The Effect of Quotas on Domestic Product Price and Quality

A quota on foreign competition generally leads to quality upgrading (downgrading) of the low-quality (high-quality) firm, an increase in average quality, a reduction of quality differentiation, and a reduction of domestic consumer surplus, irrespective of whether the foreign firm produces higher or lower quality. Effects of a quota on industry profits and domestic welfare depend on the direction of international vertical differentiation. If the foreign firm produces low quality, both firms prices and profits rise but domestic welfare falls. This describes well some major effects of a Japanese Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) in the U.S. auto market and relevant empirical findings. If the foreign firm produces high quality, foreign profits will fall. Since domestic consumer surplus falls only unsubstantially, domestic profit gains lead to an increase of domestic welfare.I am grateful to Jim Gaisford, and Konrad Stahl, seminar participants at the Universität Mannheim and at the ZEW, and an anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. As Senior Fellow at the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), Bonn, I gratefully acknowledge its continued support.     

Price Competition Between Teams

This study uses an experimental approach to examine whether markets are sensitive to the internal incentive structure of the competitors. Toward this goal, we modeled the competitors in a price competition duopoly game as three-player teams. Each player simultaneously declares a bid (price) and the team whose total bid was lower won the competition and was paid accordingly. The losing team was paid nothing, and in case of a tie, each team was paid half its price. This duopoly game was studied under two conditions; a cooperative treatment in which the team's profit was divided equally amongst its members and a non-cooperative one in which each individual member was paid her own bid. Whereas the Nash equilibrium is for each player in either treatment to demand the minimal price possible, we predicted that convergence to the competitive price would be much faster in the cooperative treatment than in the non-cooperative one. The experimental results firmly confirmed this prediction.     

Codetermination,Price Competition and the Network Industry

This research develops a tractable two‐stage non‐cooperative game with complete information describing the behaviour of price‐setting firms that must choose to be profit maximisers or bargainers under codetermination in a network industry with horizontal product differentiation. The existing theoretical literature has already shown that codetermination might arise as the endogenous market outcome in a strategic competitive quantity‐setting duopoly. In sharp contrast with this result, the present article shows that codetermination does never emerge as a Nash equilibrium in a price‐setting non‐network duopoly. Then, it aims at highlighting the role of network externalities in determining changes of paradigm of the game and letting codetermination become a sub‐game perfect Nash equilibrium when prices are strategic substitutes or strategic complements. This equilibrium may be Pareto efficient. Results allow distinguishing between mandatory codetermination and voluntary codetermination. The article also proposes a model of endogenous codetermination according to which every firm may choose to bargain with its own corresponding union bargaining unit only whether the firm's bargaining strength is exactly the profit‐maximising one. The equilibrium outcomes emerging in this case range from a uniform Nash equilibrium, in which both firms are codetermined, to mixed Nash equilibria, in which only one of them chooses to be codetermined. These results are ‘network depending’ and do not hold in a non‐network duopoly.     

以行业自律价来干预降价竞销并不明智

降价竞销是近年总供求关系发生逆转后的正常现象,不应被贬斥为“不正当竞争行为”。靠实施行业自律价来人为阻止降价促销并不明智,也没有经济法规依据,是价格改革的倒退,导致保护落后、阻碍行业技术进步等适得其反的后果。靠行业垄断定价来保证利税收入会得不偿失。降价压库是扩大内需的重要途径。随着扩张性财政货币政策的落实到位,普遍削价热潮将逐渐退温,行业自律价更成多余     

Advertising, Generic Competition and Price Regulation in Pharmaceutical Markets

The effect of price regulation on generic market entry and welfarein the presence of (persuasive) advertising is analysed. Anincumbent has the possibility to invest in advertising targetedat the physician. Advertising creates vertical product differentiationbetween brand-name drugs and its generic substitutes. This differentiationcreates the possibility to make positive profits for both firms.The presence of price regulation, however, reduces the anticipatedgeneric profits. If price regulation is too strict, then thegeneric firm will refrain from market entry. Hence, the modelconfirms the empirical observation that generic market sharesare lower in countries with strict price regulation. (JEL: I11,L13)     

Spatial Competition and Lowest Price Commitment

This paper suggests that credibly committing to the strictly lowest price can be profitable and self-fulfilling in a spatial price competition. Consumers live in multiple residential zones. Each zone has a store. Consumers incur heterogeneous transportation costs moving between two zones. When there is one store credibly committing to the strictly lowest price, there is a pure strategy equilibrium in which a discount store directly competes with all other stores. The discount store offers the lowest price, takes the largest market share, and makes more profits than the other stores. Moreover, the low price commitment is not binding in equilibrium, which implies that the commitment is self-fulfilling.     

