Consumer myopia, standardization and aftermarket monopolization

In this paper, I show that the standard Bertrand competition argument does not apply when firms compete for myopic consumers who optimize period-by-period. I develop the model in the context of aftermarket. With overlapping-generations of consumers, simultaneous product offerings in the primary market and aftermarket establishes a price floor for the primary good. This constraint prevents aftermarket rents from being dissipated by the primary market competition. Duopoly firms earn positive profits despite price competition with undifferentiated products. Nonetheless, government interventions to reinforce aftermarket competition such as a standardization requirement may lead to the partial collapse of the primary market.     

Optimal cartel trigger price strategies

A dynamical model of industry equilibrium is described in which a cartel deters deviations from collusive output levels by threatening to produce at Cournot quantities for a period of fixed duration whenever the market price falls below some trigger price. In this model firms can observe only their own production level and a common market price. The market demand curve is assumed to have a stochastic component, so that an unexpectedly low price may signal either deviations from collusive output levels or a “downward” demand shock.     

Effects of packers’ inventory and market power on price adjustments in the U.S. beef industry

This study examines effects of packers’ inventory and market power on their price adjustment behaviour in the U.S. beef industry. Econometric model used in the study allows inventory and market power variables to influence the speed-of-adjustment parameters in a three-regime threshold error-correction model. Results show that the two variables have a statistically significant impact on packers’ price adjustment behaviour when price decreases but not when price increases. When price decreases, inventory tends to accelerate the adjustment process whereas packers’ market power slows down the adjustment process. The hypothesis of symmetric adjustment towards long-run equilibrium during increasing and decreasing phases of price is not rejected when the effects of inventory and market power are considered in explaining packers’ price adjustment behaviour. However, when these two effects are ignored in the model specification, the hypothesis of symmetry is rejected such that the speed of adjustment in the increasing phase of price is faster than the adjustment speed in the decreasing phase of price, i.e. ‘rockets and feathers’ effect.     

Supply Disruptions and Regional Price Effects in a Spatial Oligopoly—An Application to the Global Gas Market

Supply shocks in the global gas market may affect countries differently, as the market is regionally interlinked but not perfectly integrated. Additionally, high supply‐side concentration may expose countries to market power in different ways. To evaluate the strategic position of importing countries with regard to gas supplies, we disentangle the import price into different components and characterize each component as price increasing or price decreasing. Because of the complexity of the interrelations in the global gas market, we use an equilibrium model programmed as a mixed complementarity problem (MCP) and simulate the blockage of liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows through the Strait of Hormuz. This enables us to account for the oligopolistic nature and the asymmetry of the gas supply. We find that Japan faces the most severe price increases, as the Japanese gas demand completely relies on LNG supply. In contrast, European countries such as the UK benefit from good interconnection to the continental pipeline system and domestic price taking production, both of which help to mitigate an increase in physical costs of supply as well as in the exercise of market power.     

Measuring market power in multi-product oligopolies: the US meat industry

This paper develops and estimates an economic model for measuring market power in a quantity-setting oligopoly engaged in the joint production of demand-related goods. The model, which allows for firms' conjectures about both same and cross-market responses to own output variation, is applied to the US meat (beef and pork) industry. He hypothesis that the industry's equilibrium reflects price taking behaviour is rejected. The hypothesis of no cross effects cannot be rejected. Roughly, half of the farm-to-retail price spreads for beef and pork appear to be attributable to market power.     

中国生物质发电产业发展动力因子研究

介绍了中国生物质发电产业的市场环境和政策环境。基于此,识别生物质发电产业发展的内生动力因子和外源动力因子,并利用计量经济学理论对动力因子的相关性进行分析。建立解释结构模型研究动力因子之间的关系,分析经济要素之间的作用机理。结果表明:所有的动力因子通过不同的途径和方式最终指向政策和资源禀赋因子;能源安全因子、环境保护因子、农村发展因子影响电力需求,投资影响电力供给;合理的要素成本价格需要科学的政策组合进行有效支持。     

Differential efficiency,market structure and price

A persistent question in industrial economics is the underpinning of the link between market concentration and price. How much of the link can be attributed to market power and how much to market efficiency? This paper develops a theoretical model to address that question. Applied to the US portland cement industry, the model indicates that both impacts matter. In relative terms, however, the market power effect is twice as large as the efficiency effect. An implication for merger policy is that the beneficial efficiency effects of mergers may not be obtained without the detrimental market power effects as well.     

