邮电通信业市场势力测度及对行业发展影响的实证分析

测度市场势力是监控垄断行业滥用市场势力和反垄断的前提,价格—边际成本差额(即勒纳指数)测度法是广泛认可的市场势力测度方法,但由于边际成本的不可获得性,实际上难以直接应用。本文以广受关注的邮电通信业为例解决了这一难题:基于行业数据特征,通过适当变换替代了经济学难以度量的边际成本和实物量,得到了一种能直接计算勒纳指数的方法,该方法适合于观察中长期市场势力,计量分析中明显优于使用价格—平均成本替代价格—边际成本的功效。基于测度结果,实证了市场势力、技术进步(考虑动态效率)、市场结构变化对行业发展的影响。研究发现,技术进步对行业增长有大的贡献,但市场势力产生了负效应,电信业市场结构调整没有达到业务分拆的初衷。上述研究方法和结论对政府制定垄断行业价格成本监审办法和反垄断立法有借鉴意义。     

Price asymmetries and the path dependence of market power: Evidence from the U.S. airline industry

This paper uncovers price asymmetries across oligopolistic and monopolistic markets that are seemingly identical in structure but different in competitive history. This is done by identifying “quiet life” markets that have not (yet) experienced a change in structure, and “non-quiet life” markets that have been disrupted by firm entry and/or exit. Using a long panel dataset from the U.S. airline industry, we find that quiet life duopolies price significantly higher than duopolies that come about by entry in monopoly, and that quiet life monopolies price significantly lower than monopolies that come about by exit in duopoly. We show that the path towards a particular market structure matters for the determination of prices and explore several mechanisms that likely explain the price asymmetries, including engagement in anticompetitive behaviour, adjustment behaviour to market structure changes, and the cost heterogeneity of competing firms.     

Multiproduct Outputs and Scale Economies in Electric Power Production: Some New Estimates

The present study offers an argument, through a technical exposition, which suggests that there are cost differences inherent in serving different types of buyers in the electric utilities industry. To this end, we employ a translog joint cost function (for electricity production) with three outputs, which allows for the examination of the cost differences between wholesale and retail trade for vertically integrated, investor-owned companies in the industry. The regression estimates suggest different costs at the means, however the estimated marginal cost curve for wholesale power is not as robust as those for low-voltage and industrial power.     

The optimal allocation of prizes in contests with costly entry

Contestants often need to incur an opportunity cost to participate in the competition. In this paper, we accommodate costly entry and study the effort-maximizing prize allocation rule in a contest environment of all-pay auction with incomplete information as in Moldovanu and Sela (2001). As equilibrium entry can be stochastic, our analysis allows prize allocation rule to be contingent on the number of entrants. With free entry, Moldovanu and Sela establish the optimality of winner-take-all when effort cost function is linear or concave. Costly entry introduces a new trade-off between eliciting effort from entrants and encouraging entry of contestants, which might demand a more lenient optimal prize allocation rule. Surprisingly, we find that the optimality of winner-take-all is robust to costly entry when cost function is linear or concave. On the other hand, we provide examples to show that the new trade-off due to costly entry does make a difference to the optimal design when effort cost function is convex.     

Technological Competition and the Structure of the Computer Industry

We examine thirty years of computer industry market structure. Our analysis explains the persistence of dominant computer firms, their recent decline, and the changing success of competitive entry. It emphasizes the importance of technological competition between computer 'platforms', not firms. This aspect of competition has changed little over time. Two things did change. Young platforms serving newly founded segments eventually challenged established platforms across segment boundaries through a process of indirect entry. Vertically disintegrated platforms have led to divided technical leadership in important segments. The result is an industry with far more technological competition.     

On the Relationship between International Outsourcing and Price–Cost Margins in European Industries

This paper sets up a model, where multinationals compete in quantities and domestic firms form a competitive fringe. Within this framework, we analyse the relationship between market concentration, international outsourcing and the industry price-cost margin. The empirical results of a panel of 66 industries and the EU12 countries in the 1990s strongly confirm our theoretical hypotheses. Market concentration and international outsourcing are positively related to industry price–cost margins. In a thought experiment, we show that industry price–cost margins would have decreased by 0.4 percentage points more in the 1990s, if international outsourcing had not changed since 1990. In addition, international outsourcing accounts for a convergence in margins across industries in the last decade.     

