Market competition, social welfare in an entry-constrained differentiated-good oligopoly

This paper studies a differentiated-good oligopoly where the socially optimal number of firms (varieties) may be smaller or greater than under the free-entry equilibrium. We show that, under certain conditions, social welfare may be higher when entry is restricted into the industry.     

Symmetric Cournot oligopoly and economic welfare: a synthesis

Summary Recently, Mankiw-Whinston (1986) and Suzumura-Kiyono (1987) have shown that socially excessive firm entry occurs in unregulated oligopoly. This paper extends this excess entry results by looking into strategic aspects of costreducing R&D investment that creates incentives towards socially excessive investments. In the first stage, firms decide whether or not to enter the market. In the second stage, firms make a commitment to cost-reducing R&D investment. In the third stage, firms compete in output quantities. It is shown that the excess entry holds even in the presence of strategic commitments.This is the synthesized version of the two earlier papers, Okuno-Fujiwara and Suzumura (1988) and Suzumura (1991). We are grateful to Professors J. Brander, D. Cass, M. Majumdar, A. Postlewaite, J. Richmond, A. Sandmo, B. Spencer and J. Vickers for their helpful comments and discussions on earlier drafts. Needless to say, they should not be held responsible for any remaining defects. Financial supports from the Japan Center for Economic Research, Tokyo Center for Economic Research, the Japanese Ministry of Education, and the Institute for Monetary and Economic Research, the Bank of Japan are gratefully acknowledged.     

Asymmetric oligopoly, international trade, and welfare: a synthesis

This paper analyzes the relationship between market shares and welfare under the assumption of Cournot-oligopolistic interdependence in production. The model is general enough to deal with multiple countries, oligopolists with different levels of marginal costs within each country, and any distribution of world demand across countries. It is found that the elimination of a minor firm harms the country if the country's total production is very little. However, such a policy always benefits the country if it exports the commodity. The welfare effect of production subsidies and the case of foreign ownership of firms are also discussed.     

The core in an oligopoly market with indivisibility

Summary. This paper studies the core in an oligopoly market with indivisibility. It provides necessary and sufficient conditions for core existence in a general m-buyer n-seller market with indivisibility. When costs are dominated by opportunity costs (i.e., a firm's variable costs are sufficiently small), the core condition can be characterized by the primitive market parameters. In a 3-2 market with opportunity cost, the core is non-empty if and only if the larger seller's opportunity cost is either sufficiently large or sufficiently small. Received: June 9, 1999; revised version: October 22, 1999     

Corporate social responsibility,profits and welfare with managerial firms

This paper analyses the equilibrium outcomes in a duopoly market where firms follow corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviours under managerial delegation. It is shown that in the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium of the game, both firms emerge as CSR-type, and the firms’ profitability (resp. the welfare of consumers and society) are beneficiated (resp. harmed) by the CSR behaviour. This result is in sharp contrast with the conventional result (established under non-managerial firms) that the higher the CSR sensitivity to consumer surplus, the lower (resp. higher) the firms’ profitability (resp. the consumer surplus and social welfare).     

管理者短视对企业二元创新的影响 ——基于管理自由度和环境不确定性的调节作用

在国家创新驱动高质量发展的战略目标背景下,二元创新是企业实现长远发展,维持经营绩效的重要战略选择。然而,作为企业战略决策人的管理者并非都具有长远的战略目光。选取我国A股上市公司作为研究对象,探讨管理者短视与企业二元创新间的关系,并对管理自由度和环境不确定性对其的调节效应进行了实证检验。研究发现,管理者短视显著抑制了企业的二元创新。其中管理自由度强化了管理者短视对企业二元创新的抑制作用,而环境不确定性弱化了管理者短视对企业二元创新的抑制作用。研究结果拓展了管理者短视与企业二元创新的相关关系,对企业高层次的管理人才的聘任以及企业的战略选择具有一定的现实启示意义。     

How do altruistic parental transfers affect the welfare gains of marriage?

