Spatial Price Discrimination in Input Markets with an Endogenous Market Boundary

This paper examines the welfare effect of third-degree price discrimination in a vertically related market with one upstream monopolist that sells its input to a continuum of downstream markets. Assume that the market boundary of the monopolist is endogenously determined. It is found that social welfare is necessarily lower under discriminatory than uniform pricing, even if the market area of the former is greater than that of the latter. This finding is contrary to that in the extant literature on price discrimination in final goods markets.     

A Note on Input Price Discrimination Under Bertrand Competition: Simultaneous vs. Sequential Contracting

Review of Industrial Organization - By allowing the supplier to contract simultaneously or sequentially with asymmetric retailers under Bertrand competition, we analyze the welfare implications of...     

Increasing the Efficiency of Spectrum Allocation

Over the past 80 years, the Federal Communications Commission has been responsible for the allocation of non-governmental use of the radio frequency spectrum. Over that time, here have been significant changes in spectrum use that have been driven by changes in demand and technology. The technical, regulatory, and business obstacles in past reallocations shed light on some of the FCC’s implementation decisions for its upcoming two-sided auction.     

Contracts Versus Price Discrimination: Evidence From the SONJ Case

A feature of the Standard Oil antitrust case is that much of the case revolves around Standard’s selling lubricating oils to railroads. This paper explores the government’s theory that Standard’s rebates to the Pennsylvania RR represented price discrimination. Standard’s defense was an assertion that the lubrication contracts were relational contracts involving a service and that the behavior which the government labeled discriminatory represented persistent inefficient behavior on the part of the Pennsylvania system. Data from the trial and other sources are used to attempt to determine if the evidence presented at trial favors price discrimination or Standard’s inefficiency defense. This is done using data envelopment analysis to determine the inefficiency the Pennsylvania RR. However, in the end, most aspects of the case must be considered “not proven.”     

Railroads and Price Discrimination: The Roles of Competition, Information, and Regulation

I evaluate railroad price discrimination in three periods: 1870–1886, before the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act; 1945–1975, when rates were regulated but railroads faced extensive intermodal competition; and 1980–2010, after the passage of major regulatory reforms. While price discrimination was widespread in each period, the specific practices varied as the nature of competition, regulation, and the information available to decision-makers changed. The Act focused heavily on price discrimination, and limited some practices while encouraging others. One major weakness of the Act was the restrictions that were imposed on pricing practices that could lead to cost reductions and productivity improvements.     

基于超效率DEA的房地产信贷资金配置效率研究

文章针对投放到房地产领域的信贷资金配置效率问题进行研究,利用超效率DEA建立分析模型,以我国35个大中城市作为研究样本,分别选取了2005年的投入指标和2007年的产出指标,实证检验了上述城市房地产信贷资金的配置效率.研究发现,整体上房地产信贷资金配置效率不高,只有48%的城市达到了DEA有效,其余52%的城市没有达到DEA有效;投放在房地产领域的信贷资金,配置效率呈现出地域化分布,DEA有效的城市集中分布在东北和西北地区,未达到DEA有效的城市集中分布在中部和南方地区.     

高技术产业创新投入配置对创新效率影响分析

为了探明如何有效配置创新资源以提升我国高技术产业的创新效率,以高技术产业原始创新和引进吸收消化再创新为分析对象,依据我国高技术产业1995～2008年的区域面板数据,采用随机前沿分析法(SFA)分别测度了创新投入在两种创新方式下的效率值。结果表明:原始创新投入的技术创新产出弹性最高,但经济效益产出弹性最低;引进消化吸收再创新投入对技术创新产出有正向的影响,但对经济效益产出却产生负向的影响。此外,政府资助、金融支持、产学研合作、市场结构等因素在不同创新产出指标下对创新效率影响有着显著差异。加大原始创新投入扶持力度、调整引进与吸收消化再创新投入结构、调整创新人才培养方式可以提升我国高技术产业整体创新效率。     

会计信息透明度对资源配置的作用

分别以深圳证券交易所信息披露考评结果、上市公司每股股票通过配股和增发实际募集的资金代表会计信息透明度和资源配置效率,采用深证主板上市公司数据,进行实践检验。研究发现,上市公司会计信息透明度越高,越能吸引投资者的优质资源;投资者和上市公司之间的良性选择,能促进资源优化配置,提高证券市场效率。     

Brand or Variety Choices and Periodic Sales as Substitute Instruments for Monopoly Price Discrimination

We study the puzzle that sellers often employ diverse strategies in terms of carrying multiple brands and holding periodic sales. These two selling tools can be substitute instruments to induce consumer self selection and implement price discrimination. We analyze the factors that affect a seller’s choice between the two pricing instruments and show how different combinations of the two instruments can be optimal under alternative market conditions. A seller may, surprisingly, increase her total number of offers when it becomes more costly to carry brands or hold sales if there are decreasing marginal costs of the alternative selling tool.     