Factor Price Equalization under Imperfect Competition

The paper describes a class of imperfectly competitive world economies for which factor price equalization is inevitable. Specifically, it is shown that factor price equalization must prevail if the trading economies differ at most in scale, if they share a constant-returns no-joint-products technology, and if each oligopolistic industry produces a commodity which, directly or indirectly, is internationally tradable.     

Price,Programming and Potential Competition in US Cable Television Markets

Potential competition in the US cable television industry is empirically examined for 385 markets. Predicted entry probabilities are included in a supply-demand model to permit empirical investigation of the effect of potential competition on incumbent cable operators price and channel programming decisions. Estimation results show incumbents offer more channels to consumers in markets facing greater potential competition from broadband service provider (BSP) wireline overbuilders and/or incumbent local exchange carriers. In particular, when the probability of entry rises to about 42 the average cable system provides six more channels, and price per channel declines from US$ 0.77 to US$ 0.66.JEL Classification: L8, L9, L11We thank Ben Compaine, Shane Greenstein, Anne Hoag, Donald Waldman, Bradley Wimmer, the editor of this journal, an anonymous referee, and participants at the 30th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC 2002), September 28–30, 2002, Hilton Hotel, Alexandria, Virginia, for comments. Armando Galarraga and Nana Puangpathumanond provided research assistance, and Jane Frenette and Jonathan Levy provided excellent help with FCC cable entry and competition data. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Vertically Related Markets,Foreign Competition and Optimal Privatization Policy

This paper examines the optimal privatization policy in vertically related markets in which an upstream public firm competes with a foreign private rival in supplying a produced input to the domestic and foreign downstream firms competing in the domestic market. It shows that if the upstream public firm's market share is sufficiently high, full nationalization is optimal and the resulting profit margin is positive. However, complete privatization is never optimal. Numerical simulations reveal both the diverse optimal privatization regimes and the patterns of optimal privatization levels with varying numbers of the domestic and foreign downstream firms.     

Asset Price And Current Account Dynamics

We examine the interaction between asset market and current account in a small open economy. In an overlapping generations economy in which land and money are available assets, the interaction between the land price and current account dynamics is shown to generate a plausible (asset price) specie-flow mechanism. We apply them to a number of issues. Domestic credit policy is neutral in the long run: one unit of foreign reserve increase offsets one unit of credit reduction. Next, the association between the endowment of land and foreign asset accumulation depends on parameters of the model. Finally, we examine the dynamic adjustment s following a once-and-for-all capital inflow. When the adjustment involves running current account deficit, the recipient country's foreign reserve position is permanently lowered. Furthermore, the steady state level of national wealth is permanently reduced. [E4, F3]     

Competition And Its Regulation: Key Issues

This article examines the role of competition policy in developing countries. The leading international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, have proclaimed their support for private sector–led development as the best strategy for reducing poverty. The benefits of private sector development are dependent on ensuring competitive market conditions, which are often absent in developing countries. However, theoretical notions of competition and the ways in which it is perceived to work vary widely and have implications for the type of competition policy that is to be implemented. Competition laws are widespread in industrialized countries but are only just beginning to be introduced in developing countries. The article examines some of the implications of applying competition policy in developing countries when account is taken of different theoretical perspectives, and of the structural and institutional differences between industrialized and developing countries.     

电力零售竞争中的普遍服务问题

20世纪80年代之前,世界上多数国家的电力事业由于自然垄断而被管制。在自然垄断的模式下,垂直一体化的电力企业承担普遍服务义务。随着放松管制政策的实行,竞争提高了电力行业的效率,促进了电价的降低。但与此同时管制者和经济学家也发现,竞争将对电力供应服务的数量和质量产生影响,并导致新进入企业的“撇油”(creamskim)行为,普遍服务义务在改革后无法实现。电力市场放松管制后,零售领域的竞争能否同普遍服务义务并存?电力零售竞争会对普遍服务产生什么样的影响?如何对待二者之间的潜在矛盾?这些问题对于设计合理的零售改革方案,保持改革前后的电力供应稳定是非常重要的。     

Capacity Choices and Price Competition in Experimental Markets

We report on experimental duopoly markets with heterogeneous goods. In these markets, sellers first choose capacities and then prices. While capacities remain fixed for either five or ten periods, prices have to be chosen in every period. The experiments starts with two sets of exogenously predetermined capacities. Independently of the distribution of capacities is, a unique pure-strategy in prices is subgame perfect. In equilibrium, capacities should correspond to the Cournot prediction. Given capacities, price-setting behavior is in general consistent with the theory. Average capacities converge above the Cournot level. Capacities converge at the industry level but are somewhat dispersed. Sellers rarely manage to cooperate.     

