Liquidity supply and volatility: futures market evidence

This article examines the provision of liquidity in futures markets as price volatility changes. We find that customer trading costs do not increase with volatility. However, for three of the four contracts studied, the nature of liquidity supply changes with volatility. Specifically, for relatively inactive contracts, customers as a group trade more with each other and less with market makers, on higher volatility days. By contrast, for the most active contract, trading between customers and market makers increases with volatility. We also find that market makers' income per contract decreases with volatility for one of the least active contracts in our sample, but is not significantly affected by volatility for the other contracts. These results are consistent with the idea that, for high‐cost, inactive contracts, market makers react to temporary increases in volatility by raising their bid‐ask spreads significantly, and customers provide increased liquidity through standing limit orders. An implication of our results is that electronic systems, where market maker participation is not required, are able to supply adequate liquidity during volatile periods. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:1–17, 2001     

What Makes Logistics Integration More Effective? Governance from Contractual and Relational Perspectives

Third-party logistics (3PL) user–provider integration is attracting increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. However, it remains unclear how best to adopt governance mechanisms to safeguard 3PL user–provider integration (e.g., information sharing and process coordination). Based on transaction cost economics and social exchange theory, this study examined the individual and joint effects of contractual (e.g., detailed contracts and contract application) and relational governance (e.g., trust and relational norms) on 3PL user–provider integration for operational performance. We conducted a survey involving 247 3PL service users and analyzed the conceptual model using the method of structural equation modeling. The results showed that process coordination improved operational performance, while information sharing alone did not significantly improve operational performance but complemented the role of process coordination in improving operational performance. In addition, having detailed contracts was positively related to process coordination, while contract application was positively related to information sharing. Trust was not significantly related to information sharing or process coordination, while relational norms were positively related to both. Finally, three joint effects on 3PL user–provider integration were found. Two of them were substitutional (detailed contracts and relational norms; contract application and trust), and one was complementary (detailed contracts and trust). This study makes several theoretical contributions and provides novel guidelines for 3PL relationship development.     

Unionized labor markets and globalized capital markets

This paper studies the effects of international integration of capital markets in a world where countries differ in their labor market institutions: one country has a perfectly competitive labor market while the other is unionized. We show that workers should favor autarky in the unionized country, but oppose it in the non unionized country and vice versa for owners of capital. Aggregate gains from integration, however, are negative. We also show that, under capital mobility, an increase in relative bargaining power of unions does not always improve workers' welfare.     

Local Market Structure and Strategic Organizational Form Choices: Evidence from Gasoline Stations

An extensive literature shows that agency issues and transaction costs impact vertical integration decisions. Another mature literature indicates that market structure influences competitive behavior. Less consideration has been given to how vertical integration and market structure may interact. I address this gap by focusing on the potential for moral hazard arising from intra-firm competition. Focusing on retail gasoline sales, I argue that when multiple stations share a common brand in a market, a vertically separated station has an incentive to deviate from the cooperative strategy that the brand-owning refiner would prefer. I empirically test this prediction using rich data, and find evidence of both such moral hazard and the desire to avoid it.     

“Conflict-performance assumption” or “performance-conflict assumption”: Insights from franchising

Franchising is an organizational governance form where relational and formal contracts complement each other and where franchisor and franchisees together may obtain better performance than working alone. Although relational contracts may adapt to changing environments, they are not as efficient in ambiguous settings. In franchised stores, liability for low performance is not always clear. Indeed, franchisor and franchisees work in close collaboration, and, therefore, this ambiguity on causes of low performance may lead to conflicts. The franchising literature, as far as we know, has addressed practitioners' concerns regarding performance on one side, and conflicts on the other side, but no study has exclusively focused on low performance and the emergence of conflicts. Our research contributes to the franchising literature by filling this relative gap and, contrary to “conflict-performance assumption” (Pearson, 1973; Duarte and Davies, 2003) held in the broader context of distribution channels, we consider low performance to be a cause, rather than a consequence, of franchisor/franchisee conflicts. This empirical study deals with franchising in France, the leading market in franchising in Europe and the third largest in the world. We used a qualitative approach based on 44 in-depth interviews with 27 franchisors and executives/high-level managers of franchise chains, as well as 17 franchisees from various industries to get a dual, and so more complete, assessment of franchising practitioners' views of performance-related conflicts. Our research findings show that franchisees, as independent small business owners, give priority to financial results compared to other goals and they are driven to continuously improve the performance of their store(s). When expectations are not met, franchisees sometimes blame franchisors because they are interdependent in their success and liability is not straightforward. As a collaborative team, franchisors and franchisees may benefit from minimizing conflicts and preventing them with the careful selection and management of franchisees that share franchisor's values and have internal locus of control.     

