Price Discrimination and Efficient Distribution

This paper focuses on third‐degree price discrimination by an upstream firm with some degree of monopoly power. Downstream firms fall into two categories: efficient and inefficient, according to their relative costs of transforming a unit of the upstream good into a unit of final product. Under ordinary static conditions, price discrimination favors the inefficient firms, which have more elastic demands. We consider, however, the possibility that discrimination in the opposite direction can alter the downstream market structure toward greater efficiency. Discriminatory pricing, then, involves charging a higher price to the less efficient firms. Such pricing is shown to be both potentially profitable for the upstream firm and welfare improving as average consumer prices fall.     

Output price fluctuations,short-run profits and long-run industry size with input market equilibrium effects

Conclusions In this paper, input market equilibrium effects are incorporated into an analysis of output price fluctuations. In particular, it is shown that an increase (decrease) in output price may not necessarily lead to an increase (decrease) in the shortrun profit of a firm operating in a competitive product market. The firm's profit may not necessarily be convex in output price. Hence,ex-post flexibility in production does not guarantee the preference for price instability by risk-neutral firms. Finally, in longrun equilibrium, a mean-preserving spread in output price may increase or reduce the equilibrium number of firms.     

Consumer discrimination,duopoly, and black firm entry: The welfare effect of subsidies

Consumer discrimination, to the extent that it lowers expected profit for black owned firms, discourages the entry of new black firms. From a social welfare perspective, consumer discrimination may be welfare reducing, since market output is lower than otherwise. If so, a policy intervention that subsidizes new black firms may improve social welfare. This article presents a simple model of duopoly where consumer discrimination exists with uncertainty, and the only cost of production is a “loss of sales” cost. Given the Nash equilibrium, in which a black and white firm must select a price to charge, conditions are derived for which a profit subsidy to a new black firm increases, decreases, or has no effect on social welfare.     

Earnings Forecasts and Price Efficiency after Earnings Realizations: Reduction in Information Asymmetry through Learning from Price*

When information asymmetry is a major market friction, earnings forecasts can lead to higher price efficiency even after the information in forecasts completely dissipates upon earnings realizations. We show this in an experimental market that features information asymmetry (i.e., some traders possess differential private information). Earnings forecasts reduce information asymmetry and lead to prices that reflect a greater amount of private information. Traders can learn more about others' information from prices. This information learned from past prices continues to reduce information asymmetry and improve price efficiency even after earnings realizations. We contribute to the disclosure literature by showing the evidence that the learning‐from‐price effect amplifies the impact of public disclosure on price efficiency.     

CSR in an Asymmetric Duopoly with Environmental Externality

We investigate a linear state differential game describing an asymmetric Cournot duopoly with capacity accumulation á la Ramsey and a negative environmental externality (pollution), in which one of the firms has adopted corporate social responsibility (CSR) in its statute, and therefore includes consumer surplus and the environmental effects of production in its objective function. If the market is sufficiently large, the CSR firm sells more, accumulates more capital, and earns higher profits than its profit‐seeking rival.     

Chinese RMB exchange rate and local currency price stability in ASEAN trade

The article uses trade data between China and ASEAN countries to test hypotheses related to pricing to market (PTM) and consequent local currency price stability (LCPS). The degree of price discrimination associated with real RMB exchange rate changes between China and ASEAN + 2 shows evidence of local currency price stability in some industries in which exporters may be less competitive. China's trade policy may have also played a role in the local currency price stability. The article finds no evidence that RMB appreciation creates a larger impact on price adjustment than RMB depreciation.     

开放还是封闭：基于利润比较的支付平台转型策略研究

文章通过构建双边定价模型,研究支付平台封闭式运行与开放式运行的利润差异并给出平台转型策略。研究结果表明：在二部定价模式下,开放型支付平台的利润水平处于优势;在会员费模式下,开放型支付平台的利润水平则处于劣势;在交易费模式下,当需求的平均价格效应足够强时,开放型支付平台将表现出明显的利润优势。文章进一步在交易费模式下,给出了两类支付平台利润差距与平均价格效应、单位交易成本、平台内加价能力之间的具体关系,界定了支付平台转型的触发机制、作用机理与路径选择。以此为基础,文章解释了美国运通支付公司“封转开”的动机,结合我国支付产业运行的基本事实部分地解释了中国银行卡支付市场组织形式“封转开”改革的低效率原因。     

Multi‐Market Competition,R&D,and Welfare in Oligopoly

We investigate a multi‐market Cournot model with strategic process research and development (R&D) investments wherein a multi‐market firm meets new competitors that enter one of the markets. We show that entry can enhance the total R&D expenditures of the multi‐market firm. Moreover, the incumbent's profit nonmonotonically changes as the number of entrants increases. Depending on the fixed entry costs and R&D technologies, both insufficient and excess entry can appear. Our results imply that diversification of their products can be a useful strategy for firms.     

