Competition among hospitals

We examine competition in the hospital industry, in particular the effect of ownership type (for-profit, not-for-profit, government). We estimate a structural model of demand and pricing in the hospital industry in California, then use the estimates to simulate the effect of a merger. California hospitals in 1995 face an average price elasticity of demand of -4.85. Not-for-profit hospitals face less elastic demand and act as if they have lower marginal costs. Their prices are lower than those of for-profits, but markups are higher. We simulate the effects of the 1997 merger of two hospital chains. In San Luis Obispo County, where the merger creates a near monopoly, prices rise by up to 53%, and the predicted price increase would not be substantially smaller were the chains not-for-profit.     

中国银行业结构变迁及其发展趋势

在既有的 2 0多年改革中 ,中国银行业走过了一条从单一的国有金融产权完全垄断到多种产权形式初具竞争的渐进道路 ,其结构变迁呈现出明显的阶段性特征。由于改革的路径依赖以及政府对银行业的严格管制 ,当前国有银行仍占垄断地位 ,非国有银行的竞争力明显不足 ,整个银行体系的经营绩效连年下滑。加入WTO意味着中国银行业将进入全面开放时期 ,不仅对外资银行而且对民营银行的进入壁垒将会逐步拆除。体制内外产权改革的并进将使未来中国银行业的结构走向多元化、多层次的竞争局面。     

金融控股公司的反垄断法规制——以银行集中控制为视角

金融控股公司已成为当前各国发展金融行业，提升金融竞争力的主要方式。金融控股公司的集中是竞争效率的反应，但过度集中则会导致竞争者减少，竞争机制的失灵。过去，人们强调金融业的监管问题，但金融危机不仅使人们意识到审慎监管的重要性，也引起了人们对金融反垄断的思考。对金融控股公司集中的反垄断规制应以有效竞争原则为基本理念；在规制的具体规则中，则应考虑相关市场的界定和有效抗辩机制这两个因素。     

The role of technological and market structure in regulatory reform

This article considers the role of technological and market structure in determining whether regulatory reform is desirable, and the nature of reform that might be undertaken to improve resource allocation. The article discusses the basis for government intervention in an industry, the role of natural monopoly, and alternative approaches that might be employed to introduce competition for a market even if competition within a market is not possible (e.g., through competitive auctions, contestability, or monopolistic competition). It suggests the nature of the economic basis for regulatory reform in a number of American industries in recent years.The author would like to thank George Kaufman, George Benston, and Randy Eberts for their helpful comments.     

Business Separation and the Future Shape of the UK Energy Industry

The Utilities Act 2000 is principally focused upon promoting greater competition within the electricity industry. Its provisions will have a profound, but possibly unintended, impact upon the structure of the electricity industry in the UK, and ensure the continued requirement for a regulatory presence in both the competitive as well as monopoly sectors of the industry. The question of business separation, and its impact upon the potential for vertical integration is discussed. This article argues that, while vertical integration is discouraged, future horizontal integration is a likely consequence of business separation.     

China's land market auctions: evidence of corruption?

In China, urban land is allocated by leasehold sales by local officials. Attempting to end widespread corruption, the government now requires sales to be conducted publicly, by either English or “two‐stage” auctions. However, corruption persists through the choice of auction format and preauction side deals between favored bidders and local officials. Two‐stage auctions have a first stage where favored developers signal that auctions are “taken,” deterring entry of other bidders. Empirics show that both sales prices and competition are significantly less for two‐stage than English auctions. Selection on unobserved property characteristics is positive: officials divert hotter properties to two‐stage auctions.     

Buy or wait,that is the option: the buyer's option in sequential laboratory auctions

We report results from an experiment on two‐unit sequential auctions with and without a buyer's option (which allows the winner of the first auction to buy the second unit). The four main auction institutions are studied. Observed bidding behavior is close to Nash equilibrium bidding in the auctions for the second unit, but not in the auctions for the first unit. Despite these deviations, the buyer's option is correctly used in most cases. The revenue ranking of the four auctions is the same as in single‐unit experiments. Successive prices are declining when the buyer's option is available.     