20 Jahre Binnenmarkt

In 1992 the European Single Market was to have been completed. But there is still no truly integrated market in many fields — the EC has to overcome many obstacles yet to make this happen. Based on different EU integration indexes, it is shown that internal market integration has developed since the introduction of the euro. At the same time, the internal market linkages are different from country to country. Internal — but also external - trade and wealth have grown. However, whether there would have been more or less success without the internal market is a question that must be answered. A single market probably does not require a common currency.     

网络平台纵向一体化的反垄断法规制——兼论杠杆理论在平台经济中的新生

网络平台纵向一体化极具垄断风险,其实质是市场力量的跨界传导即杠杆理论的行为表现。相比于纵向一体化带来的效率福利,其垄断风险更需引起重视,需要反垄断法加以规制。当下世界各国态度有两种：管控与放任。放任模式主要沿袭芝加哥学派的理论,但单一垄断利润定理相对忽视了长期垄断风险,也难以解释平台经济中的零价格市场结构;以“价低质优”作为评判消费者福利的基本标准,相对忽视了竞品的数量和消费者自我选择的权利,并且对消费者偏好预测的困难在平台经济下显现的尤为明显。平台经济时代,杠杆理论所体现的垄断力量传导效应必须得到重视,网络平台纵向一体化必须得到规制。     

Hedging performance analysis of energy markets: Evidence from copula quantile regression

This study investigates hedging performance with respect to different market structures for energy-related commodities, including West Texas Intermediate crude oil, Brent crude oil, Chinese crude oil, and Heating oil. Copula quantile regression functions and the generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroscedasticity model are combined to analyze the nonlinear impact of dependence and the heterogeneous impact of market structure changes on hedging performance. Results show that hedging performance presents nonlinearity and market structure changes have surprisingly strong heterogeneous effects on the quantile hedge ratio, where bearish and bullish have lower hedge ratios than normal markets, which is captured better by Clayton copula quantile regression. Additionally, the trend of hedging effectiveness over different market structures also shows an inverted U shape. After changing data frequency or the types of futures contracts, the conclusions remain the same. Our empirical findings imply that hedgers are supposed to adjust the hedging number of futures according to market structure changes to hedge price risk effectively.     

General equilibrium pricing of nonredundant forward contracts

We derive the general equilibrium of a dynamic financial market in which the investors' opportunity set includes nonredundant forward contracts. We show that Breeden's (1979) consumption‐based CAPM equation for forward contracts contains an extra term relative to that for cash assets. We name this term a strategy risk premium. It compensates investors for the (systematic) risk that stems from their very portfolio strategies when the latter involve nonredundant forward contracts. We also show that Merton's (1973) multibeta intertemporal CAPM must be amended for forward contracts to exhibit adjusted risk premia for the market portfolio and all relevant state variables, as opposed to the usual risk premia for cash assets. Our results are shown not to depend on the usual cash‐and‐carry relationship, which, in general, does not hold. We, nevertheless, provide a well‐known special case where it does hold, albeit not grounded on the usual no‐arbitrage argument. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:817–840, 2003     

