Exploring Duopoly Markets with Conjectural Variations

In this article, the authors investigate competitive firm behaviors in a two-firm environment assuming linear cost and demand functions. By introducing conjectural variations, they capture the different market structures as specific configurations of a more general model. Conjectural variations are based on the assumption that each firm believes its own strategy influences its rival's strategy. Firms derive their optimal choice from these exogenous conjectures, under the form of a conjectural best-response function. The authors’ approach fully encompasses the standard measures of market power (the Lerner Index) and concentration (the Herfindahl Index), both depending on the conjectural variations. They finally represent, analytically and graphically, the equilibrium strategies and the associated indexes in a unified framework for any level of competition, ranging from perfect competition to collusion.     

Conjectural Variations and Voluntary Public Good Provision in a Repeated Game Setting

The purpose of this paper is to show how conjectural variations can be derived as a reduced form in an infinitely repeated game of private provision of public goods. We obtain explicit closed forms of conjectural variations associated with maximal sustainable equilibria in which the sum of the utilities of all of a community's members is maximized for both quadratic and Cobb–Douglas preferences, provided that the resulting sequence of contributions can be sustained as a Nash (or subgame perfect) equilibrium in the underlying repeated game. We also show that positive conjectural variations will emerge as long as people place positive weight on the future, and that those conjectures are positively related to the discount factor.     

The theory of public goods: non-nash behaviour

Most treatments of equilibrium public goods provision assume zero conjectural variations in the sense that each individual regards the behaviour of the rest of the community as independent of his own. This paper introduces nonzero conjectural variations into the model. A diagram is introduced which can depict both the individual's and the community's equilibrium in the presence of nonzero conjectural variations. Equilibrium and optimal outcomes are compared, and a specific functional form is used to investigate the effect of community size on the nature of equilibrium. Finally, we discuss the requirement that conjectures should be consistent.     

Conjectural variations,risk aversion and price-cost margins

Summary We have shown that introduction of random conjectural variations and risk aversion into an oligopoly model leads to results in line with those derived earlier for competitive and monopolistic firms. In particular, a risk-averse firm has smaller output and higher expected price-cost margin than a risk-neutral firm. For a specific form of conjectural variations we have shown that under risk aversion the firm-level expected price-cost margins depend on the market structure, measured in terms of the Herfindahl index of the rest of the firms in the industry, as well as on the expected degree of correlation between the competitors' reactions.     

A further look at consistent conjectures and private provision of public goods

A model of private provision of a public good under conjectural variations is discussed and the rule for a symmetric consistent conjectures equilibrium (CCE) derived. It is shown that in a number of reasonable cases symmetric CCEs fail to exist in economies with identical individuals, while there may exist asymmetric ones. The relevance of these results for the use of the conjectural variations approach in public good theory is then discussed together with some suggestions for further research.     

The empirical content of Cournot competition

We consider the testable implications of the Cournot model of market competition. Our approach is nonparametric in the sense that we abstain from imposing any functional specification on market demand and firm cost functions. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for (reduced form) equilibrium market price and quantity functions to be consistent with the Cournot model. In addition, we present identification results for the corresponding inverse market demand function and the firm cost functions. Finally, we use our approach to derive testable restrictions for the models of perfect competition, collusion and conjectural variations. This identifies the conditions under which these different models are empirically distinguishable from the Cournot model. We also investigate empirical issues (measurement error and omitted variables) related to bringing our testable restrictions to data.     

多元知识探寻与后发企业技术创新

当后发企业由追随向引领转型时，将致力于对全球化技术、基础科学等多种知识来源的积极探寻，以推进自身技术创新。基于专利及引文数据，分析海外技术知识与科学知识对后发企业技术创新的影响效应。实证研究发现：海外技术知识转移水平与后发企业创新呈U型关系；知识来源的地理多样性则正向作用于后发企业创新。另外，企业科学关联度对后发企业技术创新未起到显著促进作用。在后发转型背景下，明晰企业对多元知识的技术学习机制和效果，对企业创新追赶及其国际化具有重要指导意义。     

ON THE CONSISTENT CONJECTURES EQUILIBRIUM OF EXPORT SUBSIDY GAME

This paper explores an export subsidy game in an international duopoly in which governments of countries as well as firms hold conjectures about the response of other governments. In the framework with linear demand/quadratic cost functions, a homogeneous good and no home consumption, I shall obtain the relations among the conjectural variation of firms, that of governments, and the optimal subsidies for countries. And I shall show that if and only if firms hold the consistent conjectures, Nash type behavior (zero conjectural variation) of governments is consistent.     

