On the political economy of immigration

We study how immigration policies that impose capital and skill requirements would be determined under majority voting when native agents differ in their wealth holdings and vote to maximize their income.     

'Industrial demonopolization and competition policy in Poland and Hungary': a comment'

Protestations that ‘neither neoclassical economics nor Western experience offers clear guidelines concerning optimal competition policies towards state-owned firms in a transition economy’ are overly pessimistic. Both sources suggest the importance of attacking barriers to entry into markets, especially when those barriers are associated with vertical integration or exclusive vertical contracts by already dominant enterprises. Beyond this, they demonstrate that different priorities of enforcement are appropriate in transition economies and that competition advocacy is especially important in this context.     

International merger activity and the national regulation of mergers: A UK perspective

This paper traces out recent changes in the globalisation of merger activity and considers its implications for national and international regulation of mergers and joint ventures. It argues that a large proportion of mergers involve small firms which may have an important effect on the competitive process and that regulation of large mergers should be complemented by industrial and financial policies to encourage the growth of smaller independent firms.     

Competition Policy towards Vertical Restraints in Europe and the United States

Following a brief review of the economic analysis of vertical restraints, we discuss current policy standards in both Europe and the United States. Since 1981, U.S. policy towards these restraints has been lax, and no restraints were challenged during the 12-year period between January 1981 and January 1993. More recently, the pendulum has shifted back somewhat and there is renewed interest by enforcement officials in this area. In contrast, European policy standards have been more stringent, and have paid particular attention to vertically imposed restraints that can limit trade among member countries. To a large part, their different treatment may primarily reflect the lack of consensus as to their long-run economic consequences. Consistent policy standards across jurisdictions are not likely to arise until there is general consensus as to the economic implications of these restraints.     

Price Squeezes in a Regulatory Environment

This paper analyzes the relevance and the scope of price squeeze tests in a regulatory environment. We distinguish between three types of ex ante regulation (full, partial or no regulation) to identify regulatory squeezes, predatory squeezes, and squeezes as foreclosure. We argue that policy makers should (i) use price squeeze tests as an ex post instrument, compatible with the ex ante regulatory environment, and (ii) focus on predatory price squeezes. We propose a predatory squeeze test that respects regulatory choices that have been made previously, in contrast with the earlier proposed tests. We extend our framework to ask at which aggregation level predatory price squeeze tests ought to be applied, a much-debated issue in telecommunications.JEL Classification: L40, L51, L97Jan Bouckaert acknowledges the financial support from the University of Antwerp (NOI2003). Frank Verboven acknowledges financial support from the Belgian Science Foundation-Flanders. We are grateful to two anonymous referees and the Editor for their helpful remarks. We also thank conference and seminar participants at CEFIR (Moscow), CPB (The Hague), the University of Antwerp, and Massimo Motta, Walter Nonneman, Wilfried Pauwels, and Tomasso Valletti for very useful comments.     

Voting about immigration policy: What does the Swiss experience tell us?

This paper draws on Swiss direct democracy to review the Swiss experience with immigration, which has been shaped strongly by regular voting on immigration policies. Relying on two unique post-vote data-sets on how Swiss citizens voted on initiatives directed at containing the proportion of foreigners in the population, we improve on past empirical evidence by by-passing the problem of “hypothetical bias” present in the analysis of conventional survey data. Controlling for the participation bias due to non-mandatory voting, we find evidence that the hypothetical bias hampering pre-vote surveys may be large but that turnout does not have a decisive influence on the outcome of a vote. Confirming political–economy predictions, education matters in the shaping of immigration preferences but non-economic arguments also play an important role.     