This paper analyses the effects of altruistic parental transfers on the welfare gains of marriage. To that end, it develops a sequential game which, in a first stage, determines the optimum level of the transfer between the altruistic donor (the parent) and the recipient (the daughter/son). In the second stage, the levels of consumption and provision of a family good are deduced by way of a Nash bargaining solution, with the threat point being represented by divorce. We find that the degree of altruism of the recipient has a null effect on the gains in welfare derived from the marriage by the recipient’s spouse, and a positive effect on those derived by the recipient. Additionally, the degree of altruism of the donor has a positive effect on the gains in welfare derived from the marriage by the recipient’s spouse, and an ambiguous effect on those derived by the recipient.     

The impact of privatization on firm performance in a transition economy

The Vietnamese privatization programme, launched in 1992, differs from the usual Western privatization programmes in terms of the residual percentage of shares owned by the state and the portion of shares owned by insiders. This begs the question whether these differences influence the effects of the programme on firm performance. This study measures the impact of privatization on firm performance in Vietnam by comparing the pre‐ and post‐privatization financial and operating performance of 121 former state‐owned enterprises (SOEs). We find significant increases in profitability, sales revenues, efficiency and employee income. Results of applying the ‘difference‐in‐difference’ (DID) method, wherein a control group of firms is used to pick up the influence of other determinants of firm performance, suggest that the performance improvements may indeed be associated with equitization. Regression analyses reveal that firm size, residual state ownership, corporate governance and stock market listing are key determinants of performance improvements.     

ESG表现对企业财务绩效的影响研究

ESG已成为衡量企业表现的重要指标。研究企业ESG评级对企业绩效的影响,有利于激发企业的ESG意识,使企业积极承担ESG披露责任,弥合投资者与企业的信息不对称。构建固定效应模型,以2010—2020年A股上市公司为研究样本,对企业污染程度的异质性、企业性质、区域发展程度等进行进一步测试,考察企业ESG评级与企业财务业绩的关系及信息透明的机制效应。实证表明：(1)良好的ESG性能对企业业绩有直接的促进作用;(2)企业信息透明度为其机制;(3)ESG表现与企业绩效的关系受企业污染程度、企业性质、区域经济发展水平的影响,低污染、非国有、东部地区及非省会城市企业ESG评级更能显著提升企业绩效。根据以上结论,本文同时提供决策可借鉴的经验。     

Debt as a collusive device in an oligopoly supergame

This paper explores the impact of debt holdings on the output decisions of firms in an oligopoly supergame with stochastic demand fluctuations. It is demonstrated that when perfect collusion is not feasible then there exist circumstances in which increased debt holdings may facilitate tacit collusion. This occurs because higher debt levels act as a credible commitment device which lowers the payoffs accruing to a firm when it defects from the tacitly collusive equilibrium. It is further shown that in these circumstances firms may have an incentive to hold debt for strategic purposes which promote collusion.     

A biased firm in a market with complementary products. A note on the welfare effects

We analyse a duopoly setting with complementary products, in which a firm has a bias about its absolute advantage. We show that the bias can internalize parts of the negative externality that the complementarity of goods creates implying a higher producer's surplus. Moreover, we analyse additional conditions, which lead to an increase in the consumer's surplus. Counterintuitively, we show that the presence of a bias can lead to a positive welfare effect.     

The merger paradox in a mixed oligopoly

This paper examines the set of surplus maximizing mergers in a model of mixed oligopoly. The presence of a welfare maximizing public firm reduces the set of mergers for which two private firms can profitably merge. When a public firm and private firm merge, the changes in welfare and profit depend on the resulting extent of private ownership in the newly merged firm. When the government sets that share to maximize post merger welfare as assumed in the privatization literature, the merger paradox will often remain and the merger will not take place. Yet, we show there always exists scope for mergers that increase profit and increase (if not maximize) welfare. Interestingly, these mergers often include complete privatization.     

