Impact of mandated exclusive territories in the US brewing industry: Evidence from scanner level data

I examine the competitive effects of mandated exclusive territories in the US beer industry. Theory is ambiguous as to the competitive impacts of this vertical practice. Using scanner data from a large number of grocery stores, I empirically examine the impact on beer prices, quantities, and number of brands sold after Wisconsin mandated that brewers must assign exclusive wholesale territories in 2006. Reduced form results from a differences-in-differences model using several control groups and a synthetic control show that the mandates increased prices and reduced quantity of craft beer. Overall number of brands sold decreased as well and craft brewers were the most negatively impacted. Findings suggest that the mandate gave protection to wholesalers and caused an increase in the costs of distribution and reduced competition in the brewing industry.     

Little Fish in a Big Pond: Legitimacy Transfer,Authenticity, and Factors of Peripheral Firm Entry and Growth in the Market Center

Research summary : How do peripheral firms compete and secure future growth? Building on literature in strategy and organizational theory, we test a model of peripheral entry and growth in the mainstream market segment. Using data from 289 craft breweries over 11 years, we find evidence that niche producers are increasingly entering the mainstream market and competing with market‐center firms. We identify two mechanisms contributing to these actions: legitimacy transfer and cognitive claims of authenticity. As hypothesized, imitation of niche products by macro breweries facilitates craft beer entry into mainstream markets. Moreover, two authenticity‐based identity codes are found to reliably influence craft brewery growth: a local identity (i.e., operating in one's local market) and a product proliferator identity (i.e., offering a more diverse set of products) . Managerial summary : How can small niche firms compete with larger, more established organizations? By examining the rapidly expanding craft beer industry, this study explores how craft breweries are able to both enter the market space of these larger competitors and secure sustained patterns of growth. Specifically, we highlight two factors influencing the success of craft breweries. First, as major beer producers mimic niche products (i.e., faux craft beer), smaller niche firms are allowed to enter the market by exposing the typical consumer to the tastes of craft beer. Second, craft breweries enjoy increased success if they (a) emphasize the local elements of their company, and/or (b) offer a larger number of products . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beer Advertising and Marketing Update: Structure,Conduct, and Social Costs

Beer advertising is a topic that has frequently attracted the attention of industrial organization economists. This update reviews major events, data trends, and research for each of three issues: (1) the importance of advertising and product differentiation for structural change in the brewing industry; (2) the manner and extent to which brewers can strategically alter market shares using advertising; and (3) the social costs of beer advertising and marketing, including advertising bans, targeting of underage youth, and recent changes in the three-tier system of alcohol distribution. Major legal decisions pertaining to commercial speech and other regulations also are discussed.JEL Classifications: L66, L13, M37     

外来资本主导代工生产模式下当地企业升级困境与突破——以中国台湾笔记本电脑内地封闭式生产网络为例

本文以中国台湾笔记本电脑在内地的封闭式生产网络为例研究国内当地企业在全球价值链下面临的升级问题。由于技术能力弱、生产规模小等原因，当地企业被边缘化从而限制了升级潜力。本文在分析了中国台湾笔记本电脑行业内地生产网络的形成及网络封闭性的原因后，重点分析了对当地企业升级的影响，进一步对当地企业如何走出升级困境提出了政策建议。     

Network effects and the adoption of new technology: evidence from the U.S. telecommunications industry

This paper examines variations in the adoption of new technology by firms operating in a network-based industry: telecommunications. These variations are explained as a function of three network effects: the first is the conversion effect, driven by operations-related increasing returns to scale; the second is the consumption effect, driven by demand-side increasing returns to scale; the third is an imitative effect. We expect the conversion effect to be felt more strongly during earlier phases of a technology's evolution, while a strong consumption effect is felt throughout. The imitative effect is also expected to be felt throughout. These hypotheses are examined with respect to electronic switching adoption in the local operating sector of the U.S. telecommunications industry. An analysis of the variations in adoption levels of the 40 largest firms over a period lasting from 1973 to 1987 supports our expectations, except for the imitative effect. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Regulation,enforcement, and entry: Evidence from the Spanish local TV industry

Although we have many tools to understand the effect of regulation on firm entry, we know little about the importance of actual regulation enforcement. For this purpose, this paper uses data from Spain's local television industry from 1995 through 2001, which provide a unique opportunity for examining how firms' profitability changes with the introduction of regulation and a posterior liberalization. During this period, the local television industry transitioned from a state of alegality (no regulation in place) to being highly regulated and finally to being informally deregulated. Using a firm entry model from Bresnahan and Reiss (1990, 1991a,b), we estimate local TV station entry thresholds by number of entrants across years. We find the entry threshold in 1998 increased relative to the thresholds in 1995 and 2001, suggesting that entry was less attractive during the period when the local TV industry was highly regulated. We decompose the entry thresholds into the fixed costs and variable profits, and find the fixed-cost ratios increase in 1998 and stay constant in 2001. Meanwhile, we find an increase in the variable-profit ratios in 2001. These findings suggest that the informal deregulation did not invalidate the regulation introduced in 1995 on the cost side. However, the deregulation seemed to have an impact on variable profits through how local TV stations competed.     

