Paragons of virtue? Competitor entry and the strategies of incumbents in the U.S. local telecommunications industry

We investigate whether the presence of new competitors has influenced the behaviour of U.S. incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) with respect to pricing, advertising and the extent of diversification that they engage in. This issue is explored empirically, using data for the major local exchange carriers for the years 1994 to 1998. The period straddles periods of both absence and presence of competition in the industry, since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has opened hitherto closed markets to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). While a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report on local competition documents vigorous entry during the past years, the market share of the entrants is insubstantial. Our results indicate that the threat provided by market entrants has notably influenced the strategic behaviour of ILECs. The findings show that the incumbent U.S. local operators, particularly the larger ILECs, aggressively protect their profit streams from traditional business. The evidence demonstrates that the ILECs have responded to the Telecommunications Act 1996, and to the threat of market entry it has created, through entry deterrence. This strategic behaviour has been successful in providing ILECs with protection of their monopolistic markets so far.     

Potential competition and coordination in a market-entry game

When there are too many potential competitors available to exploit a new market opportunity, the risk of multiple entry may discourage entry. This paper employs a contest to coordinate entry and compares the outcome with the mixed-strategy approach. Expected profit per firm decreases with potential competition and welfare eventually decreases with potential competition for many contest designs. The contest outcome is welfare superior to the mixed-strategy outcome when entry costs are high but the situation is reversed when entry costs are low. The contest model is consistent with certain empirical evidence on investment rivalry.     

Tacit Coordination in a Decentralized Market Entry Game with Fixed Capacity

We focus on a class of market entry games in which a newly emergent market opportunity may be fruitfully exploited by no more than a commonly known, exogenously determined number of firms. Our results show significant effects of the parameters manipulated in the study, namely, the market capacity, entry fee, and method of subject assignment to groups (fixed vs. random). In contrast to previous market entry games with linear payoff functions, we find no evidence of convergence to equilibrium play on the aggregate level. Shifting the focus of the analysis from the aggregate to the individual level, four clusters of subjects are identified. The patterns are: (1) choice of the same action that is independent of the parameters of the game or the outcome of previous presentations of the same game; (2) random choices with probabilities prescribed by the equilibrium solution for risk-neutral players; (3) random choices with probabilities equal to the individual observed overall proportion of entry; and (4) sequential dependencies that violate any model that assumes randomization. Subjects in the fourth and largest category are shown to adjust their choices in accordance with a simple principle of strategic reasoning.     

Market Liberalization,Regulatory Uncertainty,and Firm Investment

This paper analyzes the effects of regulatory uncertainty regarding labor costs on investment in a liberalized market. We distinguish between the external investment margin (market entry) and the internal investment margin (technology), and establish that regulatory uncertainty affects these margins differently, encouraging market entry, but discouraging technological investment. As a consequence, the impact of regulatory uncertainty on competition in liberalized markets is a combination of these two countervailing forces.     

市场信号、技术特征与中国国际高质量专利

近年来,中国专利申请量与授权量得到了快速飞跃,然而“专利泡沫”“专利沉睡”等问题也日益凸显,如何有效促进专利数量到专利质量的转变是实现专利强国的关键。本文基于信号传递理论,构建了市场信号与技术特征共同影响国际高质量专利形成的理论模型,并利用中国在美国专利与商标局(USPTO)申请的专利数据进行了实证检验。研究结果表明:市场信号有助于传递积极的专利信号与打破信息不对称,推动形成国际高质量专利;技术特征能够扩大专利自身的技术范围与技术合作空间,与国际高质量专利也存在显著正向关系;此外,技术特征能够产生技术噪音与技术竞争压力,弱化信号传递效率,从而负向调节市场信号对国际高质量专利的促进效应。本文认为与市场上的普通商品一样,专利存在“酒香也怕巷子深”问题,一方面企业应该加强专利国际推广;另一方面政府需要进一步完善市场机制与减弱信息不对称,共同塑造中国国际高质量专利。     

最优专利制度研究

本文构建了一个动态一般均衡模型来研究最优专利长度和最优专利宽度的问题。研究结论表明,最优的专利长度和专利宽度都是有限的。专利长度的增加会通过促进创新来提高社会福利水平,同时,也会导致市场扭曲,从而降低社会福利水平,但随着专利长度的不断增加,前者的效应会小于后者的效应,因此,有限的专利长度是最优的。有效的专利宽度应该一方面使得模仿产品的质量水平不要太低,从而保证模仿产品对专利产品形成潜在的威胁,逼迫专利产品的价格低于垄断价格,减小市场扭曲;另一方面使得模仿产品的质量不要太高,从而保证专利产品能够制定较高的垄断价格,促进创新。     

