因,相对而言产品市场则因信息迟滞等原因而并非关键的传递途径。我们的研究表明,被诉官司的确类似于负面的商业性信用评级,向市场传递了企业的声誉信号,但企业更名却在一定程度上弱化了这种声誉信号的作用。     

Entry Deterrence and the Efficient Component Pricing Rule

This note comments on the article 'Entry and Entry Deterrence under the New Access Code' by Amiti and Maddock, published in the Australian Economic Review, 3rd quarter 1996. It is found that Amiti and Maddock do not show that efficient component pricing by an incumbent vertically-integrated monopolist will deter socially efficient entry of a new competitor.     

Regulating Multiple Polluters: Deterrence and Liability Allocation

We consider regulation of multiple polluters when individual emissions are unobservable. The tension between pollution deterrence and funding of remediation is examined under two constraints: that penalty revenues fully fund remediation costs and that the regulator cannot make positive transfers to firms. To isolate the effect of increasing the number of polluters, we compare an industry consisting of a single large firm with one in which many small firms in aggregate mimic the large firm. Contrary to previous findings, both the number of firms and the ability to monitor individual firms affect the welfare of a large class of regulators.     

Price-Matching Guarantees and Entry Deterrence under Incomplete Information

This paper studies price-matching guarantees in a market where entrant does not have perfect information about incumbent’s cost. The low-cost incumbent can adopt price-matching guarantees as a signal to distinguish itself from the high-cost type and thus effectively deter entry. On the other hand, the high-cost incumbent can successfully fool the potential entrant under certain conditions. Compared with the equilibriums in situations where the option of offering a price guarantee is not available, the use of this instrument either makes it easier for the low-cost incumbent to signal its cost, or expands the range of parameters over which the high-cost incumbent is able to deter entry successfully.     

Incentive Contracts for Infrastructure,Litigation and Weak Institutions

In this paper we revisit incentive contract design in a simple setting, after developing a model that captures the fact that in weak institutional settings the procurement of large scale public works through contracts with strong incentives for private firms, may result in excessive litigation over contract terms. This result is possible because we assume that parties in litigation can influence (by purchasing better or more legal services) the observable merits of their case. In weak institutional settings, governments have an inherent disadvantage in these litigation contests. We show that a commitment to a prespecified level of litigation effort by the government, together with weaker incentive contracts, is a more efficient procurement mechanism.Jel Classification: D8, H57, H54, K41, K23, L51     

Detection Avoidance and Deterrence: Some Paradoxical Arithmetic

This paper extends Malik's analysis to the case where criminals' avoidance efforts and public expenditures in the detection of criminals are strategic complements in the aggregate technology of control of illegal behaviors. In this set up, we show that whenever criminals' avoidance efforts are more sensitive to the frequency than to the severity of sanctions, it is always socially efficient to set the fine at the maximal possible level. However, several paradoxical consequences occur: there may exist overdeterrence at optimum; more repressive policies lead to fewer arrests of offenders while more crimes may be committed; at the same time, the society may be closer to the first best number of crimes.     

卖空机制、诉讼风险与审计收费

基于我国推出融资融券业务这一“自然实验”,文章考察了卖空机制如何通过改变诉讼风险而影响公司审计收费。研究发现,卖空机制的引入增加了公司股价下跌的压力,并增强了投资者挖掘公司负面消息的动机,从而导致公司审计的诉讼风险提高,会计师事务所要求更高的审计收费。进一步的分析显示,由于国有企业的信息披露环境较差,卖空机制对国有企业审计收费的提升作用更加明显;由于“四大”具有更高的赔偿能力,卖空机制更加显著地增加了“四大”审计公司的审计收费;对于法制环境较差地区的企业,由于管理层更有动机隐藏坏消息,公司审计收费因卖空机制的存在而显著提高。     

The Impact of Demographics on Policy Outcomes Under Varying Institutional Frameworks

This paper examines the impact that demographics have on policy outcomes. The impact that aldermanic ward-level demographics have on the number of liquor licenses is measured in two US cities. In one city there is a great deal of direct resident involvement in the issuance process, while in the other city, issuance decisions are handled by elected representatives. This research does find that demographics have a significant impact on policy outcomes. However, the paper does not find a significant difference in outcomes between decisions made by elected representatives and those made by the community.     

School Finance Litigation, Tax and Expenditure Limitations, and Education Spending

Since the early 1970s, litigation in many U.S. states has led to education finance reform. Over the same period, many states have imposed new tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) on local governments. The imposition of a TEL may alter how local and state education expenditures change subsequent to court-mandated decreases in spending inequality. Similarly, the effectiveness of TELs in limiting local education expenditures may be influenced by reform. To better evaluate the effects of reform and TELs on education spending, this article considers them jointly and finds that reform has a negative effect on local own-source education expenditures only in the presence of TELs. In the absence of court-ordered reform, TELs decrease own-source expenditure, but the effect is less pronounced than when TELs are present with reform. When both are present, state government spending on education is higher. Also TELs and court-ordered reform independently increase state government spending on education. (JEL H72 , I22 )