Strategies and Performance in the Thrift Industry: 1979–1987

From the late seventies until 1989, the regulatory environment of the thrift industry was changed from one that permitted little managerial discretion to one in which managers were allowed to choose from a wide variety of lending and borrowing activities. In this article, cluster analysis is used to separate thrifts into strategic groups based on the extent to which they utilized their new powers. Differences among the groups and the relationship between group membership and performance is tested over the period 1979–1987 using analysis of variance.     

Alliances, External Technology Acquisition, and Discontinuous Technological Change

A new paradigm, a radical innovation, the next killer application–the terms differ, but they all point to the same thing: a major change in the technology base for a mature industry. A discontinuous technological change (DTC) poses a significant challenge for the companies operating in the affected industry. The technology at the foundation of their products and markets has changed, and they must find a way to adapt to that change. To maintain their competitive standing, they must master the new technology and ensure that their products and processes fully exploit it. Noting that alliances offer an increasingly popular means for meeting the challenges that a DTC presents, C. Jay Lambe and Robert E. Spekman explore two issues related to alliances and DTC. First, why does DTC motivate companies to use alliances as a means for acquiring technology? And second, how do these motivations change during the various stages of the DTC life-cycle? By understanding the relationship between DTC and technology sourcing alliances, a firm can increase the likelihood of success for its alliances and thus improve the effectiveness of its product development efforts. When faced with a DTC, an established firm has three options for obtaining the new technology: merging with or acquiring a company that already possesses the technology; developing the required capabilities by using existing resources; or entering into some form of alliance. Because of time-to-market pressures and industry uncertainty, alliances often take precedence over the other two options for acquiring the new technology. However, the attractiveness of alliances also varies as a result of changes in the levels of urgency and uncertainty throughout the DTC life-cycle. The advent of a radical innovation is marked by a relatively low sense of urgency and high levels of industry uncertainty. Firms are not yet certain how the new technology will affect the industry, and they may not feel compelled to enter into technology sourcing alliances. As the new technology takes hold–and the levels of urgency and uncertainty peak–the motivation for entering into a technology sourcing alliance also reaches its highest level. Firms must move quickly to secure a position of market leadership, and the right alliance can jump-start those efforts. During the latter stages in the DTC life-cycle, the technology and the market requirements become more stable, the levels of urgency and industry uncertainty decrease, and firms often shift their focus from alliances to internal development and acquisitions.     

Merger efficiency gains: Evidence from a large transport merger in france

Many industries are seeing an increase in concentration, leading to a discussion on the effectiveness of horizontal merger enforcement. The policy debate shows that one of the key arguments put forward when supporting potential mergers is the possibility of realization of merger efficiency gains, specifically in the transport industry. Yet, there exists little empirical evidence on the actual effects of realized mergers on cost efficiencies. We exploit a large and highly debated merger that took place in the French transport industry to evaluate whether a merger between two major transport groups may give rise to merger efficiency gains. We exploit the industry setting to employ a difference-in-differences methodology evaluating the effect of the merger on operating costs of merging transport groups. Our results show that, no matter the specification considered, we cannot conclude that the merger resulted in any merger specific efficiency gains for the merging parties. Our study relies on the use of several control groups and is robust to a great number of robustness checks as well as to the introduction of heterogeneous treatment effects, depending on the identity of the merging party, as well as the closeness of competition of local operators. Overall, our study contributes to a growing number of case studies undertaken by economists that can help determine whether horizontal merger policy is being properly enforced.     

Explaining Location Patterns of Suburban Offices

Suburban office markets exhibit a pattern of variegated clustering that is little explained by the conventional theories of urban form based on agglomeration effects and the cost of distance. To explain the pattern, this paper introduces industry economies of scale for "Class A" offices. Empirical tests for industry economies of scale are reported, based on data from the office market of Houston, Texas. The models presented, under conditions typical of North American cities in recent decades, imply the patterns of variegated clustering that are observed. They suggest a sequence of clusters, increasing in size and distance from the central business district. Further, they imply the potential for mass movement by tenants from older clusters to new.     

