On the Regulation of a Vertically Differentiated Market

The aim of this paper is to investigate a vertically differentiated market served either by a multiproduct monopolist or by duopolists, in which a public authority aiming at increasing the welfare level can choose among two instruments, namely, quality taxation/subsidisation, and minimum quality standard. In the monopoly case they are equivalent as to the social welfare level, in that both allow the regulator to achieve the second best level of social welfare he would attain if he were to set qualities under the monopoly pricing rule, while they are not equivalent in terms of the distribution of surplus. In the duopoly regime, we show that there exists a taxation/subsidisation scheme inducing firms to produce the socially optimal qualites.     

Using Stock Price Information to Regulate Firms

This paper examines the role of the information contained in stock prices in the regulation of privatized firms. Stock prices contain noisy but unbiased information about firm's future prospects that regulators can use to decide on some regulatory policies. The main argument developed is that the observation of stock price movements reduces the incentives of regulators to develop their own monitoring technologies and can allow them to commit to relatively light-handed regulations. This protects firm's investments in cost reduction activities and can increase ex ante welfare.     

R&D and Output in a Regulated Vertically Integrated Oligopoly

This paper examines input price regulation's effects on research and development (R&D) and output in a vertically integrated industry. A single integrated firm produces the crucial input and the output. The non-integrated rival does not produce the input but buys it from the integrated firm at a regulated price. Only the integrated firm engages in cost-reducing R&D. Results show that changes in input price have a negative effect on the integrated firm's output and R&D. The non-integrated firm's output response to changes in input price depends upon the slope of the demand curve. The welfare analysis examines the social desirability of such regulation.     

Measuring the Intensity of Vertically Integrated Multinational Enterprises

Using data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), this study attempts to measure the intensity of vertically integrated multinational enterprises (VMNEs) for US foreign direct investment (FDI). By comparing the primary industry of US parents and their foreign affiliates, it is found that a significant proportion of VMNEs exists for US FDI abroad, which range over 14 manufacturing and three nonmanufacturing industries. The intensity of VMNEs is found to be negatively related with the host countries' labor cost. Meanwhile, a critical amount of VMNEs arise to take advantage of proximity to customers through FDI.     

Strategic Reaction of Vertically Integrated Firms to Downstream Entry: Deterrence or Accommodation

The purpose of this paper is to analyze strategic behavior of vertically integrated firms when there is downstream entry, taking into account the balance between competition in the market and competition for the market. This analysis can serve to explain diverse distributional structures, including the coexistence of vertically integrated firms and independent retailers. And it shows that the relative efficiency of downstream entrants and the level of competition among incumbents are two major factors in determining equilibrium configuration.     

Intra-firm Branch Competition for a Monopolist

This paper studies the effect of intra-firm branch competition in a monopoly setting. It demonstrates that intra-firm branch competition has a significant impact on the firm's market decisions, and consequently on the market outcome. The paper has identified the sufficient conditions under which a branch-competitive monopoly is superior to a pure monopoly from the consumer's viewpoint in that the former supplies more quantity and higher quality at the same price.     

On the Social Desirability of Patents for Sequential Innovations in a Vertically Differentiated Market

We consider a market for vertically differentiated goods where firms enter over time, after having developed innovations characterised by different quality levels. We show that patent height and length interact to determine the ultimate emergence of duopoly. In general, imposing quality improvements on later entrants entails the persistence of monopoly, while a duopoly equilibrium emerges when the second innovator is allowed to produce a sufficiently inferior quality and the patent protection granted to the first innovator is not too long-lasting.     

转轨资本市场条件下如何进一步规范和发展机构投资者

当前中国资本市场机构投资者超常规的发展过程中逐渐暴露出诸如规模仍然偏小、内部结构不平衡、功能发挥不到位等问题.而提升监管的国际化水平:强化机构投资者的社会责任;促进机构投资者积极参与上市公司治理和股权管理;发展以养老基金、保险资金为代表的长期机构投资者;推动基金业做优做强,规范发展私募基金;提高转轨市场创新的水平,建立期货投资基金和对冲基金等措施则是我国转轨资本市场条件下进一步规范和发展机构投资者的较好对策.     

