A Theory of Economic Obsolescence

A new generation of durable goods makes an old generation economically, even if not physically, obsolete. Economic obsolescence due to technological innovation requires the durable goods monopolist to implement price discrimination in two dimensions, both between consumers with different valuations and between consumers with different purchase histories. Equilibrium in the game between the durable goods monopolist and consumers depends on the extent of economic obsolescence and the relative sizes of the consumer groups. Underinvestment in innovation may take place. This contrasts with the standard literature on planned obsolescence where the durable goods monopolist overinvests in durability reducing technology.     

信息产品需求特性与垄断性市场结构

信息产业在供给、需求、市场结构等方面具有与传统产业不同的一些特征。某些特征决定了信息产业中垄断性市场结构为一种常态。本文从信息产品的需求角度出发，通过假设临界点的方法，分别针对信息产品的网络效应和局部边际效用递增效应建立模型，分析了这两种效应对于垄断性市场结构形成的影响，揭示了信息产业在一定条件下垄断性市场结构效率优于完全竞争市场结构。本文表明，信息产品的需求效应对于信息产业的垄断市场结构有着重要影响，往往使得垄断结构强化表现出有利于社会整体福利的趋势。因此，在制定针对信息产业的反垄断政策时，需要考虑信息产业与传统产业的不同特质。本文还以流行音乐产业为例，对模型进行了初步的验证。     

Optimal strategy of multi-product retailers with relative thinking and reference prices

Experimental evidence suggests that consumers are affected by reference prices and by relative price differences (“relative thinking”). A linear-city model of two retailers that sell two goods suggests how this consumer behavior affects firm strategy and market outcomes. A simple model analyzes the case in which all consumers want to buy both goods. An extended version adds consumers who want only one good. Relative thinking leads firms to increase the markup on the good with the higher reference price and decrease the markup on the other good, possibly to a negative markup. Stronger relative thinking increases the firms' profits.     

Intertemporal dependence of demand in an imperfectly competitive market: A differential game analysis

Intertemporal dependence of demand at the industry level, as exists in the case of motor fuel, alcohol, automobiles, electricity, and other goods and services, imparts a dimension of investment to current output decisions. Except in monopoly, such output decisions will have durable external effects. The present paper uses a differential game model to explore the behavior of such a market, with special emphasis on the effect of changes in the interest rate and in the speed of adjustment.     

制度倾斜、低技术锁定与中国经济增长

本文试图回答熊彼特创造性破坏理论在中国为何难以成立的问题。通过建立垄断企业与非垄断企业的博弈模型,我们证明了:对垄断厂商在制度与政策上的倾斜,会削弱非垄断企业进行创新的动力。进一步地,这会使得非垄断企业减少研发人员投入并增大其成为垄断厂商中间制品生产者的概率,同时使垄断厂商成为创新主导者的概率增大,于是创新对经济增长的贡献减少,最终使得经济增长主要是通过资本投入实现。在上述情况下,内生性的技术创新出现的频率会大大降低。这正是中国特色低技术锁定存在的根本性因素。     

An Asymmetric Oligopolist can Improve Welfare by Raising Price

We demonstrate that, in Bertrand/Cournot equilibrium, a firm with a relatively small market share may improve social welfare by raising its price. This could be because the price increase can mitigate an output-structure distortion: if there are two goods which have the same marginal cost, then, under some conditions, the good in higher demand (the efficient good) will have a higher markup rate than the other good (the inefficient good). This suggests that the output structure is distorted in favor of the inefficient good, since the higher markup rate of the efficient good should lead to a considerable increase in demand for the inefficient good.     

Resale and Collusion in A Dynamic Market for Semidurable Goods

The paper studies the incentives to form collusive agreements when goods can be traded in second‐hand markets. It will be shown that such incentives crucially depend on the rate of depreciation of the durable good and on consumer heterogeneity. The main contribution of the paper shows that an active second‐hand market may strengthen the incentives to collude, as do policies that affect the functioning of the second‐hand market (e.g., leasing policy and buy‐back). It will also be argued that the oligopoly incentives to adopt strategies that strengthen collusion often differ from the monopoly incentives to increase profits.     

自然垄断产业市场结构重组的目标、模式与政策实践

为促进自然垄断产业的有效竞争 ,提高经济效率 ,许多国家都对自然垄断产业实行市场结构重组政策。本文将探讨自然垄断产业市场结构重组的基本目标 ,5种主要市场结构重组模式及其特点 ,并分析一些经济发达国家和中国在自然垄断产业实行市场结构重组的政策实践。     

Intertemporal Price Discrimination in Frictionless Durable Goods Monopolies

I show that small differences in quality and production costs between durables and non-durables in a product line allow a durable goods monopolist to intertemporally price discriminate even with continuous trading. In particular, a monopolist would want to both sell and rent out a durable to achieve price discrimination. This incentive to price discriminate simultaneously creates inefficient delay in the sale of the durable good, a finite trading period and long run efficiency of the market. The Coase conjecture fails because the non-durable good acts as an outside option that guarantees a minimum profit in the market for durables.     