Continuity,Change, and New Product Performance: The Role of Stream Concentration*

Product development teams often face the challenge of designing radically new products that cater at the same time to the revealed tastes and expectations of existing customers. In new product development projects, this tension guides critical choices about continuity or change concerning product attributes and team composition. Research suggests these choices interact, but it is not clear whether they are complements or substitutes and if the level of change in one should match or not the level of change in the other. In this article, we examine the interaction between product attribute change, team change, and a new team-level factor, which we term stream concentration, as it captures differences among team members in terms of familiarity with the knowledge domain of the new product being developed. We measure stream concentration as team members’ prior NPD experience within a given set of products and assess its impacts on the management of change in new product development projects using longitudinal data from the music industry. We analyze 2621 new product development projects between 1962 and 2008 involving 34,265 distinct team members. Results show that stream concentration is a critical factor in new product development projects that, together with product attributes and team composition, affects new product performance. We discuss implications for research and practice.     

Productivity and efficiency with discrete variables and quadratic cost function

We propose an index of productivity based on a quadratic cost function and developed for discrete data including technical and allocative inefficiency, jointly with technical change and returns to scale, as determinants of Total Factor Productivity. This new index is applied to Spanish stevedoring industry so as to identify the sources of change in the productivity of a multiproductive activity, where some companies do not produce some of the outputs. In this context, the functional quadratic form and the productivity index proposed prove particularly useful.     

Reducing Structural Dominance and Entry Barriers in Russian Industry

While many industrial firms in Russiahave undergone ownership change, relatively few havecompetitively restructured. This paper, using survey and other data, suggests much of Russian industry is immune from robust competition due to seller/buyer concentration in select markets, a high degree of vertical integration, and geographic segmentation. Regulatory constraints protect incumbent firms from entrants, both domestic and foreign. The absence of new businesses is striking. Restructuringanti-competitive structures and reducing barriers to entry should be key items in Russia'spost-privatization program, and the paper sketches out a reform agenda. The nascent rules-based framework for competition policy should be strengthened to reduce discretion, increase transparency and enhance accountability.     

Small firm births and macroeconomic fluctuations

Using different definitions of what constitutes a small firm, this paper analyses the effect of business conditions on the start-up of small firms. It is found that small firm births exhibit a pro-cyclical behaviour, irrespective of the threshold used to define a small firm. The smallest new firms, however, seem to be less responsive to the opportunity cost of capital. Finally, no relationship was found between entry of small firms and industry growth and profiability.     

MULTIPROJECT STRATEGY AND SALES GROWTH: THE BENEFITS OF RAPID DESIGN TRANSFER IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

This paper explores the impact on sales growth of different product development strategies, especially an approach that focuses on the coordination of multiple projects that overlap in time and share critical components. The data for our analysis comes from the automobile industry, although the principles we discuss should apply to any industry where firms compete with multiple product lines and where the sharing of components among more than one distinct product is both possible and desirable. Some firms compete by trying to develop ‘hit’ products in isolation, with little or no reuse of components or coordination with other products. Another way to compete is to leverage a firm’s investment in new technologies across as many new products as possible as quickly as possible, while the technologies are still relatively new. This paper proposes a typology that captures this effect by categorizing product development strategies into four types: new design, rapid (or concurrent) design transfer, sequential design transfer, and design modification. An analysis of 210 projects from the automobile industry between 1980 and 1991 indicates that firms utilizing the rapid design transfer strategy—quickly leveraging new platform components across multiple projects–increased sales more than when they or their competitors did not use this strategy. The study’s results suggest that not only the sharing of technology among multiple projects but also the speed of technology leveraging are important to sales growth. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust future‐oriented technology portfolios: Black–Litterman approach

We propose a new way of constructing more robust technology portfolios to overcome the weaknesses of previous technology portfolios based either on the judgments of experts or on quantitative data such as patents. Instead of using historical data, the method of nonlinear forecasting enables us to forecast the future number of patent citations and accordingly, to use the forecast as a quantitative proxy for future returns and risks of technologies. Using the Black–Litterman portfolio model, we improve the accuracy of inputs by combining the future views of experts with the future returns and risks of technologies. As a consequence of this, the portfolio becomes strongly future‐oriented. With our approach, corporate managers use both experts and data more effectively to build robust technology portfolios. In particular, our method is of great help for companies launching new businesses because the method avoids heavy dependency on internal experts with little knowledge about emerging technologies. A company entering the molecular amplification instrument market is exemplified herein.     