Tie-in contracts with downstream competition

A tie-in contract has frequently come under scrutiny for its role as an exclusionary device. A firm that is a monopolist in a primary market can utilize such contracts to exclude a more efficient rival in a secondary market. When the firms sell through competing retailers, the leveraging firm may offer tie-in contracts to the retailers inducing them to purchase both primary and secondary products entirely from it such that the rival is excluded. We examine whether such tie-in contracts are profitable for an incumbent firm under different conditions of (i) the ability to commit to prices by the upstream firms and (ii) downstream competition among the retailers. We show that when retailers compete in prices, then regardless of whether the entrant is able to commit to its own prices, an exclusionary tie-in strategy is profitable (not profitable) for the incumbent when it is able (unable) to commit to prices. However, when retailers compete in quantities, the entrant’s commitment ability does matter. Specifically, an exclusionary tie-in strategy (i) may be unprofitable for an incumbent when both upstream firms are able to commit to their prices, depending on the degree of cost advantage of the entrant; (ii) is always profitable when it alone can commit to its price; and (iii) is unprofitable when both upstream firms cannot commit to their prices. Our results extend to situations where the products are complementary or substitutes and where the retailers may be asymmetric in nature.     

Strategic fit, contractual, and procedural governance in alliances

This paper focuses on the simultaneous mediating and moderating effects of different governance mechanisms on the relationship between conditions for alliance formation and outcome. Alliance governance takes two distinct forms: contractual integration and procedural coordination. While contracts may help set the legal parameters of the alliance agreement, it is day-to-day coordination of activities and processes that determine the effectiveness of such contracts. The proposed framework explains how knowledge outcome of collaborative relationships may be determined by the match of partner motives, influenced by the mix of contractual and procedural governance. A series of testable propositions helps answer the following question. Do combinations of contractual and procedural governance mechanisms, given specific strategic fit, explain knowledge performance differentials?     

A new approach to financial integration and market income inequality

Using loan contracts of firms in the syndicated loan market, we generate weighted aggregate measures of financial connections of emerging market economies and relate these financial integration indices to income inequality. The results reveal that financial integration is beneficial in reducing market income inequality, but worsens net income inequality. Financial intermediation is detrimental to net income inequality, but beneficial in lowering market income inequality. The results show that independent access to financing has no relationship with income inequality. The results are invariant using alternative income inequality indices and using external instrument against internal instrument in identifying the equations.     

Entry mode selection and its impact on an incumbent supply chain coordination

This paper considers a supply chain where a manufacturer sells its product through a retailer. In such a market, a potential entrant can make a substitute product by imitating the incumbent's product and then sells it to the common market with one of three alternative entry modes: (i) selling through the incumbent's retailer, (ii) selling through another independent retailer, or (iii) selling directly to consumers. Faced with the entrant's entry, the manufacturer has managed to offer a value-added service to add to its product's value at a cost. We investigate the entrant's optimal entry mode when the manufacturer offers profit-sharing contracts to the retailer and when it does not, and discuss the impact of the potential invader's entry on the incumbent firms' performances. The results show that: (1) the entrant sells directly to consumers when faced with weak value competition, and sells through another retailer against fierce value competition. (2) If the value competition is relatively fierce and the efficiency of the value-added service is relatively high as well, the incumbent firms can benefit from the new entry. (3) A profit-sharing contract, as a coordination policy, can fully coordinate the incumbent supply chain no matter whether there exists a potential entrant or not, yet the entry can affect the distribution of the profits between the incumbent manufacturer and retailer.     

