Endogenous market structures and the gains from foreign direct investment

This paper discusses the gains from liberalizing foreign direct investment (FDI) in a two-country setting with endogenous market structure. We investigate two different scenarios. In the first scenario, headquarters costs are large in the foreign country so that the industry is located in the domestic country only. In this case, multinational and national firms may coexist and market concentration may make FDI welfare improving for the foreign country and welfare reducing for the domestic country. In the second scenario, headquarters costs are symmetric and firms will be located in both countries. Here, profitable FDI activities lead to mutual welfare gains, irrespective of market structure effects.     

Firm heterogeneity,sunk costs,spatial characteristics and export market participation: Evidence from China

This paper develops a dynamic discrete-choice model to analyze the exporting decisions of Chinese firms in Zhejiang province. The results show that sunk costs are found to be significant and prior export experience, productivity, scale, FDI, export spillovers, coastal area and economic zones are all positively related with the propensity of exporting while state ownership concentration has a negative impact. The export behavior of firms varies with country-specific characteristics.     

The decision to export: Firm heterogeneity,sunk costs,and spatial concentration

Integrating perspectives of the Uppsala model of internationalization process, international new ventures and trade theories of heterogeneous firms, this paper develops a dynamic discrete-choice model of export decisions by a profit-maximizing firm. Empirical analyses based on a panel data set of Chinese firms show that sunk costs, productivity, firm size, foreign ownership, industry competition and spatial concentration are positively associated with the decision to export, while state ownership has a negative association with the probability of exporting. However, we find that the relationships are not always uniform and depend on firm-specific idiosyncrasies. The results show that foreign-invested firms and large firms (regardless of ownership) rely on productivity performance related advantages for expanding overseas, while domestic firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, build competitive advantage by leveraging agglomeration economies and the associated spillovers. Our results highlight the role of firm heterogeneity, sunk costs and spatial concentration in shaping the export behavior of firms.     

On the market viability under proportional transaction costs

This paper studies the market viability with proportional transaction costs. Instead of requiring the existence of strictly consistent price systems as in the literature, we show that strictly consistent local martingale systems (SCLMS) can successfully serve as the dual elements such that the market viability can be verified. We introduce two weaker notions of no arbitrage conditions on market models named no unbounded profit with bounded risk (NUPBR) and no local arbitrage with bounded portfolios (NLABPs). In particular, we show that the NUPBR and NLABP conditions in the robust sense are equivalent to the existence of SCLMS for general market models. We also discuss the implications for the utility maximization problem.     

Endogenous market structure and the growth and welfare effects of economic integration

This paper studies the growth and welfare effects of integration in a world economy populated by global oligopolists. In economies that move from autarky to trade, growth and welfare rise because exit of domestic firms is more than compensated by entry of foreign firms so that integration generates a larger, more competitive market where firms have access to a larger body of technological spillovers that support faster growth. The effects of a gradual reduction of tariffs are different because economies start out from a situation where all firms already serve all markets. In this case, the global number of firms falls so that the variety of consumption goods and the diversity of innovation paths fall. The surviving firms, on the other hand, are larger and exploit static and dynamic economies of scale to a larger degree. These homogenization and rationalization effects work in opposite directions. Under plausible conditions, the rationalization effect dominates and growth and welfare rise.     

Endogenous market development for government securities in lower-income economies

Many lower-income economies have difficulty developing government securities markets (GSMs). A “Two-Dimensional Policy Framework for GSM Development” offers a solution to improve upon the twenty-year-old World Bank/IMF's conventional policy framework. It differentiates GSMs by their development phases and presents endogenously phase-coherent policy sets. This research found that the endogenous variables explained 40% of trading volume growth in the early phase of India's GSM development and that utilities played a dominant role in increasing trade volumes in the early-phase market. The framework is worth test-applying to GSM development in lower-income economies.     