Conjectural Variations, Market Power, and Optimal Trade Policy in a Vertically Related Industry

The paper introduces the conjectural variations and bargaining approaches into a vertical model wherein a foreign upstream firm supplies one input to two downstream firms that produce differentiated products for the export market. Various downstream firms’ competition modes and upstream's pricing schemes emerge as special cases of this formulation. The authors show that the optimal export policy of a downstream country depends crucially on the downstream firms’ conjectures of rivals’ responses, the upstream firm's pricing schemes, their relative bargaining powers, and the degree of product differentiation. If the upstream's pricing or bargaining power is strong (weak) and if the downstream's degree of competition is high (low), a tax (subsidy) is optimal owing to a strong (weak) vertical profit‐shifting effect and a weak (strong) horizontal effect.     

证券市场是促进经济结构调整的重要推动力

本文从证券市场推动产业结构的优化升级 ,促进新兴支柱产业和优势产业快速发展 ;推动国有经济结构的合理化调整 ,促进经营机制转换和产品结构升级换代 ;推动产权结构改革和所有制结构的调整 ,促进公有制多种形式的有效实现等方面论述了证券市场对推动经济结构调整的重要作用 ,分析了山西证券市场发育滞后的原因 ,提出了有关发展山西证券市场的建议。     

产业结构失衡与调整的市场机制研究——山西产业结构调整的再思考

在我国特别是在资源型地区,由于市场机制调节产业结构的机制存在要素自由流动不畅、利益机制传导受阻、核心技术缺乏等问题,使市场机制作用的发挥受到较大影响,导致这些地区往往存在严重的产业结构失衡与产业升级较慢等问题。当前,资源性经济景气下降,诸如山西这样资源型地区的"寒号鸟"们再次感受到了冬天的寒冷,又到了市场倒逼机制开始发挥作用的时期。在这个时期,需抓住我国深入市场化改革的机遇,破除阻碍市场调节产业结构调整机制的多重障碍,通过发展混合所有制经济、激活国企利益机制功能和创新科研机制确立核心技术研发主体等措施,完善市场调节机制,推进地区产业结构调整,走出"调整-反弹-再调整"的结构调整怪圈。     

Too Small to Regulate

The paper argues that to achieve compliance of firms with regulations such as product quality or environmental or health standards it is better to have industries with a few large corporations than numerous small firms. We construct a model to show that limited liability constraints bind more easily in competitive industries, making it harder to impose sufficiently severe penalties and costlier to send sufficient monitors. Having large corporations allows the government effectively to delegate some of its monitoring functions to the managers of the corporation. The tradeoff between this issue and the usual argument in favor of competition is considered.

     

Using Labor Market Information to Evaluate Industrial Performance

Despite all the talk about a prioris and metaphysics, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's criticism amounts to an attack on pluralism and the evolutionary scientific point of view from a traditional Catholic perspective. The proposal by Andrew Hodge and Alan Duhs to entertain Ratzinger's criticism affords the opportunity to remind us of how John Dewey would respond from his secular, scientific point of view to the issues under discussion. From Dewey's point of view, I discuss briefly issues about the nature and place of presuppositions, the nature of human potentiality, the place of faith, the way to view society and human character, the nature of human growth and freedom, teleology, the nature and role of reason and intelligence, the failures of absolutism, and the importance of the method of intelligence and democratic habits against the methods and institutions of absolutism.     

