Entry in a Dynamic Model with Equilibrium Price Dispersion with an Application to the Market for Long-Distance Telephone Services

Models of entry based on the traditional models of oligopoly do not allow for price dispersions on homogenous products. Yet, such price dispersions do exist for homogenous products, and a firm does not lose its entire market share when it fails to charge the lowest price. Existing models of equilibrium price dispersion are not designed to analyze entry in a dynamic framework. A dynamic model is developed that allows an analysis of the effects of entry into a previously monopolized market. Despite asymmetric initial shares, the market shares of equally efficient firms tend to equalize over time. An application is the market for long‐distance telephone services following the divestiture of the bell operating companies from AT&T.     

Mental Health Parity Act of 1996: summary of the interim rules relating to group health plans

The recently released interim rules that govern how group health plans should implement the parity requirement under the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (MHPA) are of particular interest to self-funded multi-employer plans. Plans that have not yet been reviewed for MHPA compliance should consider initiating a review as soon as possible. There is no delayed effective date for compliance by multi-employer plans and in addition, a participant or beneficiary could file an action to enforce MHPA's parity requirement.     

Heterogeneous Response to Marine Reserve Formation: A Sorting Model approach

The bioeconomic impacts of spatial fisheries management hinge on how fishing vessels reallocate their effort over space. However, empirical studies face two challenges: heterogeneous behavioral responses and unobservable resource abundance. This paper addresses these two problems simultaneously by using an unusual data set and an estimation technique developed in the industrial organization literature. We apply the methods to location and species choices in the Gulf of Mexico reef-fish fishery. The models are used to explore spatial effort substitution in response to two marine reserves. Individual attributes from a survey of vessel captains are linked to each fisherman’s observed daily trip information to control for observable heterogeneity. Some unobservable abundance information is captured by location- and species-specific constants and estimated by contraction mapping. The empirical results confirm that there is significant heterogeneity in fishermen’s response to the formation of marine reserves. They also show that ignoring unobservable abundance information will lead to significant bias in predicting spatial fishing effort.     

The Telecommunications Act at three years: an economic evaluation of its implementation by the Federal Communications Commission

The competitive free-for-all that Congress envisioned in the 1996 Telecommunications Act has for the most part not appeared. The Act calls for two forms of regulatorily-assisted entry into local markets: lease of network elements and resale. The FCC has decreed that the charges for those elements and the resale discounts must emulate the costs of an ideally-efficient firm. This standard is in fact not efficient, and the FCC’s attempt to jump-start the entry of competitors in this way has short-circuited the competitive process itself and jeopardized achievement of the goals of the Act.     

A Dynamic Model of Public Opinion Formation

In this paper, we seek to shed new light on the social process of public opinion formation. Drawing on previous contributions in cognition studies and political science, we propose and analyze a model in which heterogeneous agents (citizens) collectively learn and modify their opinions about a specific policy issue. The assumption of nonrationality on the part of agents gives core values, enduring general needs, social interaction, and the combination of the citizens´ intuition and occasional deliberate reasoning a key role in the dynamics of public opinion formation.     

An analysis of the regulations interpreting and applying the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) includes a number of provisions that significantly affect health care plans. This article outlines key aspects of these changes, which apply to all health care plans, including those covering multiemployer, governmental and church groups.     

加入WTO后外商直接投资趋势分析与应对策略

我国加入WTO后,外商直接投资的领域将进一步扩大,经营环境将大大改善,同时外商直接投资也将出现新的变化。为了适应这一趋势,我们应进一步改善投资的法律环境,切实加强产业结构导向,完善产权交易市场,积极开拓利用外资的新途径,努力提高企业的竞争力。     

Strategic Choice of the Price Structure and Entry Deterrence Under Price Cap Regulation

This paper shows that a price‐capped firm under the threat of entry in some of the markets it serves can strategically manipulate its price structure to deter entry. In doing so, the regulated firm uses the price cap constraint as a commitment device to an aggressive pricing behaviour in case of entry. A (dynamic) price cap generally entails that the prices allowed today are a function of the previous‐period prices and that the tighter is the constraint on each price, the larger is the quantity sold of this good in the previous period. Hence, the regulated firm may strategically choose its price structure before entry to place a tighter regulatory control on the prices set in the (potentially) competitive markets and to make it optimal to charge in these markets – in case of entry – prices so low that entry is unprofitable.     

A Model Under Siege: A Case Study of the German Retirement Insurance System

This study evaluates the positive and negative features of the German public pension system and discusses three reasons for its increasing perceived and real difficulties: maturation, negative incentive effects, and the problems of demographic change. The German system in its current form may be able to limp through the coming decades but will cease to be the exemplary Bismarckian machine that has created generous retirement incomes at reasonable tax rates. Current policy proposals are insufficient and a few but incisive design changes and some degree of prefunding could rescue the many positive aspects of the German retirement insurance system.     