治理环境、企业寻租与交易成本-基于中国上市公司非生产性支出的经验证据

基于交易成本理论,本文分析了治理环境如何影响企业寻租动机并进而影响企业交易成本——非生产性支出。本文借鉴并改进了Andersonetal.(2006)模型,探讨了非生产性支出的度量,并实证检验了影响非生产性支出的制度因素。研究表明,企业所处地区治理环境对交易成本有显著影响,减少政府干预、改善政府服务、加强法律保护均有利于减少企业非生产性支出。本文研究发现不仅具有理论上的意义,也为我国市场化改革提供了进一步的实证支持。     

企业技术多样性、实质性社会责任信息披露与创新扩散

技术多样性是企业创新能力的重要表征，但现有研究对于技术多样性与创新扩散的关系存在争议。对此，区分相关和不相关技术多样性对创新扩散的异质性影响，并检验实质性社会责任信息披露作为一种信号传递机制对上述关系的调节作用。基于2008—2017年中国研发密集型上市企业数据进行实证分析，结果发现：相关技术多样性能够积极影响创新扩散；不相关技术多样性对创新扩散的影响存在滞后效应；实质性社会责任信息披露正向调节不相关技术多样性与创新扩散的关系。结论丰富了创新扩散理论与实证研究，可为企业创新实践提供决策依据。     

商业服务进口、自主研发与制造业企业技术进步

制造业企业技术进步可以通过自主研发与国际技术转移实现。商业服务贸易是包括专利、研发在内的知识密集型服务贸易,是国内企业获得国际技术溢出的主要渠道。利用WIOD数据库计算出我国制造业对商业服务进口的依赖程度,并基于我国工业企业数据库2001-2007年企业面板数据,对商业服务进口和企业自主研发是否促进制造业企业技术进步进行实证研究。结果发现：自主研发和商业服务进口对全要素生产率有显著促进作用;商业服务进口可以促进国内企业自主研发,二者共同促进制造业企业全要素生产率提高。     

产权、代理成本和代理效率

本文选择政府管制较少、竞争较为充分的电子电器行业作为研究对象,考察了产权制度与代理成本和代理效率的关系,得到以下结论:(1)在代理成本上,国有产权企业普遍高于混和产权企业,混和产权企业高于个人产权企业;在代理成本差异上,混和产权企业与个人产权企业的差异小于与国有产权企业的差异。(2)长期投资率和职工人数与代理成本呈显著正相关关系,而长期投资率、财务杠杆比率、职工人数等与代理效率呈显著负相关关系。(3)企业规模越大,不同产权的代理成本差异越小;反之代理成本差异越大。(4)随着市场竞争程度的提高,各类产权企业的代理成本都呈现下降趋势,其代理效率呈现提高趋势。我们研究的启示是国有企业改革的突破口应考虑如何降低其代理成本,解决的措施之一是产权改革,尤其是产权多元化的改革,其次是完善对投资和负债及冗员的监督和控制机制,以促进代理成本的降低和代理效率的提高。     

Barriers to SME Growth in Slovenia

The paper is based on the findings of a research project which aimed to identify the critical barriers to small business growth and development in Slovenia. The key barriers identified in the research included factors linked to the institutional environment including bureaucracy, and to external financial constraints including the high cost of capital. Internal organisation and resource issues, and social support through local development coalitions were found to be less important. The research was based upon a sample survey of small firms in Slovenia, and on an econometric analysis of the sources of firms' growth. This provided evidence that firms' growth was negatively linked to firms' size, and that growth was reduced by the presence of institutional and financial barriers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications.     