Leveraging micro‐ and macro‐structures of embeddedness in alliance networks for exploratory innovation in biotechnology

Researchers agree that alliance networks can be an important instrument in a firm's innovation process, but there is limited empirical evidence on actually how they facilitate the creation of new knowledge for exploratory innovation. The research question is what alliance network configuration is optimal for exploratory innovation. The present study investigated the interaction between a firm's alliance portfolio structure (the micro‐level) and the industry alliance network structure (the macro‐level), and it empirically tested how their interaction may be affecting the exploratory innovation outcome of network participating firms in the biotechnology industry. The paper uses data from exploratory patents filed by 455 dedicated biotechnology firms in 1986–1999 and an overall network comprising 2,933 technological alliances over the same period. The results indicate that, in the case of biotechnology, firms with high exploratory innovation output have short path indirect access to many other firms (micro‐level), and operate in dense industry alliance networks centralized around a few key firms (macro‐level), and that these effects are curvilinear.     

The Supreme Court and Beer Mergers: From <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pabst/Blatz</Emphasis> to the DOJ–FTC Merger Guidelines

The beer industry in the U.S. has undergone significant structural change in the post-WWII period. The industry also was the object of prominent antitrust challenges to horizontal mergers proposed during this time frame. This paper documents the trend of increasing seller concentration in the brewing industry and assesses the role that mergers played in this structural transformation. We also analyze the change in merger policy that has taken place since the Supreme Court originally addressed mergers in the beer industry as compared to current antitrust enforcement under the DOJ–FTC Merger Guidelines and recent judicial decisions.     

苏浙沪碳排放影响因素分解及比较分析

基于苏浙沪地区1998年-2008年时间序列数据,根据碳排放量的基本等式,计算出苏浙沪地区总的碳排放及单位GDP碳排放,并运用LMDI因素分解模型,横向分析人口数量、经济规模、行业碳排放强度及行业产出份额对苏浙沪地区整个碳排放变化的影响情况,纵向比较国民经济六大部门的行业碳排放强度变化对碳排放的贡献率。研究表明：江浙沪地区的单位GDP碳排放逐步减少,碳排放的增速与GDP增速关系密切,经济增长是碳排放量变化的主要拉动因素,行业碳排放强度变化抑制了CO2的排放,尤其工业部门的贡献最大。     

浙江产业集聚现象的经济学分析

随着我国经济的持续发展,产业的发展越来越表现出集聚的特征,有许多文章对这一现象进行了评析。但从表面的宏观现象来阐述集聚的好处、集聚所带来的竞争优势的文章居多。本文试着从微观经济学的理论角度来解释产业集聚的形成、发展、及未来的走向。     

Dynamic performance analysis of U.S. wireline telecommunication companies

Assessing the changes over time in the efficiency of firms participating in competitive markets has always been a major concern to researchers and experts alike. With respect to the US wireline telecommunications sector, recent changes in unbundling regulations, as well as intermodal competition and mergers, have just increased uncertainty in a sector still marked by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Although Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has become a methodology commonly used in many efficiency assessment applications, in the telecommunications context there is a need to implement an approach that takes into account carry-over activities between consecutive years; because of a wide customer base, financial long-term planning and investments in network elements and facilities are crucial for Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) to succeed. To that end, a Dynamic DEA application is formulated in this paper to evaluate the Incumbent LECs' (ILECs) performance from 1997 to 2007. Finally, a regression analysis has been carried out to establish the impact of competition and regulatory schemes upon carriers' efficiency. The results show that local competition has worsened efficiency, whereas neither intermodal competition nor incentive regulation has such a clear influence.     

On the utilization of resources: perspectives from the U.S. telecommunications industry

The issue of resource utilization is important in the resource-based stream of work, since the ability of firms to utilize resources is a key indicator of their competitive abilities. This paper specifies why some firms might be better at utilizing resources than others. Thereafter, it demonstrates how to empirically ascertain differences in resource utilization patterns between firms using the U.S. telecommunications industry as a context. The data envelopment analysis procedure (DEA), which is a firm-level resource utilization measure, is used. This procedure can be useful for the resource-based approach research agenda since performance is measured in resource terms. DEA is applied to measure variations in different dimensions of resource utilization for the firms making up the local operating sector of the telecommunications industry. The use of DEA to guide empirical research and address theoretical issues within the resource-based paradigm is illustrated, using the resource utilization index for the telecommunications firms as the measure of strategic performance. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Profitability, productivity and price recovery patterns in the U.S. telecommunications industry

We undertake a study where we examine changes in the profitability, productivity and price recovery of firms in the U.S. telecommunications industry over a sixteen-year period. We assess the performance of thirty-three major companies in the local-exchange sector over six time periods 1975, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1987 and 1990, using a performance analysis model which disaggregates the profitability measure into two components: productivity and price recovery. We demonstrate the computation of performance using this technique. Our study indicates that the opening up of markets has had a significant impact on different dimensions of performance in the telecommunications industry, also validating a number of theoretical assumptions about the impact that industry changes are expected to have on firms.     