从众行为机制下的动态噪声交易模型

考虑到在实际市场中市场结构（即基本面投资者与噪声交易者在市场中所占的比例）也会随时间变化,本文基于从众行为机制对市场结构的动态演化过程（即两类异质投资者的信念扩散过程）进行了深入的讨论,并对DSSW模型进行了动态扩展。首先,运用群体压力原理来刻画从众转移概率,考虑了从众机制的线性与非线性两种模式,并对这两种模式进行了综合的对比分析。其次,将市场结构的从众演化机制嵌入到DSSW模型之中,考虑了认知偏误方差的ARCH效应,并通过动态随机模拟讨论了在牛市情绪起初在市场上占优的背景下风险资产均衡价格的动态演化过程及特征,运用多种统计方法综合检验了资产价格投机泡沫发生的机率和强度。结果表明,在非线性从众模式下,资产价格投机泡沫发生的机率以及投机泡沫的强度要远远大于线性从众模式。     

全球化语境下大都市应对空间竞争的规划对策探讨

全球化时代大都市国际化战略不断涌现并加剧了外部竞争,空间竞争已成为大都市新一轮竞争的焦点.高端产业集聚下的空间功能再造、内部要素整合下的空间质量提升、基于多中心网络化的空间结构优化是大都市空间竞争力提升的重要途径.天津迈向国际化大都市有效应对空间竞争的规划策略在于构建三大功能空间体系,分类整合内部空间要素,形成“河海城”多中心网络化、开放化、紧凑化的城市空间结构.     

企业对政府创新科技政策的响应机理研究:基于回声模型

资源基础理论同样适用于企业对创新科技政策的响应过程.在复杂适应系统视角下,企业政策响应受到认知力、规模、决策者偏好、利益、创新能力、研发需要和其它企业等因素的影响.基于回声模型,探讨了企业响应创新科技政策的行为机制,刻画了各种因素在政策响应过程中的作用,明确了各项行为的触发条件,最后分析了企业响应政策的行为匹配模式和自适应响应流程.结果发现,资源依赖是企业响应政策的根本,自组织进化是政策被企业良性响应的重要保障.     

An Incumbent Country View on Eastern Enlargement of the EU Part I: A General Treatment

An eastern enlargement of the EU, from an incumbent country point of view,involves a fiscal burden from extending Union agricultural and cohesion policiesto new members, coupled with potential gains as well as adjustment problemsderiving from an extended customs union and a larger single market. Enlargementis controversial, because the net effect is unclear, a priori, and will certainly vary across individual countries. Our two-part contribution tries to do shed light on this controversy. In this first part, we present a general treatment of the likely effects on different incumbent countries, while a subsequent companion paper will take a closer look at the specific case of Austria. The general view of part I, in turn, first focuses on various empirical measures highlighting crucial differences between incumbents, pertaining to the fiscal burden on the one hand, and integration gains on the other. We then argue that a proper evaluation must rely on an explicit welfare criterion, and we use a general model of economic integration in order to identify the principalchannels through which aggregate welfare of an incumbent country is affected by an enlargement of the EU. We address traditional effects of trade creation and trade diversion, as well as growth effects arising from an abolition of trade barriers. In addition, we ask how enlargement affects foreign direct investmentand labor migration, and what this implies in welfare terms for an incumbent western European country. Taken together, these effects generate a certain presumption of integration gains, which need to be set against the fiscal burden. However, a final judgement requires a case-by-case approach, based on empirical implementations of enriched and parameterized models for specific countries. The companion paper, therefore, uses a suitably specified, calibrated dynamic equilibrium model, in order to take a closer look at the Austrian case.     

考虑基准资产的动态投资组合选取

职业基金经理的目标经常是希望自己的投资组合以稳定的表现能够超越所某一基准资产或组合。因此本文给出一个考虑基准资产的动态均值——方差投资组合选取模型。假设状态之间的转移遵循马氏过程,给定状态转移矩阵,可以得到对风险资产最优投入的解析表达式。此表达式表明对风险资产的投入由三项构成,前两项是不考虑基准资产时对风险资产的投入,最后一项与基准资产有关;在基准资产上的权重由基准资产收益的大小来决定,与积极投资组合管理者的风险厌恶程度无关;随着风险厌恶程度的增加,管理者会减少在风险资产上的投入。数值分析显示考虑基准资产的投资组合是一个积极的投资组合。     

A Dynamic Model of Privatization with Endogenous Post-Privatization Performance

This paper presents a dynamic model of privatization, driven by improved institutional protection of private property rights and constrained by the buyer's financial constraints. Government ownership is more efficient than private ownership when private property rights are insecure. Improved institutional protection of property rights over time creates the need to privatize. The buyer's financial constraints affect the timing of privatization, causing the firm's post-privatization performance either to improve or to deteriorate in the short run. Financial constraints also have the possibility of inducing an underpricing phenomenon during privatization where the firm is priced below both what the buyer is willing to pay and the buyer's ability to pay. Faster institutional development calls for earlier privatization, but it also has the potential to either create or exacerbate deadweight losses associated with inefficient privatization. A host of empirically testable implications are derived.     

Tax Amnesties In A Dynamic Model of Tax Evasion

We present a dynamic model of tax evasion, where tax liabilities last for two periods and the probability of an inspection decreases with the sum of taxes evaded this period plus taxes evaded last period. We show that a tax amnesty that pardons more than the evasion penalties (an extensive amnesty) can temporarily improve compliance. Whenever the inspection technology improves, steady state compliance also improves, but the economy takes time to transit from one steady state to the other. We show that an amnesty may accelerate this transit, or even make it instantaneous if the amnesty is extensive enough.     

On the Effects of Commodity Tax Under Free Entry Oligopoly in the Presence of Export Market

If the inverse demand function in the domestic country is concave, or it is not too convex even if it is convex, a small specific commodity tax raises the social welfare in the domestic country and lowers the welfare of the foreign consumers, and the optim- al tax for the domestic country is positive. The presence of an export market enlarges the possibility that a specific commodity tax raises the social welfare in the domestic country at the sacrifice of the welfare of the foreign consumers. [L13]