Satellite broadcasting to homes: Service options,policy issues and costs

Comsat's proposal to launch a direct-to-home broadcast satellite (DBS) service has stimulated a vigorous policy debate on a wide range of issues. The authors examine briefly the economic and technological factors that seem to favour new DBS services, suggest a panoply of services that could be provided via DBS, and relate the policy issues to specific potential services. They also present a financial analysis of a hypothetical firm's DBS pay-TV service, enabling them to suggest the possible shape of a new DBS industry.     

Screening policy options: An approach and a case study example

This paper examines screening procedures in the context of developing an understanding of, and dialogue about, strategic problems. Such a dialogue process is seen as providing a ‘thinking structure’ for policy type problems. Within this dialogue, many different inputs and analyses of assumptions should be reviewed and discussed as a prelude to policy choice. A case example drawn from the electronics industry is presented, followed by a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of such approaches.     

Food policy options for secondary regions: A framework for applied research

Developing food systems in marginal areas and secondary regions presents a range of challenges to contemporary food policy. This article discusses what those challenges are and proposes a framework for applied research to generate appropriate policy directions. Emphasis is placed on three topics: farming systems research; technology support systems; and, administrative capacity.     

Managing food price risks and instability in a liberalizing market environment: Overview and policy options

Managing food price risks and instability is a major challenge in the midst of ongoing food market reforms. Key findings from the papers in this special volume revolve around five broad areas: (i) the sources and magnitudes of food price instability in different country contexts; (ii) the economic and social costs stemming from price instability; (iii) the lessons from food market reforms to date; (iv) the design of policy reforms in ways that promote efficient and stable market development and protect the interests of the poor; and (v) potential policy responses to food price instability in a liberalizing market environment.     

Local network externalities and market segmentation

This paper models interaction between groups of agents by means of a graph where each node represents a group of agents and an arc represents bilateral interaction. It departs from the standard Katz–Shapiro framework by assuming that network benefits are restricted only amongst groups of linked agents. It shows that even if rival firms engage in Bertrand competition, this form of network externalities permits strong market segmentation in which firms divide up the market and earn positive profits. The analysis also shows that some graphs or network structures do not permit such segmentation, while for others, there are easy to interpret conditions under which market segmentation obtains in equilibrium.     

Information value and externalities in reputation building

In sequential equilibrium theory, reputation building is independent of whether the reputation builder is matched with one long-run partner or a series of short-run “strangers”. We observe, however, that reputation builders are significantly more challenged by long-run players in both laboratory chain store and buyer-seller games. Reputation builder behavior is more predictable than implied by equilibrium, and so reputation information has more economic value than implied by equilibrium. For short-run players, this reputation information value is an externality. For long-run players, the value of the information is internalized and so they have greater incentive to challenge the reputation builder.     

Stakeholder Influence and Radical Change: A Coordination Game Perspective

Organizations often find it hard to change their corporate strategy radically, even if the need for change is widely recognized as in the Asian crisis of 1997. Such change requires large numbers of stakeholders to change their individual behavior, yet complex governance structures limit the applicability of agency-based models of governance. Rather, the coordination of stakeholder is at the core of governance during radical environmental change. Based on the game-theoretic concept of a ‘coordination game’, the paper analyses conditions that may inhibit the coordination of stakeholders to shift from an existing corporate strategy to a new one. I thus consider coordination failure that inhibit restructuring, and argue that radical change requires leaders to communicate and create common knowledge about the organization's future strategy.     

Getting rid of trans fats in the US diet: Policies, incentives and progress

Artificial trans fats in foods increase chronic disease risk in the US population. Federal nutrition label regulation enacted in 2003 requires mandatory disclosure of trans fat content on packaged foods. This action created incentives for the food industry to reduce trans fats both in response to consumer demand and through competition to maintain product reputation. Subsequent public actions include a ban on trans fat use in New York city restaurants and lawsuits against food companies, which created further incentives to remove trans fats, especially in the food service industry. Industry has reformulated packaged foods and found substitutes for restaurant fry oils and trans fats are disappearing from the US food supply. Market response extends throughout the supply chain, and has spurred research to alter oilseed crop characteristics. The widespread and relatively rapid industry response likely has improved the quality of US diets, and demonstrates the potential for policy actions to spur such improvements.     

Cashlessness in India: Vision,policy and practices

Over the past few years, an increasing convergence can be observed between international and Indian initiatives towards cashlessness, often involving a broad range of actors and influences. Despite this convergence, it is also clear that the conceptualization and implementation, or goals and outcomes of cashlessness can vary considerably, which indicates the need for a closer look at the Indian case. In this introductory note to the special issue on cashlessness in India, we outline the variety of institutions, stakeholders (regulatory, financial and technological actors), technologies and policies involved. As we have observed, digital payments and financial inclusion are two significant planks of cashlessness in India. Perhaps as a result, digital payments have been intentionally defined in a broad manner in India – ranging from anti-cash to less-cash and now contactless payments in the aftermath of Covid-19. Considering the variety of legal, economic, social and technological concerns involved, this special issue adopts 2 complementary foci to study cashlessness in India: technological visions and the systems undergirding it, and practices of end users. The special issue includes four papers. The first paper argues that the Digital India programme may lead to the commercialization of bias. The second paper historicizes the Indian demonetization of 2016 and examines its stated and unstated goals. The next paper provides a conceptual model on technology adoption in the context of digital payments. The final paper argues that users strategically switch between multiple payments media based on the context in which the transaction is taking place.     