Micro-determinants of vertical integration: Evidence from China

The state-of-the-art literatures, industrial economics, transaction cost theory, and real options theory explain vertical integration (VI) from the perspective of industrial characteristics. However, even within the same industry, VI greatly differs from firm to firm. This indicates that there may be firm-level (micro) determinants in VI. In an effort to probe into firm-level (micro) determinants of VI, we analyze data on the publicly listed firms of the electronics industry in China from 1998 to 2008. We find that between the two micro determinants, firm-oriented determinants consist of three groups of factors of value—profitability, growth, and risk—but insider-oriented determinants do not significantly impact VI.     

洞察十大风险 谋划应变之策——纵论我国煤炭企业新形势下发展危机的应变方略(上篇)

深入分析了目前我国煤炭工业面临的国际国内形势和发展中的新问题与挑战,从宏观至微观、外部至内部的战略视角,归纳梳理了"十二五"乃至更长一段时间,煤炭工业发展中的十大问题与风险,力求破解。上篇主要对国家宏观经济增长放缓,煤炭需求增幅降低;产业政策调整力度加大,煤炭企业利润压缩;新能源开发加速推进,煤炭市场空间挤压这三大风险进行了深入剖析,并提出相应策略。     

Capital investment and employment in the information sector

Estimation of the employment effects of changes in capital investment is a standard tool in public policy debates. Typically, such predictions are based on employment multipliers derived from Input–Output analysis. In this paper, we measure the employment effects of changes in capital investment in the U.S. information sector by econometrically estimating an “employment multiplier” from historical data. The estimated multiplier is 10 information sector jobs for each million dollars in expenditure, and perhaps 24 new jobs per million dollars invested across the entire economy. Employment multipliers derived from the Input–Output methodology average about 16 jobs per million, but the multiplier includes jobs outside the information sector. Including employment spillovers, our estimates suggest the multipliers from Input–Output models are plausible. We also note that information sector jobs have substantially higher median earnings than the private sector average, so the economic significance of changes in information sector employment are greater than might first appear. Our findings may be useful in debates over changes in industry regulation that could affect investment.     

创业板与中国经济增长的实证研究

创业板作为新生的金融工具,其在国民经济发展中的地位一直没有得到科学的评价。本文通过分析创业板运行现状,从宏观和微观两个层面,分别对创业板与经济增长的关系进行实证研究。宏观层面,选取了创业板市场规模、市场流动和市场波动性3个变量指标,通过构建向量自回归模型研究创业板市场对经济增长的影响;微观层面,通过构建创业板上市公司成长性的综合评价指标体系,使用因子分析模型评估出上市公司的成长性,然后与经济增长进行关联分析。最后,总结分析海外创业板市场的成功经验,提出进一步完善我国创业板市场制度建设的若干建议,以推动我国创业板市场的健康发展,达到促进我国经济增长的目标。     

Exclusive Dealing and Its Effects: The Impact of Large Music Festivals on Local Music Venues

This paper examines how local music venues are affected by exclusive contracts used by four of the United States’ most prominent music festivals. By utilizing a unique industry and multi-year dataset, as well as variation in the use of exclusive dealing across the country determined by the location of large music festivals, this paper adds to the paucity of empirical analysis of exclusive dealing and provides new insight into an ignored sector of the music industry. Results show that exclusive contracts correlate with a decrease in the number of venues in affected cities by 7–28 % when compared to those unaffected cities, with smaller cities being disproportionately affected.     

Perspective: The Evolution of R&D Conduct in the Pharmaceutical Industry

During the past three decades, a series of changes in the market environment have altered the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. While these changes have benefitted the generic drug sector, the effect on the branded drug sector has been detrimental. In sum, these changes have shortened the product life cycles for branded drugs by shifting market share to generic drugs sooner. As a result, it is more challenging for branded drugs to meet return on investment expectations because sales revenue has decreased. This study examines change in the pharmaceutical industry through the lens of the Structure‐Conduct‐Performance paradigm. While research and development intensity has remained stable during the past three decades, new product introductions have shifted to favor brand extension drugs over new, innovative drugs. This change in conduct, reflecting the structural changes that have impacted the industry, indicates a transformation in managers' expectations for returns from investment in new drug development. From a performance standpoint, in the latter part of the period studied, we find a positive relationship between stock return and the introduction of brand extensions reflecting the stock market's approval of the change in product strategy. Our discussion concludes that emerging structural changes may help offset the challenges faced by the branded drug sector and ultimately drive additional changes in the branded sector's conduct.