Mixed oligopoly,endogenous timing and mergers

The present paper discusses endogenous timing in a mixed oligopoly model, comprising one public firm and two private firms, assuming both a merger between the two private firms and between one private and one public firm. The paper proves that although a merger between the two private firms does not change the timing of the game, a merger between the public firm and the private firm into a mixed firm could change the market structure from Stackelberg to Cournot competition.     

The Private Delivery of Public Crop Varieties: Rice in Andhra Pradesh

Although there has been a considerable growth of private seed enterprises in developing countries, there are few examples of the private delivery of seed of public crop varieties that are not hybrids. This paper discusses the example of rice in Andhra Pradesh, where private enterprise is supplying an increasing proportion of the seed used by farmers. The institutional conditions for private expansion into rice seed are examined. The paper discusses instances where low transaction costs allow for the emergence of a wide range of seed enterprises. But despite the success of private seed delivery, inadequate attention has been given to incentives for variety promotion, and to the importance of consumer education.     

The quest for publicness: political conflict about the organisation of tramways and telecommunication in Sweden,c. 1900–1920

This article explores political conflicts about the organisation of public services in Sweden c. 1900–1920. The authors argue that political decisions play a vital role in shaping the political economy of public services. The case studies analysed are the political debates about the communalisation of the tramway system in Stockholm, and the nationalisation of Sweden’s last private telephone company. In both cases, the transfer of the service to public organisation was a lengthy process, ending in the late 1910s. This is explained using the concept of publicness. Drawing on three discursive chains, the argument is that the political development was affected by the politicians conception of the political community, the form of organisation and by perceptions of values such as equal access and modernity. In the case of the tramways, public organisation was seen as the best option to defend the public against corruption and self-interest. In the case of the telephones, free market competition was seen as a guarantee for an efficient and cost-effective service. The reason for this difference, is argued, was that the debate on the tramways articulated a clearer notion of publicness, where equal access and public opinion carried larger weight.     

Political institutions,resources, and war: Theory and evidence from ancient Rome

How does a governing coalition’s size affect the extent and type of violence in society? The model developed here predicts that larger coalitions are less likely to fight for private goods (e.g., plunder) than for public goods (e.g., defense), yet this substitution need not reduce the overall scale of fighting. That prediction is tested by investigating how Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire affected military patterns. The raw data and three empirical tests suggest that the Republic engaged in more battles overall and that Republican battles had more of a public goods component. This study furthers our empirical knowledge about the ancient world while bringing data to bear on contemporary debates about the causes of peace and war.     

The Assessment: Financing and Managing Public Services

Public services can be, and are, delivered according to a varietyof different arrangements. The public sector can finance andprovide a service itself, or contract with the private sectorto participate in provision, or its role may be limited to regulatinga private provider. In this paper we examine the features determiningthe effectiveness of public-service delivery, including incentivesfor employees and teams within organizations providing publicservices, the structure of the organization and the competitiveframework that it faces, and the role of the private sector.We assess the reform programme in the UK, which has involvedsubstantial reorganization of public services and increasinginvolvement of the private sector. Reforms focus on the improvementof incentives; but while incentives are critical, the specialcharacteristics of public services (and the people who providethem) must be recognized in the implementation of new structuresand incentive schemes.     

Fiscal incentives,competition, and investment in China

This paper explores how fiscal incentives offered to local governments in China affect investment rates in their jurisdictions. Theoretically, we build a simple fiscal competition model to establish the linkage between local fiscal incentives and expenditure policy and consequently, capital movement. The key prediction of the model, borne out by data from Chinese provinces spanning 2004–2013, is that an increase in the local corporate income tax-sharing ratio, which proxies fiscal incentives offered to local governments, motivates local governments to compete for capital investment through increased public expenditure. Our results contribute to the literature on both fiscal federalism and state capacity by showing that local fiscal incentives significantly shape policy choices and local economic performance. In addition, by exploring fiscal incentives offered to local governments, we offer a novel explanation for the unusually high investment rate in China that has been sustained over a prolonged period.     

Contests and the Private Production of Public Goods

The private provision of public goods generally suffers from two types of efficiency failures: sorting problems (the wrong individuals contribute) and quantity problems (an inefficient amount is provided). Embedding the provision game into a contest that rewards larger contributions with higher probabilities of winning a prize may remedy such failures. Applications include tenure decisions at universities, electoral competition among politicians, etc. We identify a tradeoff between the value of the prize and the decisiveness of the contest. High‐powered incentives in contests may cause an overprovision of the public good or wasteful participation of unproductive individuals in the contest.     