运用市场规律调整经济结构

结构调整是一个动态过程。“八五”和“九五”期间,虽然我省把结构调整作为经济工作的重中之重来抓,但由于调整结构的方式方法不完全适合市场经济运行规律,调整效果并不理想。因此,在“十五”期间,结构调整仍是我省经济工作的主线。要确保经济结构调整取得明显成效,我们必须加强对结构调整方式方法的研究。一、对我省经济结构的总体评价及问题分析1．我省经济结构调整取得的成绩。“九五”以来,我省经济结构有了一定程度的改善,就业结构也呈现出一产下降、二产微升、三产大幅上升的格局。第一产业综合竞争能力增强。农产品商品化率…     

Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with a Positional Good

We analyse positional effects in a monopoly market with vertical differentiation, comparing monopoly and social planning. The provision of quality under monopoly depends upon the relative size of positional effects and the hedonic evaluation of quality. An elitarian equilibrium where quality increases in the level of positional concern emerges under monopoly, only if the market is sufficiently rich. Under social planning, quality increases in the level of positional externality, independently of market affluency. As long as partial market coverage obtains under both regimes, the monopoly deadweight loss decreases as the positional externality becomes more relevant.     

Process R&;D and Product Line Deletion by a Multiproduct Monopolist

Relative to single-product firms, a multiproduct monopolist can internalize the negative externalities of its R&D investments (the ``cannibalization effect') in two ways: (1) To lower R&D investment for each product; and (2) To delete some of its product lines so as to enlarge the market size for the remaining lines. It is shown that line deletion is profitable if products are close substitutes. If products are not close substitutes, the multiproduct monopolist keeps all product lines and invests less in cost-reducing R&D than single-product firms engaging in Cournot competition with product differentiation. However, it invests more in R&D than single-product firms if there are significant economies of scope in R&D, or if the oligopolistic firms can cooperate in their R&D decisions.      

Strategic Trade Policy in a Vertically Related Industry

This paper investigates strategic export intervention in a final-good industry which uses an intermediate good supplied by a foreign monopolist. An export tax-cum-subsidy leads to horizontal and vertical rent extraction. The optimal government intervention in the final-good market is shown to depend on the pricing scheme employed by the intermediate-good producer.     

积极开拓印度市场,协调我国外贸发展结构

加入WTO以后，我国外贸发展迅速，但也存在外贸依存度过高、出口市场过于集中的问题，使贸易摩擦趋于频繁，加大了我国面临的国际经济和政治风险，危及我国的和平稳定与可持续发展。为减少对美、日、欧市场的过度依赖，分散风险，减少贸易纠纷，提高应变能力，我们必须大力开拓其他重点市场和新兴市场，努力实现出口市场多元化。作为世界上入口仅次于我国的发展中国家，印度近年来已成为世界上经济增速最快的国家之一，具有巨大的市场潜力，印度市场应成为我们重点开拓的出口市场，对外贸易发展结构的协调和我国发展周边关系都具有重要意义。本文重点探讨了我国企业拓展印度市场的策略。     

Market Size, Technology Choice, and Market Structure

We introduce technology choice into a model of monopolistic competition and analyze the structural effects of changes in market size. A larger market leads to the adoption of a large-scale technology. If a technology switch occurs, the number of firms decreases, and a rationalizing effect arises: individual and aggregate output increases; prices fall. This need not benefit consumers since a technology switch is associated with a decrease in product variety.     

市场结构与技术创新——以美国AT&T公司的拆分为例

本文以美国AT&T的拆分为模型案例 ,探讨和分析垄断与竞争 ,哪种市场结构更有利于企业的技术创新。本文的模型和实证的结果表明 ,在分割之前公司规模和研发之间存在显著的正相关 ,这说明规模在电信业中依然具有优势。本文的重点在于揭示出效率 (由TFP来衡量 )和竞争的关系 ,因此 ,本研究的一个更为重要的结果是 :TFP与研发之间在分割前是完全不相关 ,分割后却强烈正相关。这一结果表明 ,从受保护的垄断地位转移到竞争性的垄断迫使AT&T提高研发投资 ,以保持其竞争优势。