International Market Access and Poverty in Argentina

This paper examines the impact of access to international agro‐manufacture markets on poverty in Argentina. Estimates from the literature suggest that expanded market access would cause the international price of Argentine exports of agro‐manufactures to increase by between 8.7% and 15.9%. I explore two poverty effects caused by these prices changes: on food expenditure and on wages. Using a household budget survey, I estimate the impact of higher food prices on the Argentine poverty line. Using a labor force survey, I estimate the responses of wages to changes in export prices. My main finding is that market access would cause poverty to decline in Argentina. From a national head count of 29.26%, the poverty rate would decline to between 28.28% and 28.80%. This means that between 161,000 and 343,000 Argentines would be moved out of poverty.     

Housing affordability in Macau: evidence and policy

This paper investigates a contemporary issue of housing affordability in Macau. A theoretical general-equilibrium model substantiates that government policies influence the house price and quantity differently in different scenarios. Data of earnings by industry and occupation are employed to disclose the variation of affordability among different groups over the past seven years. The year of 2004 was the golden age of homeownership. In 2011, the situation deteriorated and the market price cast huge pressure on home buyers. Unaffordable house prices coexist with many vacant units. Facing such a market failure, people of Macau continuously request government intervention. The core of curbing soaring house prices is to reduce profits in house flipping. Policy suggestions mainly fall into aspects of taxation and regulations of financial assistance for mortgage.     

Incentive Regulation of Multinational Enterprises*

Sectors with a long regulatory tradition have recently experienced intense activity by multinationals whose international operations and relocation threats represent a new cause for concern for regulators. I analyze a multinational serving two countries and being regulated by two national authorities. The firm is shown to favor, or cross‐subsidize, the country with a larger stake in the firm's profit, and the linkage among national regulations may induce unexpected effects on outputs. I also analyze a multinational's lobbying decisions and its effects on national regulations. Finally, a credible threat to “fly” away from tough regulators lets the firm obtain larger profits.     

Evidence that capital formation is overestimated in low- and middle-income countries in ICP 2011

Using the International Comparison Program (ICP) 2011’s cross-country data on input prices and project cost shares, I show that the ICP 2011 construction prices are substantially underestimated in the 143 low- and middle-income countries where these prices were estimated from input prices. As a consequence, the ICP 2011’s estimate of PPP-adjusted construction is overestimated on average by about 100% and gross fixed capital formation is overestimated by 25–30% in these countries. These nonrandom data errors are of sufficient magnitude to cause serious estimation bias in cross-country growth analyses.     

Market concentration and competition in OECD mobile telecommunications markets

This study analyses the progress of market concentration in OECD member states’ mobile telecommunications markets and evaluates the relationship between market concentration and performance. Using annual panel data from 24 OECD member states for the 1998–2011 period, the study estimates regression equations for market concentration, mobile prices and profits. The empirical results indicate that the more concentrated the mobile market, the higher the prices and profits, providing support for the market power hypothesis. If this hypothesis holds, then market concentration can be a useful indicator of market performance. On the other hand, the applicability of the hypothesis is unclear for the second half of the sample period. The results provide evidence that regulatory policies influence the structure and performance of mobile markets.     

Environmental regulation and profitability: An application to Swedish pulp and paper mills

In this paper we analyze the impact on firm profits of the environmental regulations in the Swedish pulp and paper industry. The approach taken is a non-parametric programming model of the technology. A feature of this industry is that environmental regulations are determined individually for each mill. A question, then, is if these individual regulations have a similar impact on firm profits. The approach in this paper allows us to calculate both the regulated and unregulated profits, which means that the severity of the regulations, in terms of foregone profits, can be calculated for each mill. The empirical result shows that the impact on the mills varies substantially, and that the burden from the regulations is less severe in 1990 than in 1989.     

Asset prices,nominal rigidities,and monetary policy

Should monetary policy respond to asset prices? This paper analyzes this question from the vantage point of equilibrium determinacy. A central bank responding to asset prices is indirectly responding to firm profits. In a model with sticky prices, increases in inflation tend to lower firm profits so that a central bank responding to share prices implicitly weakens its overall response to inflation. This is the novel source of equilibrium indeterminacy highlighted in the paper.     

Exploitation,international taxation,and global justice

Abstract

I investigate the central principle that underlies the OECDs tax base erosion and profit shifting initiative. The principle claims that (corporate) profits should be taxed where economic activities deriving the profits are performed and where value is created. First, I argue that its plausibility depends on establishing that states have an entitlement to the productive factors in their territory, and therefore to a share of the value created by employing those factors. Second, I maintain that this cannot presently be established. If states fail to discharge duties requiring wealth redistribution, they do not have an unqualified right to the productive factors in their territory. Even if they are not subject to such duties, states can only legitimately claim a share in the fair value of the goods created. I show that given widespread exploitation in global value chains, the market prices of (intermediary) goods do not reflect their fair value.     