Conjectural variations, symmetric equilibria and economic policy

In this paper, we consider conjectural variations in a simple static general equilibrium model under oligopolistic competition. The modeling of conjectures captures the role played by beliefs in a micro-founded model. So, the economy may have three kinds of symmetric general equilibria. Furthermore, these equilibria can be Pareto-ranked by the conjectural variation parameter. Finally, we consider the implementation of a tax on the strategic behaviors in case of balanced-budget rule. The comparative statics illustrates the idea according to which the effectiveness of the multiplier mechanism to mitigate the market distortions depends on the symmetric equilibrium considered. Therefore, the effect of the tax on the prices and economic activity depends on the degree of market power which is conjectured by the agents.     

Market power and output stability

The conjectural variation elasticity is used in a comparative statics analysis to show that, contrary to a long-standing tenet of industrial organization, market power may destabilize output when cost and demand are stochastic, under other assumptions similar to those of recent empirical studies.     

Branch banking, entry deterrence, and technology decisions

The paper sets up a theoretical model of banking firms to investigate the relationship between oligopolistic competition and technology structure by using the concept of decentralized operating decisions and centralized investment decisions. It concludes that the representative branch and the new entrant will choose the technology which is deviated from its cost-minimization level if neither of them acts as a quasi-competitive deposit demanders in the case of costless reversibility of capacity decision. In the case of capacity reversed not costlessly, the representative branch will choose the cost-minimizing technology level and the entrant's technology decision depends on its rival's conjectural variation.     

External Economies in Procyclical Productivity: How Important Are They?

Using the method of Caballero and Lyons (1990,1992), I examined detailed Swedish manufacturing firm-level dataon output and factor inputs from 1979 through 1994. Panel regressionsshow that an increase in aggregate output and inputs appearsto raise individual firms' production beyond private marginalreturns, a result consistent with positive external effects fromaggregate activity. However, while considering potential specificationdifficulties, this analysis shows that a model in which high-frequencyexogenous shifts in technology drive the business cycle statisticallyoutperforms the Caballero-Lyons model. This finding suggeststhat economywide fluctuations in technology are more importantfor movements in firms' productivity than are external economies.     

智力资本对企业竞争优势的影响——来自我国IT上市公司的证据

本文在对资源基础理论重新审视的基础上,以我国2002-2004年间的信息技术上市公司为研究对象,利用分量回归方法就智力资本对企业竞争优势的影响进行实证分析.研究结果表明:人力资本对企业综合绩效有积极显著的贡献,但这种贡献却随着业绩的提高而减弱;结构资本只对综合绩效较好的公司的业绩有显著正向的促进作用;物质资本对业绩有着显著为正的影响,而且这种影响随业绩的提高而逐渐增强.     

Market Power and Welfare in Electricity Markets Employing Tradable Green Certificate Systems

Within the last 25 years, liberalization (deregulation) of electricity markets around the world has been undertaken with the goal of replacing long-standing monopoly rights with fully competitive markets. In addition, many nations have begun employing “tradable green certificate” systems to promote electricity generation from renewable (“green”) energy sources (wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, etc.), with the primary objective of mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel (“black”) producers. In this paper, we examine some welfare implications of the use of green certificate systems in electricity markets under alternative market structures. We demonstrate that under a wide variety of scenarios, an oligopolistic market structure may perform better in terms of welfare than a competitive market structure. We also demonstrate that there will typically be an optimal level of market power summarized by a conjectural variations parameter that depends on the cost structure of both green and black firms. Our model provides insights into the policy challenge of electricity market design and suggests an approach that could be applied in a more general model.     

Shared network investment

This paper discusses the case of inter-firm cost sharing in fixed-capital investment in business-related network. Such cooperation among individual firms differs in nature from the collusive conduct in pricing or production in the sense that decisions on short-term production remain independent. The model in this paper stylized a common network that reduces each member firm's variable cost of production. Firms benefit from pooling their investment in this network thanks to cost subadditivity of the investment. Different dues-assignment rules are found to affect firms' incentive in achieving collective efficiency.