Learning through experimentation in an oligopoly market with asymmetric information

Unlike previous literature, in which firms compete in the market with the same information, this article analyses a two‐period duopoly game in which only one firm is completely informed about the market conditions, whereas the other firm is unaware of one parameter of the demand curve. In this setting, we describe how the informed firm uses its price set in period 1 in order to reveal or to hide its private information and how the uninformed firm uses its own price in period 1 in order to learn the market conditions when they are not revealed by its rival. Specifically, we obtained the conditions under which the informed firm sets a higher price than its optimum in the first period to hide its private information in certain cases and to reveal that information in others. Likewise, this paper describes the conditions under which the uninformed firm sets a lower price than its optimum in period 1 in order to learn the unknown parameter. We found that the informed firm's cost of revealing its private information to its rival is lower than the uninformed firm's cost of learning the market conditions.     

The impact of technology intermediaries on firm cognitive capacity additionality

Whereas the provision of R&D subsidies has been central to public policy for many years, governments have recently become increasingly involved in stimulating cooperation for innovation and R&D. In many countries, financial support for technology intermediaries has become one of the key measures of indirect public support. However, little research has assessed the impact of indirect policy measures. In this paper, we shed light on the conditions under which technology intermediaries contribute to knowledge and networking outcomes generated by the firms that call upon them. We hereby focus on firm network and competence additionality as measures for cognitive capacity additionality and study the impact of technology intermediaries on firms. In doing so, we distinguish between R&D and R&D related activity technology intermediaries engage in. The results indicate that absorptive capacity of the technology intermediary does not affect cognitive capacity additionality generated by firms in R&D activities, while the results for R&D related activities are mixed and depending on the type of cognitive capacity additionality studied. The absorptive capacity of firms does not directly affect cognitive capacity additionality, but the results of mediation analysis show that firms with higher levels of absorptive capacity use the services of the technology intermediary more intensively, and subsequently generate higher levels of cognitive capacity additionality.     

The impact of the financial crisis on new firm registration

Panel data for 93 countries shows that most countries experienced a sharp drop in new firm registration during the financial crisis. The decline was more pronounced in countries with higher levels of financial development that were more affected by the crisis.     

The impact of financial constraints on firm survival and growth

We propose a new approach for identifying and measuring the degree of financial constraint faced by firms and use it to investigate the effect of financial constraints on firm survival and development. Using panel data on French manufacturing firms over the 1996–2004 period, we find that (1) financial constraints significantly increase the probability of exiting the market, (2) access to external financial resources has a positive effect on the growth of firms in terms of sales, capital stock and employment, (3) financial constraints are positively related with productivity growth in the short-run. We interpret this last result as the sign that constrained firms need to cut costs in order to generate the resources they cannot raise on financial markets.     

The impact of incentives on CEO compensation and firm performance

A significant component of a management control system is the incentive mechanism and motivational underpinning of compensation contracts. Most executives are rewarded in the form of cash and company stock. Our data indicate that over 82.5 percent of the observations include a bonus pay to CEOs and an even larger percentage, about 94.5 percent, have stock option grants. Our analyses indicate that the means of market-based returns are significantly larger for companies with no stock option incentives. However, the accounting-based returns do not appear to be significantly influenced by stock-based rewards. (JEL: J30, G30, L21)     

The value of information in oligopoly with demand uncertainty

This paper discusses the value of information in supermodular and submodular games, using a simple duopoly model where the level of demand is uncertain. It is shown that the value of information issuperadditive (resp.,subadditive) between players if the game issupermodular (resp.,submodular). For example, in a Bertrand (resp., Cournot) market with (possibly imperfect) substitute products, one firm's information acquisition increases (resp., decreases) the other firm's incentive to acquire the same information. Furthermore, when the game is either supermodular or submodular, the value of information is higher when the player isexpected to be informed according to the opponent's belief than when the player is expected to be uninformed; this result is reversed when the game has asymmetric modularity (i.e., one player's action is substitutional to the other's, and the latter's action is complemental to the former's). These qualitative observations have a potential to be applied to a larger class of games with uncertainty where payoffs are smooth (e.g., twice continuously differentiable) in actions and states.