Market structure and competition in transition: results from a spatial analysis

The present article provides first microlevel (indirect) empirical evidence on changes in entry barriers, the determinants of firm profitability as well as the nature of competition for a transition economy. We estimate size thresholds required to support different numbers of firms for several retail and professional service industries in a large number of geographic markets in Slovakia. The 3 time periods in the analysis (1995, 2001 and 2010) characterize different stages of the transition process. Specific emphasis is given to spatial spill-over effects between local markets. Estimation results obtained from a spatial ordered probit model suggest that entry barriers have declined considerably (except for restaurants) and that the intensity of competition has increased on average. We further find that demand spill-overs and/or the effects associated with a positive correlation in unobservable explanatory variables seem to outweigh negative spill-over effects caused by competitive forces between neighbouring cities and villages. The importance of these spatial spill-over effects differs across industries.     

保险市场竞争程度与市场结构的关系研究

本文运用H统计量研究我国财寿险市场的竞争程度,并进一步通过回归分析与相关分析研究竞争程度与市场结构的交互影响因素.研究结果表明,1999-2006年间我国的财险市场可以判断为垄断竞争的市场结构,而同期我国寿险市场则属于寡头垄断的市场结构.2003年保险业费率市场化的改革对财险和寿险都有明显的影响,直接加剧了竞争程度.竞争度与财险市场公司数量正相关,与寿险市场公司数量负相关.竞争度与集中度的关系在财险业为负相关,而在寿险业根据采用不同的集中度指标的不同考察结果会有所不同.     

供水服务民营化改革的经济分析

在世界范围内的民营化浪潮中,长期作为公用事业的供水服务也出现民营化趋势,并在很多国家取得成功实践。产权、竞争和规制的共同作用才能保证供水服务民营化改革取得良好绩效。为解决中国供水部门的低效和融资瓶颈,也必须加快供水服务的民营化进程。     

资本结构与产品市场竞争强度

资本结构与产品市场竞争之间的关系 ,涉及公司金融学和产业经济学两个过去不相关的学术领域。本文对此提出了一个理论假设并建立了相关的经济模型 ,目的是检验企业的资本结构决策与其在产品市场上的竞争战略之间的关系。理论分析表明 ,企业的资本结构选择作为企业向市场发出的一项承诺 ,它向行业内的其他企业表示企业的竞争行为将更加强硬或更加温和 ,即它具有显著的信号发送功能 ,同时能够产生战略效应。企业的资本结构与其所在的产品市场上的竞争强度之间具有显著的正相关关系。我们以深、沪两地的上市公司为例进行的实证研究有效地支持了我们上述的假设。这对企业经营战略的制订与实施具有重要的启示。     

Emerging Market Business Cycles: Recent Advances

Higher variability of consumption relative to output and strong countercyclicality of the trade balance are important regularities of emerging market business cycles. This paper surveys the recent advances in the literature with a goal to understanding the main drivers of these regularities. The literature suggests that trend shocks or countercyclical interest rate shocks are useful modeling tools, but these shocks need to be amplified through inherent frictions to capture these two regularities with realistic calibrations. Informational frictions in expectation formation and search-matching frictions in the labor market appear to provide powerful amplification to trend shocks and countercyclical interest rate shocks, respectively.     

Time lags in the pass-through of crude oil prices: big data evidence from the German gasoline market

This article investigates the pass-through of global Brent oil notations to fuel prices across the oligopoly of retail majors in Germany. We assemble a high-frequency panel data set that encompasses millions of price observations and allows us to distinguish effects by brand. Upon establishing a cointegrating relationship between fuel and crude oil prices using daily data, we estimate an ECM and find that (1) the pass-through of oil prices critically depends on the number of time lags included in the ECM; (2) strict adherence to classical information criteria for determining lag length yields extremely long pass-through durations and (3) the estimated impulse response functions are virtually identical across brands, irrespective of the lag count, suggesting a high degree of competition among brands.     

Diversification into Emerging Markets – An Australian and the US Perspective Using a Time‐varying Approach

Over the past two decades, a number of studies have examined the benefits of diversifying equity investments internationally, particularly into emerging markets. In the portfolio construction process, many researchers have criticised Markowitz's Portfolio Theory because of its inherent assumptions such as symmetric and constant correlations. In this study, we use a conditional copula model to estimate the time‐varying asymmetric correlations of stock markets and construct optimal portfolios by using estimated correlations. We find that optimised portfolios provide significant benefits for both Australian and the US investors. Out‐of‐sample results show Copula model provides results closer to the in‐sample‐estimated benefits of diversification. The results have important implications for portfolio managers who seek to diversify into emerging markets.     

Trouble in Market Paradise: Development of the Regional Transmission Operator

Regional transmission organizations (RTOs) have evolved from “power pool” arrangements between utilities to complex organizations that operate a region’s transmission system and power markets. These RTOs are administered with only peripheral public input. This paper reflects on how RTOs, as a result, have developed very complex market structures that few can or do understand. An RTO’s capacity construct is used to illustrate the point of this complexity and ad hoc nature. The paper also discusses reforms that are needed to align the RTOs behavior with Harry M. Trebing’s public interest regulatory philosophy.     

An Experimental Education Market with Positive Externalities

A graphical approach shows that in order for the tax revenue to increase, following a reduction in the marginal rate, the increase of aggregate supply must be greater the lower the price level elasticity of aggregate demand.     