Informative Externalities and Pricing in Regulated Multiproduct Industries

This paper addresses the issue of how to organise a two-product industry with interdependent demands when the regulator cannot observe the demand level of the goods produced. Two industry structures are compared: a multiproduct monopoly, in which an informed firm produces both goods, and a differentiated duopoly, where two firms control one good each but the level of demand is known by one firm only. Focusing on the informative costs of regulation, the paper shows that, if goods are substitutes, the regulator may achieve a better performance through integration of production. With complements, instead, decentralisation tends to be preferred.     

Durable goods and horizontal merger analysis

Merger analysis based on standard HHI calculations generally may not fully consider the impact of product durability and hence may significantly bias enforcement efforts. Using an inverse demand equation modified to include a shift parameter linked to the installed base, this paper develops a Durability Adjusted HHI (DAHHI) measure of concentration. DAHHI analysis exposes two potential biases in standard HHI analysis: excessive enforcement in durable goods industries is likely using standard HHI analysis, and Merger Guidelines' thresholds are set too high for non-durable goods industries and too low for durable goods industries. Using the DAHHI methodology, the paper proposes corrections to both biases.I wish to thank Miriam Culjak, John de Figueiredo, Greg Rosston, Brian Silverman, Pablo Spiller, David Teece, Oliver Williamson, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Also, I wish to thank the Law and Economics Consulting Group for providing the opportunity to investigate this subject. All opinions and errors are the sole responsibility of the author.     

Bundling of substitutes or complements

The Adams-Yellen two good bundling framework is generalized to allow the goods to be substitutes or complements. General theorems on price change effects are given. A monopolist may find it most profitable to offer the goods only as a bundle, even if they are (imperfect) substitutes, or to not bundle the goods, even if they are complements. If one good is competitively sold, a monopoly producer of the other good can never increase profits by offering his good only as part of a bundle. However, such a monopolist might profitably offer his good in both bundled and unbundled form to price discriminate, even if the two goods are substitutes.     

CPI中采用使用者成本法测算自有住房消费的几个问题

在使用者成本法的基本公式及相关折旧模型的基础上，进一步讨论了采用使用者成本法测算自有住房消费的几个问题。文章首先讨论了使用者成本法与购得法之间的关系，进而探讨了这两种方法导致不同的住房消费量的情况；其次，介绍了如何使用折旧率处理住房的唯一性问题；最后，讨论了使用者成本法中对自有住房作为房屋和土地的复合品的处理方法。     

Controlling Sellers Who Provide Advice: Regulation and Competition*

A monopoly seller advising buyers about which of two goods fits their needs may be tempted to recommend the higher margin good. For the seller to collect information about a buyer’s needs and provide truthful advice, the profits from selling both goods must be similar enough, i.e., within an implementability cone. The optimal regulation controls pricing distortions and information-collection incentives separately via price regulation and fixed rewards respectively. This no longer holds when the seller has private information about costs as both problems interact. We study whether competition and the threat by buyers to switch sellers can substitute for regulation.     

The Economic Implications of House Price Capitalization: A Synthesis

In this article, I synthesize an emerging literature that explores the conditions under which public and private investments and intergovernmental transfers are capitalized into local house prices and the broader economic implications of such capitalization. The main insights are: (1) house price capitalization is more pronounced in locations with strict regulatory and geographical supply constraints; (2) capitalization can induce the provision of durable local public goods and club goods; and (3) capitalization effects—which are habitually ignored by policy‐makers—have important adverse consequences for a wide range of policies such as intergovernmental aid and the mortgage interest deduction.     

Monopoly Rents and Price Fixing in Betting Markets

Betting markets provide an ideal environment in which to examinemonopoly power due to the availability of detailed information on product pricing. In this paper we argue that the pricing strategies of companies in the U.K. betting industry are likely to be an important source of monopoly rents, particularly in the market for forecast bets. Pricing in these markets are shown to be explicitly coordinated. Further, price information is asymmetrically biased in favor of producers. We find evidence, based on U.K. data, that pricing of CSF bets is characterized by a significantly higher markup than pricing of single bets. Although this differential can in part be explained by the preferences of bettors, it is reasonable to attribute a significant part of the differential as being due to monopoly power.     

An investment model of durable good diffusion

Existing studies that deal with the diffusion of durable good innovations have been criticized for their lack of an explicit testable theory of new product growth. This paper attempts to remedy this situation by providing a theoretical model of market penetration of new durable goods derived from The basic assumption that potential users of the new intermediate product attempt to minimize costs. The resulting model defines a time path of short-run equilibrium market shares determined by the cost characteristics of both the new innovation and the equipment that it is designed to replace, the age distribution of the existing capital stock, and the growth rate of the adopting sector.     

行政垄断制度选择的一般分析框架——以我国电信业行政垄断制度的动态变迁为例

行政垄断是政府机构利用行政权力对竞争进行限制和排斥，会造成资源配置扭曲、社会福利损失、收入分配不均以及地方保护和区域市场分割等问题。但现实中行政垄断是客观并普遍存在的．在特定的经济环境中．行政垄断作为资源配置的一种手段发挥了市场调节无法实现的作用。本文借鉴新比较经济学的社会制度选择分析框架，建立了行政垄断制度选择的一般分析框架．并以此来重新思考行政垄断制度选择问题．最后应用该一般分析框架分析我国电信产业行政垄断制度的动态变迁过程。为我国行政垄断制度的改革提供一个一般分析框架和相应的理论指导乃本文目的之所在。