The co‐evolution of capabilities and transaction costs: explaining the institutional structure of production

This paper proposes that transaction costs and capabilities are fundamentally intertwined in the determination of vertical scope, and identifies the key mechanisms of their co‐evolution. Specifically, we argue that capability differences are a necessary condition for vertical specialization; and that transaction cost reductions only lead to specialization when capabilities along the value chain are heterogeneous. Furthermore, we argue that there are four evolutionary mechanisms that shape vertical scope over time. First, the selection process, itself driven by capability differences, dynamically shapes vertical scope; second, transaction costs are endogenously changed by firms that try to reshape the transactional environment to increase their profit and market share; third, changes in vertical scope affect the nature of the capability development process, i.e., the way in which firms improve their operations over time; and finally, the changes in the capability development process reshape the capability pool in the industry, changing the roster of qualified participants. These dynamics of capability and transaction cost co‐evolution are illustrated through two contrasting examples: the mortgage banking industry in the United States, which shows the shift from integrated to disintegrated production; and the Swiss watch‐manufacturing industry, which went from disintegration to integration. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is performance driven by industry‐ or firm‐specific factors? A response to Hawawini,Subramanian, and Verdin

Hawawini, Subramanian, and Verdin (2003) examined the relative impact of industry‐ vs. firm‐level factors shaping firm performance. They demonstrated that variance in firm performance attributable to industry‐level factors increases, while variance attributable t to firm‐level factors decreases when ‘exceptionally’ higher‐ and lower‐performing ‘outlier’ firms in each industry are excluded. They concluded that previous research underestimated the relative impact of industry‐level factors for ‘average’ firms that make up the bulk of an industry. We take issue with their methods used to identify and exclude outliers as well as their conclusions drawn from such analyses. Rather than excluding true ‘outlier’ firms, we argue that they incorporated an artificial restriction of within‐industry sample variance that almost deterministically led to lower firm and higher industry variance component estimates. We demonstrate this point with a comparable sample of data to which we apply progressively greater restrictions on within‐industry sample variance leading to similar results. Finally, we show that exclusion of firms from a data sample based on commonly understood standards of outlier identification leads to little change in industry and firm variance component estimates compared to full‐sample estimates. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling the effect of buyer and seller power on the margins of commodity plastics

In the last decade, large sectors of the chemical and plastics industries in the U.S.A. and West Europe have suffered drastic declines in price and gross margin during periods of low use of industry capacity. This paper shows that the major changes in gross margin observed for some commodity plastics can be modelled successfully in terms of the balance between buyer power and seller power. These industries have visibility of prices and industry occupacity and comparable concentrations of sellers and important buyers. The modelling follows Burgess (1982) in expressing buyer and seller power as simple functions of buyer and seller concentrations, industry occupacity and ‘cohesion’ between sellers. This work provides a first practical test of this new approach. It is shown that the model fits the observed data best if the ‘cohesion’ declines as occupacity declines. It is suggested that the approach would be useful in understanding the behaviour of other ‘near-commodity’, capital-intensive businesses, and in helping to distinguish between those businesses where margins are likely to remain relatively stable and those which might face drastically declining margins if the industry occupacity declines or new entrants change the balance between sellers and buyers.     

西部地区制造业结构变动实证分析

本文对西部地区的制造业结构进行了实证分析和研究,得出的结论是:西部地区近10多年来制造业结构的变动程度大,并与其产出增长较为协调;西部地区制造业结构升级有所推进,制造业技术水平缓慢提高,但西部地区制造业总体上技术水平不高,产品竞争力不强,若干支柱产业的地位大幅度下降;西部地区与东部、中部地区制造业结构的相似性降低,各制造业行业专业化水平有所提高;西部地区制造业出口结构有所改善,省市之间差异明显。