OPTIMUM-WELFARE AND MAXIMUM-REVENUE TARIFFS IN MIXED OLIGOPOLY WITH FOREIGN COMPETITORS

This paper re-examines the important tariff ranking issue under a linear mixed oligopoly model with foreign competitors and asymmetric costs. We demonstrate that under Cournot competition, when the size of domestic private and foreign private firms become more unequally distributed, optimum-welfare tariff will exceed maximum-revenue tariff. We also show that under Stackelberg competition, when the domestic government protects its domestic sector, it will levy higher optimum-welfare tariffs versus maximum-revenue tariffs; however, when it decides to open its doors more for foreign competitors, it will need to levy higher maximum-revenue tariffs versus optimum-welfare tariffs. The above results remain valid whether the domestic public firm acts as a leader or a follower.     

WELFARE IN THE NASH EQUILIBRIUM IN EXPORT TAXES UNDER BERTRAND DUOPOLY

In the Eaton and Grossman Quarterly Journal of Economics, 101 (1986), pp. 383–406 model of export taxes under Bertrand duopoly, it is shown that welfare in the Nash equilibrium in export taxes is always higher than welfare under free trade for both countries.     

THE NUMBER OF FIRMS AND THE POLITICS OF STRATEGIC TRADE POLICY

Incorporating home firms' lobbying in a country into a third market model of oligopoly, this paper studies how such lobbying affects the government's strategic export policy scheme. We pay special attention to the home firms' lobby formation and its effect on domestic welfare. The home firms can organize a lobby more easily when the number of their rival foreign firms is larger than that of them, and/or when the government is overly concerned with political contribution relative to domestic welfare. The strategic export policy under lobbying cannot improve the domestic welfare, which depends on the number of firms, the government's concern about political donation and the level of socially wasted lobbying costs.     

TARIFFS AND IMPORTS MISINVOICING UNDER OLIGOPOLY

Mismatch of trade statistics between developed and developing countries indicate a substantial misinvoicing of trade figures, primarily by developing country traders. This is due to the inflexible exchange rate regimes, severe import restrictions and export subsidies prevailing in Less Developed Countries (LDCs). In this paper, we focus on import underinvoicing due to high tariff barriers in a market where domestic producers compete with importers. Specifically, we examine how tariff levels, market structure and government intervention (in the form of intensity of monitoring and severity of penalties) affect the levels of underinvoicing. We also look at the optimal levels of import tariff and instruments of government intervention in these circumstances.     

R&D INCENTIVES UNDER BERTRAND COMPETITION: A DIFFERENTIAL GAME*

We investigate dynamic R&D for process innovation in an oligopoly where firms invest in cost‐reducing activities. We focus on the correlation between R&D intensity and market structure, proving that the industry R&D investment at equilibrium monotonically increases in the number of firms. This result contradicts the established wisdom acquired from static games on the same topic. We also prove that, if competition is sufficiently tough, any increase in product substitutability reduces R&D efforts.     

WHOLESALE PRICES AND COURNOT‐BERTRAND COMPETITION

This note considers the competing vertical structures framework with Cournot‐Bertrand competition downstream. It shows that the equilibrium wholesale price paid by a Cournot (Bertrand)‐type retailer is above (below) marginal costs of a corresponding manufacturer. This result contrasts with the one under pure competition downstream (i.e., Cournot or Bertrand), where the wholesale price is set below (above) marginal costs in case of a Cournot (Bertrand) game at the retail level.     

Special issue: imperfect competition and contemporary macroeconomics. Editor’s introduction

This paper introduces the special issue by tracing out the history of imperfect competition in macroeconomics, particularly since 1980. It argues that in the search for a micro-foundation for nominal rigidity it was necessary to abandon the assumption of competitive equilibrium where all agents are price-takers. This led to models where firms and other optimising agents set wages and prices which were part of the new Keynesian economics of the 1980s. When these were combined with quantitative dynamic equilibrium methods it gave rise to the new neoclassical synthesis models which dominate macroeconomics today. The assumption of imperfect competition provides an equilibrium with different properties to the competitive, and one particular focus is on the relationship between the markup and the fiscal multiplier.