双循环格局下的竞争中性与国企改革——来自国有资本差异化功能的证据

本文在一般均衡框架下构建理论模型,从微观视角考察国有资本功能在国有、民营两部门中的差异,讨论"双循环"战略下如何有效配置国有资本,推动竞争中性框架的建立.研究表明:国有资本在理论上具有正向的经济效率并促进企业积极承担社会责任,但经验证据显示其经济效率偏低,且在国有和民营部门有较大差异.在国有部门中,国有资本的经济效率显...     

经济人行为是私恶还是公益：西方社会的人性观溯源

现代主流经济学推崇经济人行为的主要依据是私恶可以通达公益的“无形的手”原理,问题是,“无形的手”是否存在。其实,在经验主义人性论兴起的中世纪后期,这一点就存在很大争论：马基雅弗利等宣扬“私恶为害”的观念,孟德维尔等则提出了“私恶即公益”的命题。但是,由于西方社会经济竞争的加剧以及斯密的“无形的手”之宣扬,“私恶即公益”的观点逐渐流行,最终成了现代主流经济学的理论基础。     

The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence

Using incentive pay to improve public-sector efficiency is animportant component of the UK government's public-service modernizationagenda. In this paper, we review the important issues in performancepay in the public sector, and summarize the evidence on itseffects. We consider how optimal incentives for public-sectorworkers may differ from those in the private sector and, ifthey do, what types of incentives are more appropriate for thepublic sector. We investigate the reasons for the infrequentuse of explicit incentives in the public sector. We summarizeevidence of particular relevance to the public sector, on issuessuch as the impact on output of incentive pay schemes, gamingand dysfunctional behaviour, multiple principals, intrinsicmotivation, and teamwork. Finally, we comment on the designof new policies being introduced in the UK public sector inthe light of the theoretical arguments and the evidence.     

Local land supply and fiscal incentives for R&D: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Whereas numerous studies have evaluated the effects of public research and development (R&D) support programs and R&D tax incentives on private R&D, little is known about local governments' fiscal incentives for R&D. In this study, we build a conceptual framework to clarify the critical role of local land supply in relation to fiscal expenditure on R&D. We treat the establishment of China's nine Land Supervision Bureaus in 2006 as a quasi-natural experiment, and run a difference-in-differences regression to identify causality. The results show that local governments allocate more fiscal expenditure to R&D in response to land-use supervision, which monitors illegal land granting behaviors, and this effect is stronger in cities where leaders have higher political career incentives and cities with greater fiscal decentralization. Moreover, we find that land-use supervision increases the probability and scale of firms' access to government subsidies for R&D; thus, enhancing regional innovation capacity. Our findings document that China's land resource is a curse for its innovation-driven growth as it impedes local governments' fiscal incentives for R&D.     

Private Information Production,Public Disclosure,and the Cost of Capital: Theory and Implications*

Both private information production by market traders and public disclosure by firms contribute to dissemination of financial information in the capital market. However, the motives and economic consequences of the two are quite different. In general, private information production is intended by investors to increase their trading profit, which has the effect of widening the information gap between informed and uninformed investors and increasing the firm's cost of capital. On the other hand, public disclosure can be used to narrow this information gap and to lower the cost of capital. This paper provides a theoretical model to examine the economic incentives behind these two forms of information dissemination and their consequences on the cost of capital. By simultaneously considering the firm's and the information traders' decisions, the paper derives an equilibrium in which the amount of private information production, the level of public disclosure, and the cost of capital are all linked to specific characteristics of the firm, of information traders, and of the market. In contrast to conventional beliefs, the paper predicts that, across firms, the cost of capital can be either positively or negatively related to the firm's disclosure level, depending on the specific factors that cause the variation within a particular sample. Similarly, the extent to which investors follow a firm and the firm's disclosure level can be either positively or negatively related to each other. Implications for empirical research are discussed.     

Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs), Europe Agreements,and Public Procurement

This paper initially presents Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs) provisions in terms of trade openness to the EC competition. It also makes reference to Europe Agreements (EUs) provision in this matter. It aims more precisely at specifying the impact of public procurement provisions of those Agreements to five Western Balkan public procurement markets. Combining the extent of “Buy National” policies within these countries, with information on the current international competitiveness, the paper identifies those industries that are likely to be particularly sensitive to the abolition of “Buy National” practices due to the provisions of the SAAs. These results can help national authorities overcome part of the negative impacts due to the EU competition.     

