Interfirm Bundling and Vertical Product Differentiation

In this paper, we study the competitive effects of bundled discounts offered by pairs of independent firms. In a setting with vertically differentiated goods, where firms decide whether to participate in a discounting scheme before prices are set, it is shown that, in equilibrium, all pairs of firms producing goods of the same quality level offer bundled discounts. Relative to the no‐bundling benchmark, we find that (i) all headline prices rise, (ii) all bundle prices, net of the respective discount, decrease, and (iii) only high‐quality sellers will obtain higher profits. Furthermore, this equilibrium corresponds to the worst scenario in terms of consumer welfare, and it and decreases social welfare.     

过度自信、有限参与和资产价格泡沫

当存在模型不确定性且有限市场参与内生时,过度自信的投资者和理性投资者参与股票市场的程度有着不同的行为模式。本文给出的模型分析了两种投资者在不同情况下对股票市场的参与情况,借此解释有限市场参与、超额进入和资产定价之间的关系。模型在流动性溢价、投资者结构和风险溢价的关系等方面具有明显的实证含义。模型表明,理性投资者有更大的投资区域,但是非理性投资者在其投资区域内更为激进。进而,在不同情形下,模型给出了资产均衡价格与投资者结构之间对应关系。     

A model of banknote discounts

Prior to 1863, state-chartered banks in the United States issued notes—dollar-denominated promises to pay specie to the bearer on demand. Although these notes circulated at par locally, they usually were quoted at a discount outside the local area. These discounts varied by both the location of the bank and the location where the discount was being quoted. Further, these discounts were asymmetric across locations, meaning that the discounts quoted in location A on the notes of banks in location B generally differed from the discounts quoted in location B on the notes of banks in location A. Also, discounts generally increased when banks suspended payments on their notes. In this paper we construct a random matching model to qualitatively match these facts about banknote discounts. To attempt to account for locational differences, the model has agents that come from two distinct locations. Each location also has bankers that can issue notes. Banknotes are accepted in exchange because banks are required to produce when a banknote is presented for redemption and their past actions are public information. Overall, the model delivers predictions consistent with the behavior of discounts.     

Endogenous Firm Objectives

We analyze the behavior of a monopolistic firm in general equilibrium when the firm's decisions are taken through shareholder voting. We show that, depending on the underlying distribution, rational voting may imply overproduction as well as underproduction, relative to the efficient level. Any initial distribution of shares is an equilibrium, if individuals do not recognize their influence on voting when trading shares. However, when they do, and there are no short–selling constraints, the only equilibrium is the efficient one. With short–selling constraints typically underproduction occurs. It is not market power itself causing underproduction, but the inability to perfectly trade the rights to market power.     

Drèze equilibria and welfare maxima

We present an example of a production economy with incomplete markets, von Neumann–Morgenstern utility functions, and a unique Drèze equilibrium in order to illustrate and explain the following phenomenon. There exists a transfer scheme such that every shareholder’s utility after transfers and share adjustments increases the more the firm deviates from the Drèze equilibrium. However, shareholders’ welfare decreases the further the firm departs from the Drèze equilibrium. Shareholders’ welfare is defined as the sum of their utilities where every utility function is normalized such that the marginal utility of today’s consumption equals 1 at the Drèze equilibrium.     

Competition between private and public schools: testing stratification and pricing predictions

When there are peer effects in education, private schools have an incentive to vary tuition to attract relatively able students. Epple and Romano [American Economic Review 88(1) (1998) 33] develop a general equilibrium model characterizing equilibrium pricing and student selection into schools when peer effects are present. The model predicts that competition will lead private schools to give tuition discounts to more able students, and that this will give rise to an equilibrium exhibiting stratification by income and ability between the public and private sectors and to a hierarchy of schools within the private sector. The model also yields a variety of comparative-static predictions. The predictions of the model are tested in this paper using a unique data set assembled by Figlio and Stone [Research in Labor Economics (1999) 115]. Tests of equilibrium predictions of the model reveal that: The propensity to attend private school increases with both income and ability, and, among private schools, the propensity to attend the highest-tuition schools rises with both income and ability. Within private schools, tuition declines with student ability, with a substantial number of even high-income households paying little or no tuition. The correlation between income and ability is greater in public than private schools. Tests of comparative static predictions of the model reveal that: Both income and ability become stronger predictors of private school attendance as public school expenditure falls. Income becomes increasingly important in determining placement in the private school hierarchy as public school expenditure falls. Discounts to ability in the lowest-quality private school decline as public school expenditure rises while discounts to ability in the highest-quality private school are little affected by changes in public school expenditure. Expenditure in private schools rises as expenditure in public schools increases. These empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model.     