Does Joint Bidding Reduce Competition? Evidence from Hong Kong Land Auctions

This paper analyses firms’ bidding behavior in auctions for development land in Hong Kong. The real estate market in Hong Kong is considered to be oligopolistic as it is dominated by a few top real estate firms, which have strong financial strength/development capacity and large land banks. Joint bidding is used by other real estate firms (“large” firms) to pool resources/capital in order to compete with the top firms. We test whether joint bidding increases or decreases the level of competition in land auctions, using land auction data in Hong Kong from 1991 to 2011. We find that large real estate firms are more likely to be successful than top firms at auctions when bidding jointly. However, joint bidding/winning does not harm competition as reflected by the number of bids, bids per bidder and number of bidders. Land prices also increase significantly in auctions won by joint bidders or alliances of large developers. Our results suggest that joint bidding enhances competition by allowing large firms to act strategically by pooling their resources and act aggressively to compete with the top firms.

     

On absolute auctions and secret reserve prices

From a theory viewpoint, the use of auctions with zero public reserve prices, also called absolute auctions, or of auctions with secret reserve prices, is somewhat puzzling despite being common. By allowing that buyers differ in their processing of past data regarding how the participation rate varies with the auction format and how reserve prices are distributed when secret, we show in a competitive environment that these auction formats may endogenously emerge. We also analyze how buyers with various sophistications and sellers with various costs sort into the different formats, thereby offering a range of testable predictions. Alternative approaches are reviewed.     

Automatic bankruptcy auctions and fire-sales

We test for fire-sale tendencies in automatic bankruptcy auctions. We find evidence consistent with fire-sale discounts when the auction leads to piecemeal liquidation, but not when the bankrupt firm is acquired as a going concern. Neither industry-wide distress nor the industry affiliation of the buyer affect prices in going-concern sales. Bids are often structured as leveraged buyouts, which relaxes liquidity constraints and reduces bidder underinvestment incentives in the presence of debt overhang. Prices in “prepack” auctions (sales agreements negotiated prior to bankruptcy filing) are on average lower than for in-auction going-concern sales, suggesting that prepacks may help preempt excessive liquidation when the auction is expected to be illiquid. Prepack targets have a greater industry-adjusted probability of refiling for bankruptcy, indicating that liquidation preemption is a risky strategy.     

对自然垄断行业电信业的规制改革

自然垄断行业是几个企业的联合生产不及同产业中一个单一供给者提供相同产量时便宜,即单个企业能比两家或两家以上的企业更有效率地向市场提供同样数量的产品。电信行业作为自然垄断产业,面对技术的进步,市场需求的变化,政府对其加以管制,比如引入竞争因素来使得电信业从垄断变成了寡头垄断的行业。本文介绍电信业的改革历程,并指出了电信业规制改革中存在的一些问题,如准人规制、互联互通等方面,进而提出了对电信业规制改革的深化的一些措施,包括规制的内容,规制机构的改革,以及法律方面的保障等。     

Product Market Competition, Insider Trading, and Stock Market Efficiency

How does competition in firms' product markets influence their behavior in equity markets? Do product market imperfections spread to equity markets? We examine these questions in a noisy rational expectations model in which firms operate under monopolistic competition while their shares trade in perfectly competitive markets. Firms use their monopoly power to pass on shocks to customers, thereby insulating their profits. This encourages stock trading, expedites the capitalization of private information into stock prices and improves the allocation of capital. Several implications are derived and tested.     

Raising rival's costs in the securities settlement industry

The competition between a central securities depository (CSD) and a custodian bank is analyzed in a Stackelberg model. Investor banks decide whether to use the services of the CSD or of the custodian bank, depending on the prices and their preferences for their inhomogeneous services. Since the custodian bank uses services provided by the CSD as input, the CSD can raise its rival's costs. The CSD's equilibrium market share is higher than socially optimal, unless the CSD is not allowed to charge negative prices. This result has important policy implications that are related to a discussion currently taking place in the securities settlement industry.     