Management of Foreign Market Entry： A Study of Czech Companies

Internationalization of company activities is the necessity of the development for majority of entrepreneurial subjects in the Czech Republic. Internationalization of entrepreneurial activities becomes a tool of business competitiveness. Selecting the right foreign entry mode is an important decision, which demands a lot of resources and thorough planning. The factors influencing company＇s choice of entry mode are divided into two main groups subsuming--external and internal factors. External factors consist of determinants regarding the company＇s environment while the intemal ones are determined by the company＇s specific factors. The opening of new markets such as in the Czech Republic has created the potential for small and medium-size enterprise （SME） expansion and investment. The objective of this paper is to present an application of the entry modes of the selected Czech entrepreneurial subjects. The companies included in the study are those that have undertaken internationalization activities and are incorporated in the Czech Republic. There were a total of 297 enterprises that participated in the research. The research method was an oral questioning and the main instrument was a questionnaire. A relatively low degree of Czech companies that have undergone intemationalization has resulted in the dominance of the least advanced forms of internationalization expansion, mainly exports with a small share of more advanced forms of foreign direct investments and a very low level of forms of international cooperation. Czech companies are in decision about the choosing the foreign entry mode influenced by the many factors. The greatest influence on the choice of foreign entry mode has entry mode variables. Entry mode variables constitute variables assessment characteristics of particular entry mode.     

International intellectual property rights: Effects on growth, welfare and income inequality

What are the effects of strengthening developing countries’ protection for intellectual property rights on economic growth and income inequality in the global economy? To analyze this question, we develop a two-country R&;D-based growth model with wealth heterogeneity. In this growth-theoretic framework, we show that strengthening patent protection in either country increases economic growth and income inequality in both countries. Furthermore, we derive the Nash equilibrium level of patent breadth and find that it is sub-optimally low relative to globally optimal patent breadth due to the positive externality effects that are captured by a spillover parameter.     

跨国公司进入对中国市场结构变动的影响

随着我国利用外商投资规模不断扩大,跨国公司凭借其规模、技术、营销等方面的竞争优势,实现了对中国市场进入壁垒的突破与重建,进而对中国的产业组织结构产生了不可忽视的影响。一方面,跨国公司进入一定程度上促进了我国产业组织结构的优化;另一方面,跨国公司的市场势力不断增强,产业控制程度提高,导致我国市场结构的二元级差有所增大。今后,我国应进一步规范跨国公司投资企业的竞争行为,促使其在改善中国市场结构方面发挥更积极的作用。     

战略因素影响下的企业海外市场进入模式选择

企业海外市场进入模式选择受到企业内外部多重因素的影响。经济学范式的进入模式选择理论主要从利润最大化的角度加以分析,对于许多情况下企业的非最大化进入行为缺乏说服力。本文旨在探讨企业内部战略因素对海外市场进入模式选择的影响,以揭示企业在不同战略导向下的进入模式选择。     

国际市场进入：并购投资模式研究——以上海汽车集团股份有限公司为例

国际市场进入模式一直是国际商务研究领域的热点问题.在企业国际化发展过程中,国际市场进入模式的选择往往在一定程度上决定了企业拓展国际市场、参与全球资源配置的成败.上海汽车集团股份有限公司的案例为并购投资进入模式提供了启示:明确企业在选择并购投资时的优势和目标,了解目标市场的环境,积极进行并购后的整合.得出并购投资进入模式在实际运用中的重要启示.     

Elicitation of Strategy Profiles in Large Group Coordination Games

The strategy method is an experimental procedure for eliciting a complete strategy of play for all information sets, not only the ones that happen to be reached during the course of a play of a game. We use it to elicit individual strategy profiles for a class of large group, market entry games in which the payoff for a player who enters on a given market capacity value decreases linearly in the difference between the capacity value and the corresponding number of entrants. Our results show that the aggregate frequencies of entry do not differ from previous results obtained under the more common decision method. Under both methods, the number of entrants across a large set of market capacity values is organized remarkably well by the equilibrium solution. In contrast, theindividual profiles do not support mixed equilibrium play; only three of the sixty profiles suggest attempts at randomization or mixing between periods. About half of the individual profiles appear to converge, albeit slowly, to cutoff decision policies and more than a quarter of the profiles exhibit a variety of patterns that defy classification.     

企业社会责任标准国际化背景下企业进入策略研究*

本文通过构建博弈模型，对企业社会责任（CSR）标准国际化背景下企业进入策略进行研究。本文发现，企业最优进入策略受到进入成本影响，当进入成本较低时所有企业都适合选择进入高CSR标准市场，当进入成本较高时所有企业都不适合选择进入，当成本介于两者之间时适合部分企业选择进入。在对社会福利的分析中还发现，当进入是企业最优策略时，无论是部分进入还是全部进入，企业承担更高的社会责任能同时提升企业利润和社会福利水平。     