Intertemporal price cap regulation under uncertainty

This paper examines the intertemporal price cap regulation of a firm that has market power. Under uncertainty, the unconstrained firm 'waits longer' before investing or adding to capacity and as a corollary, enjoys higher prices over time than would be observed in an equivalent competitive industry. In the certainty case, the imposition of an inter-temporal price cap can be used to realise the competitive market solution; by contrast, under uncertainty, it cannot. Even if the price cap is optimally chosen, under uncertainty, the monopoly firm will generally (a) under-invest and (b) impose quantity rationing on its customers.     

走出“中国制造”的困惑

全球制造业出现了由发达国家向发展中国家转移的趋势,中国制造业可以凭借劳动力资源丰富的优势加速发展。但是目前“中国制造”是以低价格、低成本优势进入了国际市场,参与国际分工,从长远的观点看,不利于中国经济的可持续发展。因此,“中国制造”要摆脱困境,在作好委托生产的同时,要打造自己的品牌,提升“中国制造”的档次。     

Technology Diffusion with Market Power in the Upstream Industry

This paper compares taxes and tradable permits when used to regulate a competitive and polluting downstream industry that can purchase an abatement technology from a monopolistic upstream industry. Second-best policies are derived for the full range of the abatement technology’s emission intensities and marginal abatement costs. The second-best permit quantity can be both above or below the socially optimal emission level. Explicit consideration of the output market provides further insights on how market power distorts the allocation in the downstream industry. The ranking between permits and taxes is ambiguous in general, but taxes weakly dominate permits if full diffusion is socially optimal. In addition, it is analysed how a cap on the permit price affects the diffusion of an abatement technology.     

A test for variant objective functions in credit unions

A four-equation econometric model of the US catfish industry is estimated to determine the impacts of industry funded advertising on the wholesale and farm levels of the market. Results suggest that, despite the market power held by middlemen, the compaign has increased quasi-rents to producers. The relatively large benefit-cost ratios (about 13:1), however, are attributed primarily to the price effects of the campaign. This highlights the importance of supply response in evaluating the economic effects of industry (generic) advertising programmes. Elasticity estimates based on 1980–89 monthly data are: farm-level supply, 0.15; wholesale-level demand, -1.01; farm-wholsale price transmission, 0.68; and advertising, 0.0075.     

Analysis of threshold cointegration with asymmetric adjustments in the Hong Kong grocery industry

High market concentration in the Hong Kong grocery industry has been prevalent over many years with the domination of a few large supermarket chains. However, no research has been conducted on the price dynamics between the supermarket and non-supermarket sectors to investigate whether the non-supermarket sector can impose competitive discipline on the dominating supermarket chains. We argue that standard cointegration tests cannot allow for transaction costs and distinguish whether the price co-movement is attributable to price competition or collusion. Our study therefore fills this research gap by adopting the threshold cointegration tests in a three-regime threshold vector error-correction model to account for the asymmetric price adjustment dynamics between supermarket and non-supermarket sectors of Hong Kong and evaluate the market power of the supermarket sectors in the presence of transaction costs. Our results favour the presence of cointegration between the supermarket and non-supermarket price indices with asymmetric adjustment dynamics. We interpret the results of statistically significant downward price adjustments in the outer-band regimes as the evidence of mutual price competition. Nevertheless, the supermarket sector has stronger market power than the non-supermarket sector, and therefore can sustain higher price level without inducing substantial competition pressures inside the neutral band.     

基于再造产品的销售定价策略研究

与传统定价理论类似,制定再造产品的销售价格时也需考虑市场细分、顾客群定位等传统问题。本文研究了基于不同细分市场、产品类别、质量水平及竞争环境下的再造产品的销售定价策略,提出再造产品存在着多种质量水平,基于质量差异的动态定价策略可以让再造企业拥有更好的竞争优势;同时考虑OEM与IR之间的竞争情况,用博弈模型研究了二者如何利用价格手段来防御对手竞争。     

循环农业产业链的运行规律及动力机制研究

以循环农业模式体系构成研究为切入点,首先系统地阐述了循环农业产业链的内涵及空间结构,总结循环农业产业链的三种网络形式及特征;其次,探寻纵向闭合产业链条内的产业关联及链条结构,提出了循环农业产业链由外循环及内循环两条物质循环路径流程构成;再次,结合国内相关研究成果,以及循环农业体系产业创新与价值增值的特点,提出推动循环农业产业链的动力机制包括:以价格机制、竞争机制为核心的内源动力机制,以及以政策制度、技术创新、市场建设、人才培养为重点的外源动力机制。     

Oil prices and UK industry-level stock returns

In this article, we study whether the behaviour of oil prices can be used as a reliable predictor for the disaggregated industry-level stock market indices. We find strong evidence for the relevance of changes in oil price as a predictor for the returns of UK industry portfolios, while this relevance is heterogeneous across industries. In an out-of-sample framework, we find that both the contemporaneous and lagged oil price changes do predict UK industry stock market returns. The predictive power is more transient for the latter case, and mostly appearing after allowing for time variation in the relative performance. In addition, we find some evidence of asymmetry in the oil–stock price relationships.     

