Wage Differentials by Race and Sex: The Roles of Taste Discrimination and Labor Market Information

Using a unique dataset, this article first documents that gaps in starting wages by race and sex persist after accounting for performance on the job. Evidence suggests that simple statistical discrimination, and not just taste discrimination, is partly responsible for race differences in starting wages. But because women's average performance in the sample is higher than men's, simple statistical discrimination cannot explain the sex gap. In more complex models of statistical discrimination, worse information about a group can lower its average wage. Estimates of the quality of labor market information indicate that this may explain women's lower starting wages.     

Multiproduct Price Regulation Under Asymmetric Information

We discuss the regulation of a multiproduct monopolist when the firm has private information about cost or demand conditions. The regulator offers the firm a set of prices from which to choose. When there is private information only about costs, the firm should always have a degree of discretion over its pricing policy. When uncertainty concerns demand, whether discretion is desirable depends on how demand elasticities vary with the scale of demands. If a positive demand shock is associated with a reduction in the market elasticity, discretion is good for overall welfare; otherwise it is not.     

A Note on Input Price Discrimination Under Bertrand Competition: Simultaneous vs. Sequential Contracting

Review of Industrial Organization - By allowing the supplier to contract simultaneously or sequentially with asymmetric retailers under Bertrand competition, we analyze the welfare implications of...     

The Role of Competition in Natural Monopoly: Costs, Public Ownership, and Regulation

Conventional policy for industries with very high economies of scale is to permit monopoly but to subject it to regulation or public ownership. Since the latter may not result in cost minimization, however, it is possible that competition, by forcing firms to operate at the cost frontier, may be less costly despite sacrificing some scale economies. The paper sets out the relevant analytical considerations, estimates a cost function for electric distribution utilities in the U.S., and tests for the relative costs of monopoly and duopoly utilities. Among other notable findings, it concludes that competition does indeed lower net costs.     

The Costs and Benefits of Long-Distance Entry: Regulation and Non-Price Discrimination

A primary goal of the 1996 Telecommunications Act isto encourage competition in long-distance telephonemarkets. Four years after passage of thislegislation, Bell Operating Companies (``BOCs') havebeen granted permission to offer long-distanceservices in only one state. The regulatory barrier toentry is justified on grounds that the BOCs have theability to discriminate against incumbentlong-distance carriers in the provision of essentialaccess services. We take this premise as given andquantify the critical level of discrimination requiredto offset the positive consumers' surplus gainsassociated with the enhanced competition resultingfrom BOC entry into long-distance markets.     

Hassle Costs, Price-Matching Guarantees and Price Competition: An Experiment

We experimentally investigate whether the collusion-facilitating nature of price-matching guarantees survives the introduction of hassle costs incurred by buyers to enforce these guarantees. The presence of an arbitrarily small number of positive hassle costs buyers may completely undermine incentives for collusion. To evaluate this possibility, we develop four one-shot price competition models that test the hassle cost argument by varying proportions of positive and zero hassle cost buyers present in the market. Although the theory predicts that the competitive price should emerge in equilibrium in all four models, we experimentally find significant price differences.     

Input Price Discrimination and Allocation Efficiency

This research examines the effects of input price discrimination on allocation efficiency and social welfare. Instead of assuming constant marginal costs, we allow downstream firms to produce under increasing marginal costs. When downstream firms operate in separate markets, even though total output remains unchanged, consumer surplus and social welfare could be greater under discriminatory pricing than under uniform pricing. Moreover, the social desirability of input price discrimination can still hold true when downstream firms compete either in Cournot or Bertrand fashion.

     

我国彩电产业的价格竞争、价格战与产业绩效

一、彩电产业价格战诱因与动机的初步分析从 2 0世纪 80年代初期至 1 990年为止 ,我国彩色电视机产量和销量都获得了较大的增长。 1 985～ 1 990年 ,彩电产量与市场销量分别从 435 .3万台和 378.6万台增加到 1 0 33万台和980万台。随着国内彩电厂商生产规模的扩大 ,规模经济因素逐渐发挥作用 ,一些在成本结构上具有优势的企业为了更好地扩张规模 ,开始运用价格竞争手段。例如 ,四川长虹于 1 989年率先发起了价格战 ,这为行业领先企业迅速扩大市场份额提供了基础。不过 ,价格竞争在这一时期对业内企业带来的冲击力 ,被两个因素所大大缓解。一…     

Spatial Price Discrimination: The Use of Parking Coupons by Downtown Retailers

Price discrimination in monopolistically competitive markets affects firms' joint profits through several pecuniary and nonpecuniary externalities. Discrimination is a public good if the net effect is positive. Using a random utility shopping destination choice model we investigate the effect of a downtown parking coupon program that discriminates in favor of suburban consumers and against consumers based downtown. The program appears profitable for downtown stores collectively, but in the noncooperative Nash equilibrium stores do not participate. Participation is thus subject to free-riding. As the subsidy rate required to induce participation rises, profits fall. Whatever the subsidy rate, social surplus declines.     

The Political Economy of Price Cap Regulation

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic substitutionof price cap regulation for rate-of-return regulationin the telecommunications industry. The 1996Telecommunications Act empowers state regulators toset the terms of competitive entry in local telephonemarkets. We investigate whether the form of regulationendogenously affects the regulator's behavior withrespect to competitive entry. The evidence revealsthat regulators in price cap jurisdictions tend to setmore liberal terms of entry in comparison withregulators in rate-of-return jurisdictions. Thissuggests that price cap regulation suffers fromincomplete contracting, undermining the potentiallysuperior incentive properties of this importantregulatory reform.     