Cable television and competition : Theory, evidence and policy

There is currently widespread discussion in the USA of the merits of amending legislation to allow competition in the cable television market, notably from the telecommunications companies. This article explores what economic theory can contribute to this debate, and adduces empirical evidence on the effects of competition in the cable market where it presently exists. The authors conclude that blocking entry into cable, and indeed into telecommunications markets, is likely to be poor policy, and that increased competition would foster the development of an efficient modern broadband network.     

Pay dispersion and workforce performance: moderating effects of incentives and interdependence

The compensation literature is replete with arguments, but lacking in empirical tests, regarding the effects of pay dispersion on organizational outcomes. Pay dispersion may increase effort and provide incentives for high workforce performance levels, but may also inhibit cooperation and goal orientation among employees. Drawing on several theoretical perspectives (individual motivation, institutional theory, organizational justice, and neoclassical economics), this study predicts that pay dispersion will be associated with higher levels of workforce performance when accompanied by formal individual incentive systems and independent work, while pay compression is desirable in the absence of individual incentive systems and when work is interdependent. Survey research studies in two industrial sectors (the motor carrier and concrete pipe industries) were conducted to address these issues. Interactive regression results were generally supportive of the predictions across several measures of workforce performance (accident rates, safety violations, and productivity). Implications of these studies for strategy implementation in terms of compensation theory and practice are addressed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Standards,innovation, and latecomer economic development: Conceptual issues and policy challenges

Little is known about the impact of standards on the economic development of countries which are latecomers to industrial manufacturing and innovation. Standardization is regarded primarily as a technical issue, and hence receives only limited high-level policy support.However, technical standards contribute at least as much as patents to economic growth. As a key mechanism for the diffusion of technological knowledge and due to the dominant leadership by advanced countries in patenting, technical standards have emerged in latecomer countries as an alternative to patenting. However, latecomer countries and their firms have a set of capabilities and constraints that are fundamentally different from that of advanced countries and firms. This paper argues that latecomer countries should adopt assessment criteria that are more fitted with latecomer contexts which emphasize learning effects and building dynamic capabilities. The paper discusses current issues that are essential in understanding the rise of Asian countries in standardization. We also examine the critical role that patents play for standardization and argue that “strategic patenting” to generate rents from de facto industry standards can stifle latecomer economic development.     

Making channel incentives work: A discriminating match framework

Suppliers using independent resellers are vulnerable to low compliance and frequent opportunistic behaviors. We expand predominant attention to monetary incentives to motivate independent resellers in two ways. First, we propose that a supplier needs to achieve alignment on two issues: Aligning reseller actions with its actions through coordination mechanisms and aligning reseller interests with its interests through monetary incentives. Second, we propose and test the logic of a discriminating match between the two facets of monetary incentives (magnitude and immediacy) and two coordination mechanisms (monitoring and improvisation). We propose that it is a discriminating match between an incentive facet and a coordination mechanism that enhances compliance and suppresses opportunistic behavior. Conversely, a mismatch between the two negatively affects reseller outcomes. Analysis results of data from 198 mobile phone resellers in South Korea support our predictions.     

Competition policy, collusion, and tacit collusion

In this paper, I pursue three goals. The first is to model collusion in a way that is distinct from noncooperative collusion. The second and third are to develop a particular specification of a standard model of noncooperative collusion that permits explicit solution for equilibrium outputs and reversion thresholds and to extend this analysis to allow for a deterrence-based competition policy that investigates conduct based on observed high prices (investigation thresholds).     

Norwegian nutrition and food policy: Consumer information and price policy aspects

In 1975 the Norwegian government approved a formal national nutrition and food supply policy. The author examines two aspects of the policy, consumer information and food prices, by discussing what actions have been taken to achieve the goals set out. Some reasons why they have not been fully reached, including conflicting interests with food producers and political trade-offs, as well as the implications for the future of the policy are also discussed.     

Platforms,systems competition,and innovation: Reassessing the foundations of communications policy

Focusing on the effects of policy on investment and innovation this paper examines whether the conceptual foundations of sector regulation are aligned with the current technological and economic conditions of advanced communications. One conclusion is that the prevailing theories and practices are only adequate if the policy challenge can be reasonably approximated as a static or steady-state problem but they may have serious shortcomings if this is not possible. The article proceeds with a review and critical examination of two approaches that could augment or possibly replace the traditional approach under conditions of dynamic competition—the theory of platform markets and systems approaches. Both frameworks model aspects of competition in interconnected systems in more detail and offer novel insights to inform communications policy in an era of continuous change. Nonetheless, important theoretical and implementation gaps remain that will require additional efforts by researchers and practitioners.