Bundled discounts: Strategic substitutes or complements?

Bundled discounts by pairs of otherwise independent firms play an increasingly important role as a strategic tool in several industries. Given that prices of firms competing for the same consumers are strategic complements, one would expect their discounts levels also to be strategic complements. However, in this paper we show that under some circumstances bundled discounts may be strategic substitutes. This occurs under vertically differentiated products where a low quality pair of producers may indeed prefer to lower its discount after an increase in the discount offered by a high quality pair of producers.     

公司信息披露与年度股东大会

年度股东大会为股东提供了一个表达他们对公司经营绩效关心的机会,这使得经理们设法表现出良好的经营业绩。为了回应股东的压力,经理们往往会在年度股东大会之前披露积极消息公告。具体来说,在年度会议日期前40天的平均累积异常报酬显着为正。尤其当股东对公司经营绩效越不满,会议前回报越是显著较高。如果股东对管理层的压力过大,如机构持股高或者高管薪酬较高时,过去的业绩不佳的公司就会表现出更高的股东年会前回报。     

中小股东近乎全部出席股东大会的公司治理模式

只有小部分中小股东参加股东大会,客观上将公司的经营管理委托给控股股东,中小股东付出了巨大的委托成本,导致他们亏多盈少。通过创新制度：在出席股东大会的中小股东当中,由他们选举若干名＂补全代表＂,由这些＂补全代表＂行使未出席股东大会股份的表决权,中小股东近乎全部参加股东大会;中小股东以其持股总量按每5%持股量选派一名董事,每一位大股东分别以每5%持股量直接派出一名董事,董事会中既有控股股东的代表又有中小股东的代表,控股股东与其他股东相互约束并制衡,框架出一个全体股东同生共死、同等收益的治理模式。     

上市公司中小股东利益保障机制

中小股东是现代公司存在的发展的基石，中小股东与大股东相比，在公司治理与证券市场投资中处于弱势地位，许多国家确立了一些旨在保护中小股东利益的保障机制，以确保中小股东受到平等待遇，这些实践为建立和完善我国上市公司中小股东保障机制提供了借鉴。     

NEGOTIATED BLOCK TRADE AND REBUILDING OF TRUST

We investigate the impact of corporate governance on customers' trust using a dynamic model of experience-goods firm. In the optimal equilibrium, customers' trust in the firm is linked to its behavior in the market for corporate control, so that the controlling shareholder has incentives to ensure high product quality while noncontrolling shareholders' interests are protected. Following a trust-damaging event, turnover of the controlling share block restores customers' trust and enhances total shareholder value. Our analysis identifies an endogenous cost of corporate control, offers implications for the control premium, and provides a novel rationale for the separation of ownership and control.     

Mean-reversion in closed-end fund discount: evidence from half-life

This article examines the mean-reversion properties of the discount on UK and US closed-end funds. While the discounts are tested I(1), strong statistical evidence of mean-reversion is ascertained by bias-corrected bootstrap half-life estimates. The estimates also indicate that equity-based funds converge to the steady-state level faster than fixed income funds. In addition, although an equilibrium pricing condition postulates an inverse relation between half-life and the discount size, correlation estimates fail to show strong support for the relation.     

大股东减持作为一种支持行为之探析

＂掏空＂和＂支持＂行为对公司来说是两种作用对称的行为。大股东减持作为＂掏空＂行为之一已有研究,作为支持行为还未见研究报道,然而大股东减持是能够作为支持行为的。大股东减持既可能用套现获得的资金直接支持上市公司,也可能是通过引进战略投资机构、优化公司的股权结构提升公司治理效率实现支持。两个案例的分析进一步说明了大股东在公司处于财务困境时减持可能是大股东支持行为之一,但这还有待于对大股东减持与其支持行为关系进行实证研究。     

Two-sided competition with vertical differentiation

This paper studies duopoly in which two-sided platforms compete in differentiated products in a two-sided market. Direct competition on both sides leads to results that depart from much of the current literature. Under some conditions the unique equilibrium in pure strategies can be computed. It features discounts on one side and muted differentiation as the cross-market externality intensifies competition. Less standard, that equilibrium fails to exist when the externality is too powerful (that side becomes too lucrative). A mixed-strategy equilibrium always exists and is characterized. These results are robust to variations in the extensive form. The model may find applications in the media, internet trading platforms, search engine competition, social media or even health insurance (HMO/PPO).     