Exploring the effect of structural patent indicators in forward patent citation networks on patent price from firm market value

This paper introduces structural patent indicators in the forward patent citation networks (FPCNs). Using the estimates of their relationship with firm market value, it explores the effect of the structural patent indicators on patent price. When applied to US smartphone industry and US drug and biotechnology industry, the common finding is that a firm's registered patent gets higher price if influenced faster by the previously registered patents of the same firm through self-citations. The empirical results imply that merely counting forward citations, shown related to patent price by the previous works, is insufficient; the structural properties in FPCNs are essential for the more accurate estimation of patent price. They also show that the relationships between structural patent indicators in the FPCNs and patent price are different between industries. It urges the necessity of selecting structural patent indicators, well fitted to each industry, for the better patent valuation using forward citations.     

全球价值链中市场剩余分配关系研究

通过建立“多层中间商交换模型”得出：在生产者一消费者,以及生产者一多层中间商一消费者共存的均衡市场中,市场总剩余的大小与消费者意愿相关,市场参与者所获剩余是非对称的,生产商获得的剩余随中间商数量的增多而减少,所以处在全球价值链低端的生产企业利润微薄现象在经济上具有一定的合理性;为在全球价值链中获取更多由销售环节丢失的巨额利润,改善实物份额与价值份额“大背离”状况,着力打造中国自己的“商业航母”,提高市场拓展和扩张能力尤为重要。     

Moore's law and price trends of digital products: the case of smartphones

ABSTRACT

Since the introduction of the iPhone by Apple in 2007 and Google's Android platform in 2009, the two systems have accounted for a total of 90% of the U.S. smartphone market. Apple, however, reaps most of the profit in the industry. In the second quarter of 2016, for example, Apple's iPhone gets 104% of the sector's profit. This suggests that the smartphone market resembles a Stackelberg leadership model. Despite Apple's strong market power, we investigate if the market leader is under pressure to be price competitive. We calculate a quality-adjusted price index for smartphones from 2007 to 2016. Our results show that the average price declines at an average rate of over 27% per year. The price trend is similar to other digit products such as computers, cameras, and portable music players. We observe that the large price decline reflects the effect of Moore's law, which predicts that the capacity of integrated circuits undergoes an exponential growth. The effect of Moore's law is incorporated into the Stackelberg model. We also observe that price trends of other digital products also follow a similar pattern. This suggest that the long-run price trends of digital consumer goods are somewhat independent of the market structures.     

R&D活动、市场势力与社会福利效应*——基于中国企业的实证分析

R&D活动提高企业市场势力的途径是什么？R&D活动改善社会福利的途径与机制是否存在行业差异？本文利用2004-2007年中国工业企业的面板数据,在市场势力的度量模型--新产业组织生产法模型的基础上加入企业的R&D活动因素,直接测算我国工业企业的市场势力,并基于企业所在行业、企业所有制和企业行为特征的不同视角,考察R&D活动对企业市场势力的影响,以及降低成本和提高产品价格两条路径对不同行业的社会福利效应的影响。       

我国承销商利用分析师报告托市了吗?

学术界对于我国IPO市场是否存在承销商托市行为一直存在争议。本文通过搜集新股上市一年之内的分析师报告数据,系统考察了我国承销商利用分析师报告进行托市的行为特征,以及投资者对于承销商分析师具有托市性质报告的市场反应。结果发现:(1)承销商会利用乐观、但偏颇的分析师报告为市场表现不佳的新股进行托市,但这一现象在新股上市90天后消失;(2)声誉机制在新股解禁期后才能有效约束承销商利用分析师报告托市的利益冲突行为;(3)市场投资者总体上能够识别承销商的托市意图,并对承销商分析师报告的系统偏误进行自我调整。本文的研究不仅为我国承销商是否存在托市行为提供了新的直接性经验证据,而且有助于市场各方洞悉分析师报告背后的利益冲突,同时也为监管部门出台相关的规范政策提供了新的决策参考。