Internal Information Quality and the Sensitivity of Investment to Market Prices and Accounting Profits

We ask whether the quality of internal information matters for investment decisions. We predict that investment is more sensitive to internal profit signals and less sensitive to external price signals when managers have higher‐quality internal information. Consistent with recent theoretical and empirical research, we proxy for internal information quality using observable information properties. We find that the sensitivity of investment to profitability is increasing, while the sensitivity of investment to market‐to‐book is decreasing in internal information quality. Our focus on internal information and decision making offers new and unique insights on the importance of information quality and complements the growing literature on the role of external reporting quality in reducing financing frictions.     

Measuring Transparency in the Dutch Mortgage Market

Summary This paper is an empirical study of pricing in the Dutch mortgage market. For a narrowly defined set of endowment mortgages (with a fixed lending rate of 10 years), we find that the price dispersion within lenders is larger than the dispersion across lenders. Prices remain dispersed across lenders, even after controlling for characteristics of the borrower, the municipality and the government bond rate. Apparently, the mortgage market is not fully transparent, which impedes competition in the mortgage market. We also find that the price dispersion for mortgages sold by banks is smaller than that for mortgages sold by other lenders. A likely explanation is that lenders using middlemen have higher agency costs. We wish to express our gratitude to the National Mortgage Guarantee (Nationale Hypotheek Garantie) in Zoetermeer, in particular Karel Schiffer and Hans Mersmann, for providing us access to their data as well as for their hospitality. We are grateful to Wim van Assenbergh, Harry Garretsen, Ralph de Haas, Jan Lemmen, Clemens Kool, Job Swank and two anonymous referees of this journal for their comments on previous versions of this article.     

Identifying Price Discrimination When Product Menus Are Endogenous

A well‐known approach to identifying second‐degree price discrimination is based on examining correlations between product menus and prices. When product menus are endogenous, however, tests for price discrimination may be biased by the fact that unobservables affecting costs or demand may jointly determine product menus and prices, leading one to falsely infer price discrimination. Using observed product characteristics or fixed effects to control for these unobservables confounds inference on the nature of price discrimination by potentially “overcorrecting” the original bias. I propose a difference‐indifferences approach that is robust to this critique. An application to the pricing of different package sizes of paper towels is presented.     

THE EFFECTS OF WORKERS' REGION OF BIRTH ON LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES IN THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA

In this paper, we investigate empirically whether there are differences in labor market outcomes according to workers' region of birth. We also investigate whether wage differentials by region of birth are due to taste discrimination, statistical discrimination as measurement error, or both of these things. The empirical analyses based on the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) data show the following. First, Honam‐born workers have a higher migration ratio to other regions than Youngnam‐born workers. Second, workers born in other regions have a higher propensity to become contingent workers and are paid significantly lower wages than Seoul/Kyonggi‐born workers. Finally, our empirical tests support the third hypothesis that wage differentials by region of birth are attributable partly to statistical discrimination as measurement error and partly to taste discrimination. We rejected a hypothesis based solely on taste discrimination as well as a hypothesis based solely on statistical discrimination as measurement error.     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination: Apology Not Necessary

Applied work in price discrimination often treats demand curves among multiple market segments as algebraically additive. Yet the welfare effects of multi-market (third degree) price discrimination depend on how the demand segments are added. Treating demands as geometrically additive yields the well known result that discrimination absent an increase in production diminishes Marshallian surplus. But if demands are treated as algebraically additive then discrimination increases welfare over uniform pricing. Quantity is identical in the three cases, so the effect is not due to market opening. Nor is the effect due to scale economies since marginal cost is assumed constant. Profit is always greater under discrimination, so the effect is due to distributional changes in consumer surplus. The model is restricted to linear demands and constant marginal cost but can be generalized for future work and policy analysis.     