Spatial Price Discrimination: The Use of Parking Coupons by Downtown Retailers

Price discrimination in monopolistically competitive markets affects firms' joint profits through several pecuniary and nonpecuniary externalities. Discrimination is a public good if the net effect is positive. Using a random utility shopping destination choice model we investigate the effect of a downtown parking coupon program that discriminates in favor of suburban consumers and against consumers based downtown. The program appears profitable for downtown stores collectively, but in the noncooperative Nash equilibrium stores do not participate. Participation is thus subject to free-riding. As the subsidy rate required to induce participation rises, profits fall. Whatever the subsidy rate, social surplus declines.     

基于Malmquist方法的我国区域R&D投入效率比较研究

以1999~2008年中国31个地区的数据为基础,运用Malmquist生产率指数方法,对全国各地区R&D投入的效率进行了比较,分析了各地区的技术进步、技术效率和规模效率的变动情况。研究结果表明:我国部分地区的研发投入效率出现下滑,引起效率降低的主要原因是技术衰退。同时以河北省为例进行了进一步的分析。指出未来我国应该重点加强研发活动中的技术进步,并同时注意提高管理效率。     

价格规制合同设计中信息租金与配置效率的协调方式

网络产业所具有的自然垄断特性使政府规制成为必要，但在信息不对称的情况下，被规制企业所具备的信息优势使政府在设计规制合同时必须面对和解决逆向选择问题。本文在考虑了参与约束和激励约束的基础上，通过建立含有信息租金的社会福利最大化目标函数，分析了企业信息租金的存在形式及其与配置效率的冲突关系，并提出了政府如何在提高资源配置效率和减少企业信息租金之间进行选择的协调方式。     

人力资本入股视角下的分配机制及帕累托分配效率的有效性研究

人力资本在现代经济增长中的作用已经引起学者的广泛关注,重点研究在人力资本人股机制下,对人力资本所有者积极性、潜能的有效激励对产出的影响。同时,在柯布一道格拉斯生产函数的基础上建立分配模型,得出只有在产出增加和人力资本所有者人股后收入的增加量高于努力成本时才能实现帕累托改进的结论。     

Multilateral Vertical Contracting with an Alternative Supply: The Welfare Effects of a Ban on Price Discrimination

Rey and Tirole [Handbook of Industrial Organization. Amsterdam: Elsevier (2005)] considered a model in which a monopolist sells to downstream firms using nonlinear contracts. They showed that banning price discrimination fully restores the supplier’s ability to leverage its monopoly power by enabling it to commit not to offer side discounts. I show that the situation changes when the supplier competes against a fringe of less efficient rivals rather than being a monopolist. Then banning price discrimination may cause per-unit prices to fall and welfare to increase. The dominant supplier can take advantage of a strategic bargaining effect: reducing the per-unit price makes the outside option of buying from the fringe less profitable, allowing the dominant supplier to extract more bargaining surplus through the fixed fee.     

Input substitutability and vertical integration

Input substitutability in final production is a well-known motive for noncompetitive input producers to integrate with their customers. In models that characterize the noncompetitive input industry as a pure monopoly, whether such integration would increase or decrease final production is ambiguous. The analysis here breaks the total output effect into factor substitution and market power components and discovers that the output ambiguity is sensitive to the specific model of noncompetitive equilibrium assumed. For the empirically most important cases of industrial organization, the sole effect of input substitutability on output is likely to be an unambiguous output increase.For their helpful comments, I am indebted to Stephen Karlson, Li Way Lee, W. G. Shepherd, Stephen Spurr, Hal Varian, and the referee. Any errors in the paper persist in spite of them.     

Common Knowledge Reference Price and Asymmetric Price Adjustments

There is abundant empirical evidence showing that asymmetric price adjustments exist in a wide variety of markets. Prices tend to rise faster when costs rise, relative to the rate at which prices drop when costs fall. This paper argues that a common knowledge reference price—a government suggested retail price—eases the existence of asymmetric price adjustments in a scenario where costs are ever-increasing. Our analysis of the Colombian retail gasoline market suggests that when costs rise by more than the reference price, prices tend to rise more slowly relative to when costs grow by less than the reference price.     

On Production Input Intensities and Production Functions

The controversy chat exists in rate-hearing cases can be partially attributed to participants assuming theoretical compatibility between various cost of capital models, when in fact, equivalence assumptions are unsupportable. Using the traditional model, the capital asset pricing model, and the Modigliani and Miller cost of capital model, the authors show equivalency exists only under certain conditions of no change in business risk and financial risk. Unless these conditions hold, the cost of capital calculated using any of these three models is wrong. The authors derive a generalized cost of capital model.