Capital Structure under Costly Enforcement*

We consider financial structure and repayment behavior in a setting where cash flows are private information to the entrepreneur and the cost of enforcing repayment differs across security holders. If enforcement costs are lower for shareholders than for creditors, a mixed capital structure with debt and equity can obtain in equilibrium. Under a mixed capital structure, creditors intervene in low cash‐flow states while shareholders intervene in high cash‐flow states. Moreover, strategic defaults, costly bankruptcy, shareholder intervention, and violation of absolute priority occur with positive probability on the equilibrium path. Several of the predictions from our framework are consistent with evidence not readily explainable by existing theories.     

Ascending price Vickrey auctions for general valuations

Ascending price auctions involving a single price path and buyers paying their final bid price cannot achieve the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) outcome in the combinatorial auctions setting. Using a notion called universal competitive equilibrium prices, shown to be necessary and sufficient to achieve the VCG outcome using ascending price auctions, we define a class of ascending price auctions in which buyers bid on a single price path. Truthful bidding by buyers is an ex post Nash equilibrium in such auctions. By giving discounts to buyers from the final price, the VCG outcome is achieved for general valuations.     

控股股东道德风险与公司现金策略

本文借鉴Myers & Majluf(1984)的模型框架,从控股股东利益最大化的视角构建了公司发行股票为投资项目融资的决策模型。本文模型分析表明,公司控股股东会选择在其自身利益增加的情况下发行股票,但这有可能损害公司原有中小股东的利益。控股股东的这种道德风险将被市场所预期,从而会对公司融资行为形成约束。在这种因控股股东道德风险所引起的融资约束下,公司现金持有策略会发生变化。控股股东出于利益侵占动机增强对现金资产的偏好,导致公司现金—现金流敏感度上升,而公司增持现金的价值效应较低。在实证检验中,本文以2003—2009年沪深两市非金融类A股上市公司作为分析样本,用终极控股股东控制权/现金流权两权分离程度代表公司控股股东利益侵占动机的强弱。检验结果表明,在终极控股股东两权分离程度较大的情况下,公司现金—现金流敏感度较高而现金变动的价值较低,这证实了本文的理论假说。     

A Search Model of Money and Circulating Private Debt With Applications To Monetary Policy

A search-theoretic model is used to examine the coexistence of money and circulating private debt. Money is still valued even though there coexists credit which circulates among agents and dominates in the rate of return. When there coexist multiple equilibria, the equilibrium with credit Pareto dominates the one without credit if money supply is not extremely plentiful. This article also provides some predictions about the effects of monetary policies. A policy of open market operations whereby government discounts less for second-hand debt decreases the value of money, credit, and interest rate prevailing in the market. This policy can also improve welfare by making credit trade feasible when the only equilibrium entails no credit without intervention.     

Conspiracies and Secret Discounts in Laboratory Markets

This paper uses laboratory methods to evaluate whether price-fixing conspiracies break down in the presence of opportunities to offer secret discounts. The primary treatment difference is whether or not buyer-specific discounts from the posted list price are permitted. In standard posted-offer markets, conspiring sellers almost uniformly find and maintain near-monopoly prices. But when the possibility of offering secret discounts is introd uced, sellers find sustaining collusive agreements much more difficult, and transactions prices tend to fall toward competitive levels. Secret discounts yield competitive outcomes less consistently, however, when sellers are provided ex post information about sales quantities     

控股股东影响了控制权市场的作用吗?

文章以2000-2008年进行了劣质收购的730个上市公司为样本,对其控制权是否再度发生转移进行了分析。研究发现,控股股东的持股比例越高,进行劣质收购后其控制权发生转移的概率越低。当控股股东持股比例较低时,盈利能力强、杠杆高、成长性好但营运能力差、规模小的公司更容易发生控制权转移;当控股股东持股比例较高时,流动比率差、杠杆高的劣质收购公司更容易发生控制权转移。这说明控制权市场的作用因控股股东持股比例的高低而有所不同。