Alcohol consumption in the UK, 1955–85: a system-wide analysis

As a consequence of economic reforms in China, firms have ben affected by three essential changes. First, instead of surrendering all profits to the Government, firms now pay tax on their profits according to a contract between them and the Government and retain the balance as their own controllable surplus. Second, the central economic plan determines only part of firms' production. After fulfilling the command plan, firms are allowed to adjust their production scale by the availability of inputs and the profitability of production. Third, most consumer and investment goods have two prices, a plan price and a market price. As most of the plan prices are always lower than the market prices, the latter play a basic role in determining firms' profits. After a decade of economic reforms, the important question is: can Chinese state enterprises perform like market entities? The analysis shows that Chinese firms in transition domimic the production behaviour of market-based, efficiency-oriented firms.     

THE WAR ON DRUGS 2.0: DARKNET FENTANYL'S RISE AND THE EFFECTS OF REGULATORY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTION

U.S. overdose deaths attributed to synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, have increased from under 3,000 in 2013 to nearly 20,000 in 2016, making up half of all opioid‐related overdose deaths. Using web scrapes of darknet markets from 2014 to 2016, I provide historical prices for fentanyl and its most popular analogues and find that fentanyl vendors priced fentanyl in 2014 at a 90% discount compared to an equivalent dose of heroin. Using regression discontinuity, I evaluate the effects of two major law enforcement and regulatory events. I find minimal lasting effects of U.S. legal actions intended to disrupt darknet markets, but there are statistically significant indications of a price increase corresponding with regulatory action in China. Despite these indications of some regulatory success, fentanyl prices remained approximately 90% cheaper than heroin. (JEL I18, K42)     

Monopoly power,barriers to competition and the pattern of price differentials in international trade

Numerous studies have attempted to assess the influence of market structure on performance in domestic markets of industrial countries. With few exceptions, these investigations have shown that prices and profits are higher, and a less efficient allocation of resources prevails, in markets where agressive competition is absent. Using techniques similar to there applied in the industrial market studies, this analysis examines the pattern of iron steel prices in international trade. The findings parallel those for the industrial organization investigations. Typically, international markets which are more concentrated, or which rely on a smaller number of trade contacts, bear higher prices. Also, the magnitudes of these excess price margins are such as to have important policy implications since they constitute a serious drain on the foreign exchange reserves of some developing countries.     

Regulation and the vertically integrated firm: The case of RBOC entry into interlata long distance

Congress is considering telecommunications reform legislation that would allow the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) to enter the interLATA long-distance market. A concern is that a vertically-integrated RBOC would be able to discriminate against its rivals. A proposed remedy would require the RBOCs to reduce their access market share as a precondition to interLATA entry. We show formally that such a precondition likely contributes to higher long-distance prices and enhances the risk of discrimination. Furthermore, the lower the share of access profits retained by an RBOC, the weaker are its incentives to lower long-distance prices.I thank Timothy Brennan, Barbara Cherry, Alfred Kahn, Alex Larson, David Sappington, David Sibley, Lester Taylor, and Steve Wildman for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I am also grateful to the editor, Michael Crew, and an anonymous referee for a particularly careful reading of this work and for many constructive suggestions for revision. The usual caveat applies.     

Transfer Pricing and Strategic Taxation of Globally Joint Inputs

This paper models strategic taxation policy of home and host governments when a multinational enterprise sets transfer prices on globally joint inputs such as research and development. Tax credit and deduction allowances, as well as no taxation of foreign-earned profits, result in identical optimal transfer-price solutions and national income effects in both countries. An equilibrium home-tax solution is to tax foreign-earned profits at a higher rate than domestically earned profits. The multiantional responds by shifting profits abroad through transfer-pricing mechanisms.     

The effects of market organization on conspiracies in restraint of trade

Mindful of the market structure-conduct-performance paradigm fundamental to industrial organization research, this paper uses laboratory experimental techniques to study the impact of conspiratorial opportunities on market performance. We compare ‘posted-offer’ markets where sellers (but not buyers) are all conspiratorial opportunities with observations from three control groups: (1) posted-offer markets without conspiratorial opportunities, (2) ‘double-auction’ markets with conspiratorial opportunities and (3) posted-offer markets with true single-seller monopolists. The basic conclusions generated by our experimental design are: (1) seller conspiracies in posted-offer markets tend to raise prices (but not profits) relative to similarly organized markets without conspiracies, (2) posted-offer conspiracies tend to generate higher prices (but not profits) than double-auction conspiracies, and (3) posted-offer monopolies tend to generate higher profits (but not prices) then posted-offer conspiracies.     

Natural monopoly and differential pricing

Under uniform pricing a monopolist cannot make a positive profit in equilibrium. I analyze how differential pricing can be exploited by a natural monopolist to deter entry when entry is costless. In a two-stage game with price competition before quantity competition I show that the incumbent firm can deter entry and make a positive profit in equilibrium. The incumbent sets two different prices, the low price to deter entry and the high price to generate profit. Entry is not possible because of scale effects. If dumping is allowed for all firms no positive profits are realizable, but welfare is reduced. I show that for some parameter values the incumbent is forced to engage in a stunt (i.e., set a negative low price) to keep entrants out.     