THE DECISION TO HIRE MANAGERS IN MIXED MARKETS UNDER BERTRAND COMPETITION*

This paper analyses the decisions of firms as to whether or not to hire managers when there is a public firm competing with a private firm in the product market. It is shown that under Bertrand competition with heterogeneous goods both firms hire managers. This is in contrast with the result obtained under Cournot competition, where only the private firm hires a manager. Moreover, welfare is lower if both firms hire managers than if neither firm does. In contrast, under Cournot competition welfare is greater if both firms hire managers.     

Adjustment,trade policy and investment slumps: evidence from east asia ∗

This paper presents a model of investment in five East Asian economies over the 1970s and 80s, paying particular attention to the impact of the policy reforms which have accompanied Structural Adjustment Programmes. A priori, the impact of trade reform on investment can be positive or negative; in practise, it is found to be negative.     

寡头垄断、风险竞争与中小银行的发展困境:2001-2006

金融市场开放和改革使我国中小银行得到了较快发展,但也逐步陷入了风险扩张而绩效下滑的困境中.运用基于Stackelberg模型构建的寡头垄断市场银行风险竞争模型来对中小银行发展困境进行的实证研究发现,在资金价格(存贷款利率)受到严格管制的垄断市场中,银行间的竞争将会导致银行体系风险水平与资产规模的不断扩张,而不是经营绩效的持续提升.要使中小银行摆脱发展困境并得到健康发展,必须在培育银行业专业化分工的同时逐渐打破银行体系的垄断格局,推进利率市场化,放开对资金价格的严格限制,使中小银行的非价格竞争劣势转变为价格竞争优势;同时加强对中小银行的监管,为其营造一个公平竞争的市场环境.     

Coalition-proof supply function equilibria under capacity constraints

Whereas in the absence of capacity constraints the Cournot outcome is the unique coalition-proof supply function equilibrium outcome, the presence of capacity constraints may enlarge the set of equilibrium outcomes. Interestingly, if capacities are sufficiently asymmetric the new equilibrium prices are below the Cournot price. These results have important implications for merger and privatization policies: specifically, capacity divestiture will not necessarily imply lower market prices.This article is based on the second chapter of my PhD dissertation. I benefited from the comments and suggestions of Diego Moreno and Bill Hogan. I thank three anonymous referees for helpful comments. Seminar audiences at Carlos III and Harvard are gratefully acknowledged. The author is currently a Repsol YPF fellow at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. I am grateful to the Repsol YPF-Harvard Fellowship Program for financial support.     

服务业产业内贸易与中国服务贸易的国际竞争力初探

产业内贸易在某种程度上是发展中国家技术水平和经济增长的标志，其发展水平也是衡量一国外贸竞争力的标志。我国服务业产业内贸易水平低下，国际竞争力不强。切实采取措施，提高产业内贸易发展水平是提升服务业产业内贸易国际竞争力水平的重要手段。     

我国出口贸易政策的缺失及调整取向

改革开放以来，我国出口贸易创造了被国际社会称之为的“出口奇迹”，出口商品结构亦呈明显动态升级特征。然而这一骄人成绩背后却隐藏着一些隐忧：外商主导我国出口局面形成；中间品介高质低，影响下苷产业的竞争力；贸易条件长期恶化等，这与我国外贸政策在某些方面的缺失有着密切关系。为此，应及早对我国出口贸易政策进行调整，采取对应措施，使我国成为真正意义上的贸易强国。     