我国教育市场垄断性的实证研究

近年来,有关教育消费的争论不断,包括教育产业化、高收费、以及低水平的政府教育支出等等。各种观点似乎都有道理,但缺乏实证的支持。文章构造了一个完全垄断的教育市场模型。实证结果表明,我国教育市场属于完全垄断。导致高收费的主要原因不是低水平的政府教育支出而是市场的完全垄断。     

An assessment of crop diversification in Bangladesh: a spatial analysis

The main aim of this article is to assess the crop diversification in different districts of Bangladesh. As there are some variations in topology and rainfall across regions, crop diversification index is computed for 23 old districts. The trend in diversification between 1980/81 and 2002/03 is analysed to see changing pattern over the years. Spatial analysis is also made to examine variations in diversification across regions, using time series data on acreage under different crops.     

Tail dependence and diversification benefits in emerging market stocks: an extreme value theory approach

This article examines tail dependence, the benefits of diversification and the relation between the two for emerging stock markets. We find most emerging equity markets are independent in limiting joint extremes. However, the dependence in finite levels of extremes is still much stronger than the dependence implied by multivariate normality. Therefore, simple correlation analysis can lead to gross underestimation of the chances of joint crashes in multiple markets. Assuming risk-averse investors guarding against extreme losses, diversification benefits are measured for each two-country optimal portfolio by the reduction in quantile risk measures such as value-at-risk and expected shortfall relative to an undiversified portfolio. It is shown that tail dependence measures developed from multivariate extreme value theory are negatively related to diversification benefits and more importantly can explain diversification benefits better than the correlation coefficient at the most extreme quantiles.     

中国股市磨难的政策选择

2007年11月以后,中国股市大幅下落的主要成因在于宏观经济紧缩的政策组合拳和一系列抑制股市上行的政策措施实施,这反映了中国股市依然处于政策调控的走势格局。股市并非国民经济晴雨表,也不具有财富效应。因此,政府部门不应以此而调控股市;政府部门主要职能在于监管股市运行,不能调控股市。股市平准基金不利于股市的健康发展,估值标准必须从中国具体情况出发,它受到制度和体制的严重制约。对中国股市而言,治市重于救市。从发展角度出发,应着重以加法做减法,推进中国股市的健康前行。     

A Pilot Study Using an Online,Experimental, Two-Asset Market

The author uses an online securities market to engage students in their exploration of asset pricing in microeconomics courses.     

The Dynamics of the Institutional Change and the Market Economy: Understanding Contemporaneous Market Development Processes

The Austrian theory of institutions shows the particularity of being tied into a market process analysis. If such a specificity gave rise to a great number of analytical as well as methodological or epistemological contributions, its empirical dimension has been neglected to the benefit of the so-called Institutional works. The aim of my contribution is to come back to this untapped potential in order to exhibit the operational nature of Austrian analyses of institutions, particularly those of Lachmann. The objective here is to establish, through an appropriate temporal articulation of different institutions, the conditions for a harmonious development of market processes. I particularly show the great benefit of such a framework in order to, on one side, offer some explanations of the recent financial crisis faced by the emerging economies, and on the other side, to understand the specificity as well as the coherence of the Chinese economic transition.     

Forward trading and collusion in oligopoly

We consider an infinitely repeated oligopoly in which at each period firms not only serve the spot market by either competing in prices or quantities but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. Contrary to the pro-competitive results of finite-horizon models, we find that the possibility of forward trading allows firms to sustain collusive profits that otherwise would not be possible to achieve. The result holds both for price and quantity competition and follows because (collusive) contracting of future sales is more effective in deterring deviations from the collusive plan than inducing the previously identified pro-competitive effects.     

产品市场竞争治理效应：基于静态和动态投资的实证研究

本文以2003年～2008年深沪两市国有上市公司为研究样本,探讨产品市场竞争程度与投资行为之间的关系。研究发现,在产品市场竞争程度较低样本中,竞争程度与公司当年的投资呈负相关关系,与公司投资变动幅度也呈负相关关系,这表明产品市场竞争程度对静态和动态投资均有治理效应,但在高竞争行业中不显著。此外,研究还证明了非市场化经济中典型的“预算软约束”问题。     

通道费的规制困境:买方势力抑或市场规则

近年来,通道费是零售商与供应商矛盾冲突的焦点。2006年实施的《零售商供应商公平交易管理办法》并没能够达到规范和降低通道费的预期效果,通道费的"双边市场特性"对传统的规制政策提出了一些挑战。通过分析通道费规制的"水床效应",以解释政府的规制困境;基于双边市场理论,构建通道费问题的双边市场框架,得出通道费是零售商平衡双边用户需求、内部化网络外部性的一种市场规则的结论,并以此进一步探讨通道费的规制原则。     

论市场经济与社会主义的全方位结合

改革开放的实践证明，市场经济与社会主义能够全方位结合在一起，也必须全方位结合在一起。只有全方位结合在一起，才能充分体现社会主义的本质，进一步完善社会主义市场经济，更有效地实现社会全面发展和进步。中国在世界上首先成功地走出一条把社会主义与市场经济全方位结合在一起的有中国特色社会主义的道路，这在中国和世界都具有重大而深远的意义。