Social Welfare in Sports Leagues with Profit‐Maximizing and/or Win‐Maximizing Clubs

This article develops a contest model to compare social welfare in homogeneous leagues in which all clubs maximize identical objective functions with mixed leagues in which clubs maximize different objective functions. We show that homogeneous leagues in which all clubs are profit maximizers dominate all other leagues. Mixed leagues in which small‐market clubs are profit maximizers and large‐market clubs are win maximizers (type‐I mixed leagues) are dominated by all other leagues. From a welfare perspective, large‐market clubs win too often in (purely) win‐maximizing and type‐I mixed leagues; whereas, small‐market clubs win too many games in (purely) profit‐maximizing leagues and in mixed leagues in which large‐market clubs are profit maximizers and small‐market clubs are win maximizers (type‐II mixed leagues). These results have important policy implications: Social welfare will increase if clubs are reorganized from non‐profit member associations to profit‐maximizing corporations. Moreover, we show that revenue sharing decreases (increases) social welfare in mixed (homogeneous) leagues.     

TESTING PROFIT AND STRUCTURE RELATIONSHIP IN THE EUROPEAN BANKING MARKETS USING EFFICIENCY MEASURES

This paper provides a comparison between the developed and developing European countries through investigating the profit–structure relationship in the banking industries. The reduced‐form profit equations are estimated for each group of countries for the period 1995–2006. The results suggest that the inclusion of X‐efficiency and scale efficiency directly in the reduced‐form profit equation is crucial in explaining the bank profit–structure relationship in the European banking markets. When we control for direct measures of efficiency, the market share and concentration coefficient become insignificant in all regressions. The results support the efficiency versions of the efficient‐structure hypothesis over the relative market power and structure–conduct–performance hypothesis. For the developing economies of Europe, the findings of the paper indicate that efficiency is a crucial factor for establishing a sound banking system and the banks in these countries should increase their scale of operations to attain an optimal profit level.     

高校图书馆期刊资源建设与管理服务

期刊工作是高校图书馆工作的一个重要组成部分,期刊文献是图书馆资源建设的信息源.在众多的信息资源中,期刊文献在图书馆资源建设中的功绩得到众多学者的认可和欣赏.高校图书馆要做好期刊管理和读者服务工作、期刊咨询工作、知识导读工作等,在提高期刊利用效率的同时使期刊文献得到共享.     

互联网新商业模式下寡头厂商定价研究——基于共享经济市场的分析

互联网经济下,厂商不断探索产品定价问题,考虑共享经济中典型因素：会员制,消费者寻求多样化购买和厌恶拥塞等。建立了两期非合作动态博弈模型,研究表明厂商在第一期竞争时平分市场,期望总收益与会员价格相关。证明了厂商第二期存在三度价格歧视均衡定价,定价与多样化购买因子相关。研究表明：在互联网背景下,企业根据消费者历史数据,细分消费者市场,获得更高收益;同时企业需要丰富产品线,促进消费者寻求多样化购买,同时应制定合理会员价格。     

Market Performance Implications of the Transfer Price Rule

The “transfer price rule” (TPR) defines a vertical price squeeze as an input price, output price combination set by a vertically‐integrated firm monopoly producer of an essential input that would not allow the firm's downstream unit to earn at least a normal rate of return on investment in the “as‐if” case that it had to purchase the input at the price charged independent firms. In its 2009 linkLine decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the TPR for the purpose of enforcing the anti‐monopolization prohibition of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. In contrast, a vertical price squeeze, defined by a TPR‐like standard, is an abuse of a dominant position under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In this article, we model the impact of the TPR on market performance. We find that the TPR increases consumer surplus and net social welfare if all firms remain active in the downstream market. It sometimes induces the upstream firm to refuse to supply the downstream firm, and in such cases, consumer surplus and net social welfare are reduced. The impact of the TPR on market performance thus depends on whether or not an upstream firm can refuse to supply downstream firms on terms that would offer it at least a normal rate of return on investment.     

A Simulation model of the Taiwan security market

Since continuous trading and call systems are implemented by many stock exchanges, we conduct a simulation to evaluate stock market performance under different auction mechanisms. Our simulation ignoring confounding factors demonstrates that: (1) a continuous market incurs higher execution cost but with shorter liquidity time and better price discovery than a call market; and (2) as the stock market becomes thinner, execution cost rises and price discovery slows. (JELG15, CIS)     

ASYMMETRIC PRICE TRANSMISSION AND MARKET CONCENTRATION: AN INVESTIGATION INTO FOUR SOUTH AFRICAN AGRO-FOOD INDUSTRIES

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