R&D Collaboration Networks in Mixed Oligopoly

We develop a model of endogenous network formation in order to examine the incentives for R&D collaboration in a mixed oligopoly. Our analysis reveals that the complete network, where each firm collaborates with all others, is uniquely stable. When R&D subsidies are not available, in addition to the complete network, the private partial and the private‐hub star networks are Pareto efficient. However, the complete network becomes the unique Pareto efficient network when R&D is subsidized. This result is in contrast with earlier contributions in private oligopoly where under strong market rivalry a conflict between stable and efficient networks is likely to occur. It also highlights the role of a public firm as policy instrument in aligning individual incentives for collaboration with the objective of efficiency, independently of whether R&D subsidies are provided by the regulator.     

Indonesian universities in transition: catching up and opening up

Indonesia's higher education system is changing rapidly: in 2010 there were about 5 million students, up from 2,000 in 1945. Effectively the tertiary system has four tiers, three of which are within the public sector. However, the system is increasingly private sector driven. The key themes of this paper on universities are rapid growth; overcoming the historical backlog; and the need for further fundamental reform. The quality of Indonesia's tertiary institutions is highly variable. Governance structures and incentives regimes within the state universities are complex and obscure. The government both over-regulates and under-regulates. Major reforms are under way and increasing financial resources are available.     

Voluntary Reporting Incentives and Reporting Quality: Evidence from A Reporting Regime Change for Private Firms in Taiwan

This paper examines the effect of voluntary financial reporting on firms' reporting quality using a reporting regime change in Taiwan. Before 2001, Taiwan's Company Act imposed a mandatory public reporting requirement of filing audited financial statements on private firms with contributed capital exceeding a certain threshold. This requirement was rescinded in 2001 and private firms since have had discretion over public financial reporting. We divide private firms retroactively into two groups: voluntary reporting firms, those continuing the practice of filing financial statements after the regime change; and nonvoluntary reporting firms, those discontinuing the reporting practice after the regime change. We find that financial reporting quality is higher for voluntary reporting firms than for nonvoluntary reporting firms and that this quality difference translates into a lower cost of debt for voluntary reporting firms. Our results support the view that reporting incentives play an important role in determining reporting quality.     

新企业所得税法对民营经济的影响

民营企业是我国社会主义市场经济的重要组成部分,在社会主义市场经济中发挥着重要的作用。2008年1月1日起实施的新《中华人民共和国企业所得税法》,在纳税人、税率、税前扣除项目、税收优惠等方面有较大的变化,为各类企业创造了公平竞争的税制环境,同样也优化了民营企业的生存环境,有利于促进民营经济的进一步发展。     

The national wealth of Sweden, 1810–2014

This study presents a new database, the Swedish National Wealth Database, which contains annual data on private, public, and national wealth and sectoral saving rates in Sweden over the past two centuries. The paper reviews previous investigations of national wealth, compares their estimates with the ones presented here and discusses method approaches and measurement problems. The main results from data series are presented for assets and liabilities and their subcomponents, for the private and public domestic and foreign sectors. By complementing the past literature with its traditional focus on economic flow variables to understand long-run economic developments, this new database offers potentially new perspectives on a number of important issues in Sweden's economic history.     

Competition in the Pay-TV Market

This paper discusses competition in the emerging pay-TV market. Economic features of the industry are described, and the current state of the market in the UK is summarized. Two simple formal models of the industry are analyzed: First the danger of two vertically integrated pay-TV networks entering into collusive agreements to exchange programming with each other is discussed; second, the private and social incentives for signing exclusive contracts for premium programming are analyzed. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1999, 13(4), pp. 257–280. Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D43, L13, L41, L82.     

Sharing the Market or Getting Closer for a Fight? Strategic Reaction to Reduced Trade Costs

Electronic coordination links markets that have initially been separated by transport costs, which in turn raises competitive pressure and affects incentives to differentiate products. We analyze private and social incentives to invest in a repositioning of products in a heterogeneous goods duopoly with two spatially separated markets. We consider both price and quantity competition to be able to distinguish between digital and physical products, respectively. For low transport costs, firms want to enhance product differentiation as expected. However, if transport costs remain close to prohibitive levels, they have an incentive to reduce heterogeneity.