审计市场中的合并、产业专用化投资和价格竞争

本文从产业组织的角度，分析了审计市场的合并、产业专用化和价格竞争等竞争行为，并进一步探讨了这些行为对审计质量和社会福利的影响。本文认为，审计质量的信号传递机制推动了产业中的合并行为，而审计产业的专用化投资行为在于策略性地阻止进入。由于审计产品的异质性、信任品特性以及强大的买方谈判能力使得审计市场存在激烈的价格竞争，而合并和产业专用化投资有助于事务所降低成本。因而，审计市场的竞争提高了社会福利。     

Contracts Versus Price Discrimination: Evidence From the SONJ Case

A feature of the Standard Oil antitrust case is that much of the case revolves around Standard’s selling lubricating oils to railroads. This paper explores the government’s theory that Standard’s rebates to the Pennsylvania RR represented price discrimination. Standard’s defense was an assertion that the lubrication contracts were relational contracts involving a service and that the behavior which the government labeled discriminatory represented persistent inefficient behavior on the part of the Pennsylvania system. Data from the trial and other sources are used to attempt to determine if the evidence presented at trial favors price discrimination or Standard’s inefficiency defense. This is done using data envelopment analysis to determine the inefficiency the Pennsylvania RR. However, in the end, most aspects of the case must be considered “not proven.”     

Indeterminacy and the Regulation of Task Allocation: The Shape of Support Roles in Healthcare

Drawing upon Marsden's typology of employment systems, this article explores how the indeterminacy of the employment relationship is enacted and resolved in relation to the healthcare assistant (HCA), a key work role in the delivery of nursing care in a hospital setting. It suggests that the regulation of task allocation within nursing assumes a hybrid form, requiring further analysis of the influences shaping the HCA role. Based on multi‐method hospital case studies, the article distinguishes different types of HCA, explaining their emergence by reference to the interaction between organizational structure and personal agency. The article illustrates the value of Marsden's framework, and by addressing its limits in a healthcare setting seeks to develop a deeper understanding of task allocation in different workplace employment systems.     

竞争性产业的价格规制

近年来,企业间的价格竞争及政府对竞争性产业①的规制特别是价格规制引起了我国经济理论界的争论。１９９８年５月１日《中华人民共和国价格法》开始实施,同年９月１０日国家经贸委下发了《关于部分工业产品实行行业自律价的意见》,１９９９年８月３日国家计委发布了《关于制止低价倾销行为的规定》（以下依次简称《价格法》、《意见》、《规定》）。竞争与反竞争的较量,实际上是市场体制建立过程中计划与市场两种观念的冲突,是不同利益主体站在各自立场上的交锋,是工业化和现代化进程中各种矛盾的集中体现。产业革命以来的欧洲、１９…     

Competition in Turkish mobile telecommunications markets: Price elasticities and network substitution

This paper estimates demand elasticities for Turkish mobile telecommunications markets. In contrast to most other studies, firm-level data is used to estimate dynamic panel data models including instrumental variable techniques. Both short- and long-run elasticities are calculated, yielding a long-run price elasticity of −0.72 for the post-paid market and of −0.33 for the pre-paid market. The short-run price elasticity is estimated to be −0.36 for the post-paid market and −0.20 for the pre-paid market. In addition, there is evidence of fixed-to-mobile traffic substitution for consumers who use pre-paid cards.     

Multilateral Vertical Contracting with an Alternative Supply: The Welfare Effects of a Ban on Price Discrimination

Rey and Tirole [Handbook of Industrial Organization. Amsterdam: Elsevier (2005)] considered a model in which a monopolist sells to downstream firms using nonlinear contracts. They showed that banning price discrimination fully restores the supplier’s ability to leverage its monopoly power by enabling it to commit not to offer side discounts. I show that the situation changes when the supplier competes against a fringe of less efficient rivals rather than being a monopolist. Then banning price discrimination may cause per-unit prices to fall and welfare to increase. The dominant supplier can take advantage of a strategic bargaining effect: reducing the per-unit price makes the outside option of buying from the fringe less profitable, allowing the dominant supplier to extract more bargaining surplus through the fixed fee.     

Competition in Grocery Retailing: The Impact of a New Strategic Group on BLS Price Increases

Metropolitan areas with a significant presence of warehouse stores had lower retail food price increases during 1977 to 1992 than did areas with no warehouse stores. The negative impact occurred largely during the first half of the 15-year period. Strategic learning appears to have led to a different response from incumbent supermarkets during 1985–1992. Change in prices was positively related to change in concentration and negatively related to entry.     

The NBA, Exit Discrimination, and Career Earnings

The purpose of this article is threefold. First, it complements the many wage discrimination studies by examining exit discrimination in the NBA using a decade's worth of data (the 1980s). White players have a 36 percent lower risk of being cut than black players, ceteris paribus , translating into an expected career length of 7.5 seasons for an apparently similar player who is white and 5.5 seasons for the same player who is black. Second, the career earnings effect of exit discrimination in the 1980s is larger ($808,000) than the career earnings effect of wage discrimination ($329,000). Third, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that customer racial discrimination is the reason for the observed exit discrimination.