Underpricing and Market Power in Uniform Price Auctions

In uniform auctions, buyers choose demand schedules as strategiesand pay the same "market clearing" price for units awarded.Despite the widespread use of these auctions, the extant theoryshows that they are susceptible to arbitrarily large underpricing.We make a realistic modification to the theory by letting prices,quantities, and bids be discrete. We show that underpricingcan be made arbitrarily small by choosing a sufficiently smallprice tick size and a sufficiently large quantity multiple.We also show how one might improve revenues by modifying theallocation rule. A trivial change in the design can have a dramaticimpact on prices. Our conclusions are robust to bidders beingcapacity constrained. Finally, we examine supply uncertaintyrobust equilibria.     

Interlinking securities settlement systems: A strategic commitment?

Central securities depositories (CSDs) in Europe have opened mutual links, but most of them are seldom used. Why are idle links established? By allowing a foreign CSD to offer services through the link, the domestic CSD invites competition. By inviting competition the domestic CSD can commit itself not to charge monopoly fees for secondary market services. This enables it to charge higher fees for securities issuance in the primary market. It is shown that commitment via an idle link can be optimal for a profit maximising CSD.     

Bounds on revenue distributions in counterfactual auctions with reserve prices

Measuring auction revenues under counterfactual reserve prices or formats requires knowledge of distributions of bidders' values and private signals. This poses a challenge when bids are observed from first‐price, common‐value auctions. I bound counterfactual revenue distributions without imposing parametric restrictions on the model structure. Using data from U.S. municipal bond auctions, I find first‐price and second‐price auctions under optimal reserve prices lead to little improvement in revenues over existing first‐price formats. The number of bidders has a more significant impact on revenues in optimal auctions. I also find invoking an incorrect assumption of private values in counterfactual analyses results in small errors in predicting revenues from optimal second‐price auctions.     

经济转型时期行政性垄断的规制

行政性垄断以及政府所属部门依据其行政权力而形成的垄断，是阻碍市场竞争的主要因素。因此，分析我国行政转型时期行政性垄断的特殊性及其成因、特征和危害，并借鉴西方发达国家对行政性垄断规制的经验，结合我国实际对行政性垄断进行规制，在当前显得十分重要。     

日本行政限制竞争行为法律规制问题研究

日本反垄断法中没有行政垄断的定义,但确有行政机关利用行政权力排除限制竞争的行为,日本的经济规制及其统制型经济模式是其行为产生的原因。日本行政限制竞争行为主要表现为行政指导的卡特尔和行政参与的串通招标投标行为。日本采用禁止私人垄断法和行政法路径对行政限制竞争行为进行规制。日本采取行政、民事、刑事责任立法来规制行政限制竞争行为。我国应坚持行政垄断规制专门立法的特设制度,借鉴日本规制行政垄断的经验,并加大对行政垄断的处罚力度。     

Real estate auctions: A survey of theory and practice

Recent downturns in real estate markets combined with a general acceptance of auctions have resulted in an unprecedented number of auction sales. A need therefore exists for the further development of real estate auction models that can provide insights into this emerging market institution. To facilitate this task a survey of auction theory as pertaining to its application in real estate markets is provided in this paper. Topics addressed includes bidding equilibria, the role of reserve prices, information disclosure, the decision to use auctions, bidder participation, and multiple-object sales. An overview of empirical studies in this area is also provided.     

投资收益、经营效率和寿险企业市场绩效

中国寿险业的垄断型市场结构并没有造成垄断企业控制市场以获得超额利润的情况。本文选取中国人寿、泰康人寿、新华人寿三家企业1998年～2007年间的面板数据作为样本数据,分析了我国寿险公司绩效的影响因素,认为在中国寿险业日益激烈的市场竞争下,寿险企业的利润主要来自投资收益,经营效率高的企业虽然不能因为技术效率和规模效率而获得高利润,但是可以在竞争中占有更多的市场份额。