数字经济下的转换成本对市场竞争的影响分析

转换成本可以通过市场力量和企业的策略性行为对市场竞争产生重要影响,因此成为竞争执法机构竞争评估的重点考察因素,而当前数字经济具有的网络效应和多归属等特征使得转换成本对市场竞争的影响更加复杂。本文首先从经济学角度剖析转换成本的定义、起源与分类,而后考察转换成本与网络效应和多归属之间的关系,最后研究转换成本对市场竞争的影响、系统论述转换成本在数字经济下可能引起的竞争关注。     

Agricultural productivity differences and credit market imperfections

This paper presents a simple model to examine the implication of credit market imperfections when considering the huge variation of agricultural labor productivity across countries. The development of credit markets enables more agents to acquire skills to work in non-agricultural sectors. The expansion of the sectors decreases the labor supply to agriculture as well as increases the supply of modern intermediate inputs to agriculture. Agricultural producers accordingly substitute the relatively cheap intermediate inputs for labor to produce a given level of an agricultural good, and, thereby, the output per worker in agriculture is improved. Poor countries with less developed credit markets are, therefore, far less productive in agriculture than rich countries with well-developed credit markets.     

Diversification cones, trade costs and factor market linkages

This paper finds non-uniform differences in the distribution functions of factor usage intensities among 10 rich OECD countries. The 10 countries form three distinct groups such that the between-group differences are more pronounced than within-group differences and capital-abundant countries are in capital-abundant groups. The estimation works even if the same industry codes represent different goods across countries in the data. The finding is consistent with the multiple-cone factor proportions theory with zero trade costs with each group being one cone. An alternative interpretation is non-zero trade costs. Both interpretations imply weak factor market linkages between the countries in different groups.     

Learning,market selection and the evolution of industrial structures

Industrial economics is a rich source of puzzles for economic theory. One of them — certainly the most discussed — regards the co-existence of firms (and plants) of different sizes, displaying rather invariant skewed distributions. Other puzzles, however, concern the sectoral specificities in industrial structures, the persistence of asymmetric corporate performances and the dynamics of entry and exit. The paper reports some preliminary results on evolutionary modeling of the links between the microeconomics of innovation, the patterns of industrial change and some observable invariances in industrial structures.First, the paper reviews a few of these empirical regularities in structures and in the patterns of change. Second, the paper discusses the achievements and limits of interpretations of the evidence based on equilibrium theories. Finally, it presents a model where these regularities are explained as emergent properties deriving from non equilibrium interactions among technologically heterogeneous firms. Moreover, simulation exercises show that also the intersectoral variety in the observed industrial structures and dynamics can be interpreted on the grounds of underlying specificities in the processes of technological learning — which is called technological regimes — and of the processes of market interactions — i.e. market regimes.This research has undertaken within an on going project sponsored by the Italian Research Council (CNR, Progetto strategico,Cambiamento tecnologico e sviluppo economico). Support by the Consortium on Competitiveness and Cooperation Centre for Research in Management, University of California at Berkeley is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Adverse selection costs: A study on the Chinese stock market

Employing a bid-ask spread model applicable for order-driven market, this paper decomposes the bid-ask spread of Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) into adverse selection and order processing cost components to investigate the relationship between the components of bid-ask spread and order size. It examines the impacts of firm size, price, trading activeness, and volatility on adverse selection cost, and explores the intraday pattern of adverse selection costs and informative trading. Results show that adverse selection costs increase with trade scale. However, order processing costs do not exhibit the economies of scale. Stocks of large firms, which are high-priced and actively traded, have relatively low adverse selection costs; stocks with large volatility have relatively high adverse selection costs. Moreover, this paper finds that the adverse selection component of bid-ask spread in the Chinese stock market exhibits an L-shaped intraday pattern, which implies that heavy trading around market opening is dominated by informative trading, while heavy trading near market closing is dominated by liquidity trading.     

Firms’ export decisions—fixed trade costs and the size of the export market

This article presents a model of international trade under monopolistic competition. In the increasing returns sector firms face fixed, in addition to variable, trade costs, and both exporters and non-exporters may coexist. Exporters benefit from access to large foreign markets, thus a small country has a higher share of exporting firms than a large one. In contrast to standard models, the increasing returns sector will be more open in a small country than in a large one, and a small country may be a net exporter of such commodities, despite the disadvantage of a smaller home market.     