Value from technology licensing – The role of monitoring and licensing experience

Technology licensing is an important form of exchange in business-to-business markets. Licensees consider licensing technologies as a key mechanism to expand their technological asset base and to innovate. Even though exchange is the central focus of marketing academia, technology licensing contracts as a form of exchange have been largely overlooked. We take some steps to fill this void by studying the role of governance in licensing contracts. We rely on governance and specifically agency theory to study two-sided moral hazard problems in technology licensing. The two-sided nature of the problem is reflected in the presence of both upstream monitoring (i.e., the licensee monitoring the licensor) and downstream monitoring (i.e., the licensee being monitored by the licensor). We demonstrate that the effects of monitoring on licensee value creation are conditional on the licensee’s experience in licensing. Specifically, we observe that, conditional on the licensee having accumulated a high level of licensing experience, upstream process monitoring and downstream output monitoring increase licensee market value while downstream process monitoring reduces licensee market value. Interestingly, we find no support for similar moderating effects of partner-specific experience. We rely on a unique database of original licensing contracts, historical data on past licensing contracts, and stock price data to analyze the value created by individual licensing contracts. The combined results may help licensees draft more valuable contracts.     

Market Integration and Technological Change

This paper studies the incentives of firms to introduce new technologies in markets where network effects are sensitive to the identity of the adopter. We model this sensitivity by considering a market in which consumers are located in two economies and network effects across economies are weaker than intra-economy network effects. The strength of cross economy network effects is measured by the degree of market integration. We show that the incentives for technological change are decreasing with respect to the degree of integration and that they are in excess of what is socially desirable. We also show that different generation technologies can coexist only if the market is poorly integrated and that this coexistence is characterized by a form of technological leap-frogging across economies.     

North-South trade and directed technical change

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights (IPRs), market integration shifts technical change in favor of rich nations. Through this channel, free-trade may amplify international wage differences. At the same time, integration with countries where IPRs are weakly protected can slow down the world growth rate. An important implication of these results is that protection of intellectual property is most beneficial in open countries. This prediction, which is novel in the literature, is consistent with evidence from a panel of 53 countries observed in the years 1965-1990. The paper also provides empirical support for the mechanism linking North-South trade to the direction of technical change: an increase in import penetration from low-wage, low-IPRs countries is followed by a sharp fall in R&D investment in a panel of US manufacturing sectors.     

The impact of economic globalisation on unemployment: The Malaysian experience

Malaysia plans to emerge as one of the high-income economies by 2020 through the Economic Transformation Programme. A key component of this programme is to adopt more trade liberalisation policies that can generate a variety of economic activities, particularly more jobs. Although the integration with the world market bears the promise of prosperity for the developing and transitional economies, such integration may also adversely affect such economies. Preceding studies regarding labour market and international trade policies are still inconclusive and raise questions that require further examination; particularly in terms of whether exposure to the external sector can create or destroy jobs. The present study evaluates how Malaysia labour market has responded to the economic globalisation of the country. The study focuses on the long-run impact of economic globalisation on unemployment within the period between 1980 and 2014. The study uses autoregressive distributive lags method to examine the pattern of the relationship. The results show that economic globalisation have significant and positive impact on reducing unemployment in Malaysia in the long run. These findings indicate that policy-makers in Malaysia should facilitate the economy globalisation to maintain the current low level of unemployment rate.     

Separation versus Affiliation with Partial Vertical Ownership in Network Industries

Abstract

The separation of integrated monopolies and new market entrants has changed vertical interactions between suppliers and dealers. Firms have substituted full integration with vertical restraints, leading to collusive behaviour harmful to competition. We examine how a partial vertical ownership (an affiliation) of one of the competing downstream retailers by the upstream monopoly could help internalise the production decision after a complete divestiture. Our results in a Cournot framework confirm the positive role of partial integration on firms’ profits and consumer surplus in increasing social welfare. These results are consistent with empirical studies of economies after vertical separation in network industries.     

Foreign Market Entry Under Incomplete Contracts

This paper shows that incomplete contracts serve as a determinant of the mode of foreign market entry – that is exports versus foreign direct investment (FDI). When contracts between two agents within a firm are too costly to be written, the share of multinational firms may be higher or lower compared with a world without contractual frictions. The direction of change depends on the technologically required relative contribution of headquarter services in the joint production process. For example, in industries that use more inputs from the management unit as compared to inputs from a component supplier, the share of firms engaging in foreign direct investment is higher than under complete contracts. This effect may be so strong that the share of multinational firms increases in trade freeness.