Bandwagon mergers,international competitiveness,and government policy

This paper suggests that while the static welfare losses of merger predilections among Western firms may not be dramatic, they may lead to substantial dynamic losses when merger-prone firms need to compete with firms which instead focus on equipment investment and investments in R&D. It is suggested that such diverging investment priorities have been the real cause of the deteriorating competitiveness of many of the largest Western enterprises vis-à-vis their Japanese rivals. While mergers are generally taken to be determined by either efficiency or monopoly considerations, this paper argues that Western merger predilections are likely to be generated by a combination of imitative and defensive routines as well. That would make it difficult for firms to unilaterally break away from these competitiveness-threatening investments. If correct, this would imply that competition policies would need to be refocused. However, it is also suggested that the implications for international competitiveness should make merger questions a subject of industrial policies too. In that respect, the paper suggests some basic attitudinal changes.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a Global Forum for Competition and Trade Policy conference in Vienna and at a EUNIP workshop at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (contract nos. 54473 and 57305) and the European Commission (contract no. ERB CHRX CT94-0454), research assistance from Michel Renirie and Chee-Wai Chan, and helpful comments from the conference and workshop participants, especially Kurt Bayer and Keith Cowling, are gratefully acknowledged. Only the author is responsible for the contents of, and any flaws in the paper.     

美国科学与工程人才短缺及其影响研究

本文研究了经济结构调整背景下美国的就业结构现状及变化趋势,分析预测了其高等教育的人才供给状况。在比较主要国家高素质劳动力供需情况变化趋势的基础上,认为世界范围内高素质劳动力短缺时代已经到来,这将导致美国的移民政策出现变化,高素质人才将成为国际竞争的焦点之一。作者认为,应从保护利用国家战略资源的高度来研究制定人才政策。     

GDP steady-state multipliers under monopolistic competition revisited

New Keynesian general-equilibrium static models showed the fiscal multiplier is an increasing function of the degree of monopoly. Here, I develop a simple intertemporal model allowing us to study the steady-state role of optimal capital stock (and depreciation) in the fiscal policy transmission mechanism. The GDP multiplier may be locally decreasing in the degree of monopoly when the number of firms is fixed, but results depend strongly on the set of parameter values chosen. Using a net-output definition or allowing for free entry leads to unambiguous dominance of the long-run monopolistic multiplier over the Walrasian one.

竞争政策的法与经济学分析

随着市场经济的快速发展,世界各国对竞争政策、竞争法的关心度也明显提高.作者力图通过法与经济学的相关理论,对竞争政策、竞争法的目的、规制对象、规制的设定方法等诸问题进行解剖、分析,以阐明竞争政策、竞争法律规制的理论基础与发展趋势.     

WELFARE IN THE NASH EQUILIBRIUM IN EXPORT TAXES UNDER BERTRAND DUOPOLY

In the Eaton and Grossman Quarterly Journal of Economics, 101 (1986), pp. 383–406 model of export taxes under Bertrand duopoly, it is shown that welfare in the Nash equilibrium in export taxes is always higher than welfare under free trade for both countries.     

Cap and trade policies in the presence of monopoly and distortionary taxation

We extend an analytical general equilibrium model of environmental policy with pre-existing labor tax distortions to include pre-existing monopoly power as well. We show that the existence of monopoly power has two offsetting effects on welfare. First, the environmental policy reduces monopoly profits, and the negative effect on income increases labor supply in a way that partially offsets the pre-existing labor supply distortion. Second, environmental policy raises prices, so interaction with the pre-existing monopoly distortion further exacerbates the labor supply distortion. This second effect is larger, for reasonable parameter values, so the existence of monopoly reduces the welfare gain (or increases the loss) from environmental restrictions.     

掠夺性定价行为的异化及其竞争策略研究

在网络经济条件下,掠夺性定价行为的主体、掠夺条件、表现形式和实施效果都出现了异化,因此,针对掠夺性定价行为的竞争政策也需作相应调整,从效率与公平两个角度系统考量新经济条件下掠夺性定价行为,而不是简单地加以限制.     

Does Environmental Policy Necessarily Discourage Growth?

This paper analyzes the long-run impact of an environmental policy on economic growth. A growth model with vertical innovation is modified by including intermediate goods as a source of pollution. Taxation on pollution reduces profits of intermediate firms as well as final outputs. However, it increases their mark-ups and alleviates profit losses. In this setting, profit losses are offset by the general equilibrium effect; thus, the tax enhances R&Ds which drive economic growth while it reduces pollution. If the government provides an R&D subsidy, the growth rate will be accelerated.     

The determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration

The paper formulates hypotheses and reports on individual attitudes towards immigration based on data for 24 countries on socioeconomic position, sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes. The results are consistent with the predictions of factor proportions trade theory, but also suggest that a range of other economic and cultural factors influence attitudes towards immigration.