Dynamic Model for Market Competition and Price Rigidity

This article presents a price floor model in which durability, unit costs and production period are factors in explaining price rigidity. This article elaborates that cost structure plays an essential role in resolving the inconclusive relationship between market concentration and price rigidity. When the industry is characterized by decreasing returns of scale, the degree of price flexibility decreases as market competition intensifies. The reverse is true when the industry exhibits increasing returns of scale. The factors that cause price rigidity also foster price adjustment asymmetry and price adjustment lag. During times of recession, the model exhibits upward price flexibility as costs increase, but downward price rigidity as costs decrease. Even under forward-looking expectations, the way in which firms adjust prices could look as though they have adaptive expectations. If price stickiness is a characteristic of market competition, then public policies determined by price level could be too drastic for firms in competitive markets.     

Competition and Price Dispersion in International Long-distance Calling

This paper examines the relationship between changes in telecommunications provider competition on international long-distance routes and changes in prices. Overall, increased competition is associated with significantly lower prices to consumers of long-distance services. However, the relationship between competition and price varies according to the type of long-distance plan considered. For the plans frequently selected by price-conscious consumers, increased competition on a route is associated with lower prices. In contrast, for the basic international plans that are the default selection for consumers, increased competition on a route is actually associated with higher prices. Thus price dispersion appears to increase as competition increases. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the OECD. I thank two anonymous referees, Joe Farrell, John Harkrider, Jim Lande, Bob Majure, Carl Willner and seminar participants at the FCC for their helpful comments. Special thanks for aid with data to Linda Blake, Mark Uretsky, Jim Lande, R.L. Smith and Carl Willner.     

Optimal Tax Policy under Environmental Quality Competition

This paper studies the socially optimal emission and commodity tax policy when consumers are willing to pay a price-premium for environmentally friendlier variants of a commodity vertically differentiated in environmental quality. The first-best levels of quality can be obtained by a combination of a uniform ad valorem tax and an emission tax (or a subsidy for buying green products). The first-best emission tax is higher than the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. Regardless of environmentally conscious consumers, if only one instrument is available, the second-best emission tax is equal to the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. A uniform ad valorem tax increases welfare only if the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality is low enough.     

Partial Ownership For The Public Firm And Competition

This paper investigates the issue of partial ownership (partial privatization) of a state-owned public enterprise. We elaborate on the framework of Matsumura (1998) by allowing for managerial inefficiency, and show that under moderate conditions partial ownership is a reasonable choice of government in a monopoly market as well as in a mixed duopoly market, where a public firm competes with a profit-maximizing private firm. We also provide some economic rationale on the result that neither full privatization nor full nation-alization is optimum.     

Optimal Advance Selling Strategy under Price Commitment

This paper studies a two‐period model of advance selling with experienced and inexperienced consumers. It concludes that advance selling weakly dominates no advance selling, and the optimal advance selling price may be at a discount, at a premium or at the regular selling price. Conditions for each possible advance selling strategy to prevail are characterized. However, without experienced consumers in the market, there are no incentives for the retailer to implement an advance selling price premium. How the consumer composition affects the retailer's optimal pricing strategy and profit is also examined.     

对生产价格规律的新理解

生产价格规律是价值规律的特殊表现形式 ,其存在的关键是利润平均化和平均利润的产生。在市场经济条件下 ,利润平均化和平均利润的产生是受限的。社会不能只考虑资本的要求 ,劳动者的利益也是需要考虑的。垄断和等价交换会限制生产价格规律的存在和作用。这是社会的进步 ,并非是不合理。     

Endogenous Timing in a Mixed Duopoly: Price Competition

The endogenous order of moves is analyzed in a mixed duopoly for differentiated goods, where firms choose whether to set prices sequentially or simultaneously. It is shown that, in contrast to the private duopoly where firms set prices sequentially, in the mixed duopoly firms choose prices simultaneously. Moreover, the result obtained in the mixed duopoly under price competition differs from the one under quantity competition, since in the latter case decisions are taken sequentially.