Existence and optimality of oligopoly equilibria in linear exchange economies

Summary. We consider a linear exchange economy and its successive replicas. We study the notion of Cournot-Walras equilibrium in which the consumers use the quantities of commodities put on the market as strategic variables. We prove that, generically, if the number of replications is large enough but finite, the competitive behaviour is an oligopoly equilibrium. Then, under a mild condition, which may be interpreted in terms of market regulation and/or market activity, we show that any sequence of oligopoly equilibria of successive replica economies converges to the Walrasian outcome and furthermore that every oligopoly equilibrium of large, but finite, replica is Pareto optimal. Consequently, under the same assumptions on the fundamentals of the economy, one has an asymptotic result on the convergence of oligopoly equilibria to the Walras equilibrium together with a generic existence result for the Cournot-Walras. Received: June 20, 2002; revised version: November 20, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Part of this paper was written while the second author was visiting the Universidad de Vigo. The support of the department of mathematics is gratefully acknowledged. Correspondence to: J.M. Bonnisseau     

基于钢企纵向一体化程度下的竞争博弈分析

在铁矿石寡头市场供应情况下,钢企的纵向一体化程度又受到产业链上下游企业竞争博弈的影响。文章以博弈论为工具,建立了一个上游矿企寡头供应商和下游纵向一体化钢企的两阶段动态竞争博弈。第一阶段,下游钢企进行Cournot博弈,在无差异生产条件下,钢企一体化程度影响到各自边际成本和产量。第二阶段,在无产量约束或有Bertrand博弈均衡产量为约束条件下,上游寡头矿企之间进行Bertrand寡头博弈,以分析铁矿价格对钢企的一体化程度的影响。最后得出：上游矿企寡头供应商竞争状况决定作为中间产品的铁矿的价格,而铁矿原料的价格又影响到下游钢企一体化程度的趋势变化。从而在今后市场竞争中,为我国钢企获取原料资源以及经营决策提供了参考。     

Minimum quality standards and consumers’ information

The literature so far has analyzed the effects of minimum quality standards (MQS) in oligopoly, using models of pure vertical differentiation, with only two firms, and perfect information. We consider products that are differentiated horizontally and vertically, with imperfect consumers’ information, and more than two firms. We show that a MQS changes the consumers’ perception of produced qualities. This increases the firms’ returns from quality enhancing investments, notwithstanding contrary strategic effects. Our analysis justifies the use of MQS in industries where consumers cannot precisely ascertain the quality of goods, for instance pharmaceuticals or products with chemical components involved. Paper presented at the 2004 ASSET conference in Barcelona, and at the 2005 EARIE conference in Porto. The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.     

贸易保护与政治利益关系的研究

在国际贸易发展的不同历史发展时期一直存在着贸易保护与政治利益的复杂关系,无论从重商主义时期贸易保护的观点到工业革命时期的自由贸易理论,还是今天发展中国家对幼稚工业的保护和发达国家对衰退产业的保护,无不体现了政治利益在贸易政策中的决定性作用.尽管自由贸易是世界贸易发展的大趋势,但贸易保护仍然是各国制定贸易政策的底线,必将在相当长的时期内与自由贸易并存.     

货币政策有效性与货币政策透明制度的兴起

本文着重探讨货币政策透明性与货币政策有效性之间的关系,目的在于说明货币政策透明制度能够兴起的一个关键因素在于货币政策的透明性有利于提高货币政策的有效性。在标准的“时间不一致性”理论里面,货币政策是否透明对货币政策的效应是没有影响的,因为在这类理论里面,经济主体能够使用所有可获得的信息形成与经济系统相一致的、无偏的估计。但问题的关键在于,这种假设的基本前提在实践中并不完全成立。当考虑到经济主体对经济运行结果和经济运行过程的不完全认知时,货币政策透明性对于促进经济主体的学习过程,稳定和引导公众的通胀预期,进而提高货币政策的有效性就起着至关重要的作用。     

Specification choice and robustness in CGE trade policy analysis with imperfect competition

In order to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the robustness of the quantitative results of applied trade policy simulations to variations in the assumptions about firm conduct, this article provides a systematic synopsis of alternative formulations of imperfectly competitive supply behaviour in applied general equilibrium trade models and examines the sensitivity of simulated trade policy effects to the specification choice and calibration strategy within a prototype multi-country model. The analysis suggests in particular, that simulation results are generally far more sensitive to numerical specification choices at the calibration stage, than to the prior choice of firm conduct specification.