The Arrow-Debreu model: How math can hide a fatal conceptual error

I argue that math, like love, can cover a multitude of sins, and I use the neoclassical object of adoration, the Arrow-Debreu model, as the case in point. It is commonplace that the Arrow-Debreu (AD) model of general equilibrium does not describe the real world, but it is equally commonplace to accept it as representing the pure logic of the competitive capitalist economy in an idealized world free of transactions costs. I show that the AD model fails even as an idealized model; it actually mistakes the logic of pure capitalism. Unlike McKenzie’s model of idealized general equilibrium under constant returns to scale, Arrow and Debreu claim to have shown the existence of competitive equilibrium under decreasing returns to scale and positive pure profits. The AD model (again unlike the McKinzie model) needs to assign the profits to individuals and this is done using the notion of “ownership of the production set.” But this notion suffers from a fatal ambiguity. If Arrow and Debreu interpret it to mean “ownership of a corporation” then a simple argument in the form “labor can hire capital or capital can hire labor” defeats the alleged necessity of assigning residual claimancy to the corporation. A given corporation may or may not end up exploiting a set of production opportunities (represented by a production set) depending on whether it hires in labor and undertakes production or hires out its capital to others (all by assumption at the parametrically given prices). In the latter case, residual claimancy is elsewhere. There is no such property right as “ownership of a production set” in a private property market economy. The legal party which purchases or already owns all the inputs used up in production has the defensible legal claim on the outputs: there is no need to also “purchase the production set.” At any set of prices that allow positive pure profits, anyone in the idealized AD model could bid up the price of the inputs and thus try to reap a smaller but still positive profit. Therefore,pace Arrow and Debreu, there could be no equilibrium with positive pure profits. In the Appendix, the property rights fallacy that afflicts the AD model is shown to also afflict orthodox capital theory and corporate finance theory.     

Export pricing and exchange rate expectations under uncertainty

This paper contributes to the literature on firms’ export pricing by assessing whether and to what extent firms take into account the expected future evolution of the exchange rates while setting their prices. Using French micro-level trade data, our empirical analysis reveals that by adjusting their export prices, firms partly absorb information about future exchange rate variations. The extent to which individual exporters absorb future exchange rate fluctuations is found to depend on their market power, in accordance with theoretical dynamic demand-side models encompassing mechanisms creating an inter-temporal relationship between current market shares and future profits. The analysis also shows that the strength of such expectation-related mechanism is considerably reduced with greater future exchange rate uncertainty, in line with an interpretation of pricing-to-market as an investment decision under uncertainty. In a comparative perspective our results are shown to drive asymmetric responses across destinations of aggregate bilateral export flows to expected exchange rate movements.     

Implications of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions trading for short-run electricity market outcomes in northwest Europe

We examine the short-run implications of CO₂ trading for power production, prices, emissions, and generator profits in northwest Europe in 2005. Simulation results from a transmission-constrained oligopoly model are compared with theoretical analyses to quantify price increases and windfall profits earned by generators. The analyses indicate that the rates at which CO₂ costs are passed through to wholesale prices are affected by market competitiveness, merit order changes, and elasticities of demand and supply. Emissions trading results in large windfall profits, much but not all of which is due to free allocation of allowances. Profits also increase for some generators because their generation mix has low emissions, and so they benefit from electricity price increases. Most emission reductions appear to be due to demand response not generation redispatch.      

环境规制、能源要素价格与绿色创新效率 ——以长江经济带为例

以“共抓大保护、不搞大开发”为导向推动长江经济带发展,需掌握不同环境规制类型与能源要素价格对长江经济带绿色创新的影响。本文运用面板门槛回归模型聚焦讨论能源要素价格与不同环境规制类型对长江经济带绿色创新效率的影响。研究结果表明:命令控制型环境规制和市场激励型环境规制显著抑制了长江经济带绿色创新效率,不支持“波特假说”;自愿型环境规制显著提高了长江经济带绿色创新效率,验证了“波特假说”。环境规制对长江经济带绿色创新存在显著的空间异质性,且在能源要素价格的不同区间下环境规制带来的影响具有明显差异。不同环境规制下的能源要素价格指标函数均不一致,但存在交叉区间,而在主要环境规制类型下能源要素价格对长江经济带绿色创新效率的影响显著为负。控制变量的研究表明,产业结构和产业规模均在一定程度上显著地积极影响长江经济带绿色创新效率,而社会购买力在一定程度削减了长江经济带绿色创新效率。因此,政府需要进一步深化能源价格市场化改革,多角度、差异化实施环境规制行为,共同发挥社会团体对绿色创新的影响。     

A Note on the Most‐Favoured‐Customer Pricing Policy

This paper extends the retroactive most-favoured-customer pricing policy examined by Cooper (1986). He showed that the policy enabled both firms in a duopoly to offer higher prices and to enjoy higher profits. This paper introduces a variable into the most-favoured-customer pricing policy. Then, it shows that there is an equilibrium in which the duopolists can further increase their profits.