Per capita income,market access costs,and trade volumes

There is strong empirical evidence that countries with lower per capita income tend to have smaller trade volumes even after controlling for aggregate income. Furthermore, poorer countries do not just trade less, but have a lower number of trading partners. In this paper, I construct and estimate a general equilibrium model of trade that captures both these features of the trade data. The key element of the model is an association between trade costs (both variable and fixed) and countries' development levels, which can account for the effect of per capita income on trade volumes and explain many zeros in bilateral trade flows. I find that market access costs play an important role in fitting the model to the data. In a counterfactual analysis, I find that removing the asymmetries in trade costs raises welfare in all countries with an average percentage change equal to 29% and larger gains for smaller and poorer countries. Real income inequality falls by 43%.     

Regional differences in consumer preference structures within China

This study examines whether a single marketing strategy is sufficient to cover the Chinese market. Using data from four regions and nine industries, it finds that major regional differences in consumer preferences make regional market segmentation an attractive option. In more developed regions, consumers rely more on perceived quality and public brand image but less on quality expectations. Uyghurs care more about perceived quality and personal recognition but less about quality expectations than Han Chinese. Personal recognition is more important to southern than northern Chinese. Overall, consumer preference structures are influenced more strongly by differences in economic development than subculture.     

The impact of media on the legitimacy of new market categories: The case of broadband internet

Building on research in institutional theory and market categories, we argue that media coverage, through the effects of cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy, influence the creation of new market categories. Using data on the broadband access industry, we develop and test a media coverage model of market category entries, demonstrating the legitimacy effects of media-based information exchange on the emergence of new market categories. We include two post hoc analyses on mediation effects to test the relationship between population density and media coverage. These results indicate a possible mediation relationship, which we discuss in the implications of our study.     

A taxonomy of differences between consumers for market segmentation

A new taxonomy of differences between consumers is presented. It is argued that there are at least five generic types of differences between consumers: preferences for product benefits, consumer interaction effects, choice barriers, bargaining power, and profitability. Recognition of these distinct types of consumer heterogeneity has implications for the identification of relevant segmentation variables, the methods used to form segments, and the appraisal and optimization of existing segmentations.     

Hierarchical representations of market structures and choice processes through preference trees

Two ways of representing market structures in hierarchical forms are discussed and compared. The better-known method, hierarchical clustering of similarity measures derived from aggregate brand-switching probabilities, has three drawbacks. First, the aggregate-level switching probabilities may not be representative of the majority of the individuals; therefore, inferences made about individual or segmental behavior can be misleading. Second, regardless of the level of aggregation, it is not possible to infer the choice process from typical purchase data. Finally, in this example, this method produces a tree that is driven largely by the brands with small market shares. The other method, preference-tree analysis, models brand-choice behavior as a hierarchical elimination process. The parameters of the model are estimated from the way that relative brand-choice probabilities change as the choice set is varied. Preference-tree analysis, which requires paired-comparison preference data, is shown to eliminate the drawbacks observed with hierarchical clustering.     

Profits and perils in the antiques and collectibles market: the influence of product knowledge structures on dealer exchange outcomes

The secondary market for antiques and collectibles represents a disorganized market channel characterized by competition for supply of rare goods and retail sales arising from non-traditional channels, loose ties among channel members, and largely unregulated transactions between buyers and sellers. This study explores how knowledge structures affect dealers' abilities to turn a profit in the antiques and collectibles market. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews with eight professional antiques and collectibles dealers operating in different regions of the United States. Findings indicate that while information is widespread, its credibility can be difficult to assess without some degree of product and market knowledge. Furthermore, the findings show knowledge plays a critical and somewhat differential role in the ability of professional dealers to turn a profit. Knowledge asymmetries that create favorable conditions for profits when dealers hold the balance of informational power in the upstream acquisition of antiques and collectibles ironically reduce dealers' ability to earn profits in downstream resale of these goods. Findings support a multidimensional view of knowledge as a broader concept, based on information and product and market expertise, but deepened by experiences that lead to tacit knowledge, which can be difficult to transmit.