假冒生产对专利制度的伤害

本文是对中国年轻的专利制度的经济学分析。通过一个包含假冒生产行为的理论模型和相应的计量检验 ,我们研究了中国普遍存在的假冒生产活动对专利保护的影响 ,并得出结论 :中国 1 993年以延长专利保护时间为主的专利法修改未使地区专利申请和研究开发投入的倾向上升 ,反而有所下降 ,原因在于专利保护时间的延长刺激了更多的假冒企业进入那些具有较大假冒潜力的行业 ,从而专利开发企业的利益受到了损害 ,也就没有动力进行进一步的研究开发和专利申请。对一切行业实行相同的专利保护期T与相同的惩罚假冒力度K ,必定违反最优专利制度设计原则。应该针对不同行业的假冒生产特点 ,通过制定相应的法律政策使假冒潜力最大的行业假冒成本提高。另外 ,就当前关于计算机软件保护的争论 ,本文认为软件行业过去保护不足。     

INSUFFICIENT ENTRY OF EMPLOYEE‐CONTROLLED FIRMS IN A FREE‐ENTRY OLIGOPOLY

This study is a theoretical examination of whether employee‐controlled firms (ECFs) enter a free‐entry oligopolistic market excessively or insufficiently, from the viewpoint of welfare maximization. The excess entry theorem is well known in oligopoly theory. According to this theorem, a greater number of profit‐maximizing firms enter a free‐entry oligopolistic market than is optimal for welfare maximization. We demonstrate the possibility that insufficient entry arises when ECFs compete in a free‐entry market. In particular, we show that if both the demand and cost functions are convex, insufficient ECF entry necessarily occurs. Our results suggest that competition among firms seeking purposes other than profit might lead to insufficient entry because differences in competing firms’ objectives affect the intensity of market competition.     

Product market deregulation and the US employment miracle

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual bargaining. We calibrate the model to US data and perform a policy experiment to assess whether the decrease in trend unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s could be directly attributed to product market deregulation. Under our baseline calibration, our results suggest that a decrease of less than two-tenths of a percentage point of unemployment rates can be attributed to product market deregulation, a surprisingly small amount.     

Enterprise restructuring and bank competition in transition economies

We investigate how bank competition affects the efficiency of credit allocation, using a model of spatial competition. Our analysis shows that bad loans are more likely the larger the number of banks competing for customers. We study further how many banks will be active if market entry is not regulated. Free entry can induce too much entry and thus too many bad loans compared to the social optimum. Finally we analyse how bank competition affects the restructuring efforts of firms. We find that restructuring has positive externalities which give rise to multiple equilibria, with either much or little restructuring activity.
JEL classification: D43, G21, G34, L13, P31, P34.     

Effects of a blocking patent on R&D with endogenous survival activities

This study analyzes the effect of strengthening patent protection for innovation and economic growth by introducing a blocking patent into the endogenous growth model developed by Furukawa (Econ Lett 121(1):26–29, 2013a), which features survival activity of patent holders in the R&D sector with a variety-expansion model. Results show that strengthening patent protection can raise the economic growth rate and social welfare through an endogenous survival investment. Additionally, this study examines the effects of increasing subsidies for R&D. We find that increasing R&D subsidy rate can negatively affect economic growth and social welfare because of the investment for survival activities. This result shows the novel role of a blocking patent in determining innovation effects of R&D subsidies. Furthermore, we analyze the effect of patent breadth which is another patent instrument in this model on innovation and economic growth. Results show that the growth and welfare effects of the profit-division rule and the subsidy rate for R&D may vary with the size of patent breadth.     

Patents and quality growth in OLG economy

This paper shows how heterogeneity in patent ownership across generations and lifecycle saving considerations qualitatively change the conventional implications of patent policy for quality growth. We study a close Overlapping Generations economy that grows through sequential quality improvements (“quality-ladder”), to show that for plausible values of the Inter-temporal Elasticity of Substitution (a) shorter patent length enhances growth (b) under exogenous innovation size loosening patent breadth protection spurs R&D investment and quality growth and (c) the effect of loosening lagging breadth protection on R&D investment and quality growth under endogenous innovation size depends on patents length. Our findings explore a new channel through which strong patents may hinder innovation and emphasize the importance of coordination in patent-policy across the different dimensions of the patents system.     

Product market regulation,trend inflation and inflation dynamics in the new Keynesian Phillips curve

In this empirical paper, we take a close look at the impact of the observed decline in the product market regulation, and hence in the barriers to entry and in impediments to competition, on inflation dynamics since the early 1980s.We use an enlarged new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) allowing for entry of firms and increasing competitive pressures with the number of firms and non zero trend inflation.Using OECD indicators on product market regulations, characterized by persistent fluctuations, and taking into account the non stationary properties of the inflation process, we investigate the empirical relevance of this NKPC for inflation dynamics in the US and France, assuming VAR expectations. The results point out that product market regulation is a good candidate as an exogenous structural source of the observed persistence in inflation for the past thirty years in both the US and France.