Delegation Commitment in Oligopoly

Dealing with managerial incentive in an oligopolistic competition market where the relevant strategic variables are not directly quantities but incentive schemes. It is found that, in the sequential delegation model, the leader output will not be affected by changing the number of the follower firms when there is only one leader. In addition, more equal distribution of the number of leaders and followers will result in higher industry output, lower price, lower industry profit, higher consumer surplus and higher economic welfare; moreover, economic welfare in the sequential delegation model is always higher than in a simultaneous delegation model.

A Generalized Oligopoly Model

This paper generalizes and unifies the traditional quantity competition oligopoly models of Cournot and Stackelberg. Traditional oligopoly models predict that, under constant marginal costs, there will only be one market share (Cournot) or a single firm with a large market share and all others with the same market share (Stackelberg). Without altering the basic assumption set, in particular the assumptions of common marginal cost functions, perfect information and linear demand, the paper presents a general model that may be useful to explain many real‐life situations of oligopoly competition, where many different market shares may coexist. Finally, it is shown that certain existing social welfare results are robust to the generalization.     

Horizontal Mergers and Successive Oligopoly

This paper considers a successive oligopoly setting in which a set of upstream firms sell output non-exclusively to a group of downstream firms using a linear tariff. If the concavity of retail demand is constant then the profitability of horizontal merger at either the upstream or the downstream stage is shown to depend on the number of firms in the stage experiencing the merger and not on the number of firms in the other stage. Furthermore, the profitability of merger at either stage is the same as the profitability of merger amongst a set of vertically integrated firms in a setting in which all firms are vertically integrated. Finally, mergers at either stage are shown to reduce the sum of producer and consumer surplus. Moreover the negative effects of merger on surplus are unambiguously increased by increases in concentration in the merging stage and ambiguously affected by increases in concentration in the non-merging stage.JEL classification: L10, L20, L40     

Indirect Taxes in Oligopoly in Presence of Licensing Opportunities

This paper considers the relative efficiency of unit tax and ad valorem tax in a Cournot duopoly market in the presence of licensing opportunities after the announcement of the tax rates by the government. In case of fixed-fee licensing, if the unit cost difference of the firms is low and tax revenue of the government is high, then unit tax is more efficient than the ad valorem tax. If tax revenue of the government is low, then ad valorem tax is more efficient than unit tax. Ad valorem tax is more efficient than unit tax in the case of royalty licensing.     

An Empirical Analysis of Competition in Brand Differentiated Oligopoly

The paper studies the behaviour of four oligopolistic firms in the Italian coffee market. We study whether their behaviour is better represented by Bertrand behaviour or by collusive pricing. We also investigate the role of advertising in product differentiation.     

中国消费者的意识状态

乐现的中国消费者中国消费者对自己目前的生活水平普遍较为满意。认为自己属于“中等以上”的人群明显高于发达国家的日本（中国：34.1％;日本：10.8％）。     

寡头垄断下的对外直接投资:一种博奕论解释

对外投资决策并非完全依照邓宁的3种优势作出 ,相反在寡头市场结构下主宰对外投资的因素往往是某种博弈的结构。正如理性预期使宏观经济学发生革命一样 ,博奕论广泛而深远地改变了经济学家的思维方式。本文使用博奕论这一分析工具变换角度重新审视了寡头垄断市场结构下 ,跨国公司对外直接投资的若干问题。     

技术溢出情况下寡头垄断企业合作创新效率的博弈分析

合作创新是典型的合作博弈,有关合作经济组织效率的研究是主流经济学家最有兴趣的主题之一。构造一个两阶段博弈模型对寡头垄断企业合作创新效率进行分析,旨在比较成本节约型寡头垄断企业合作创新与非合作创新的过程及绩效差异,包括市场产出、社会福利的变化,为企业合作创新过程中组织模式的选择提供理论依据     

Product Quality,Cost Asymmetry and the Welfare Loss of Oligopoly

When competition is tough, firms which do not implement the least expensive technology are forced to exit, or the low cost firms are able to increase their market share. Persistent cost or profit differences require some form of restricted entry, specific intangible assets or oligopolistic co-ordination. If technology or skills is easy to transfer but it is not transferred because of collusion, we have to add a cost side effect ('the staircase')stemming from the non-proliferation of the best technology- to the well-known demand side loss ('the triangle'). This paper presents a model with vertical product differentiation and develops a method which disentangles cost differences coming from vertical product differences and those coming from other sources. Data for the paper industry in the EU, in the US and in Japan indicate that cost differences are large. If at least some part of them comes from oligopolistic co-ordination, then the welfare loss of oligopoly is much larger than the usually measured demand side welfare loss.     

Enhancing Environmentally Conscious Consumption through Standardized Sustainability Information

In today's retail marketplace, consumers receive little or no consistent brand‐level sustainability information, but this may change in the near future. Developing hypotheses based on the comparative brand processing and information disclosure literatures, we conduct a retail laboratory choice‐based experiment to test predictions related to the effects of brand‐level sustainability information on choices, product evaluations, and retailer perceptions. Compared to the status quo condition in which no sustainability information is provided for the product category at the retail point of purchase, the addition of positive (negative) sustainability information for the brand yields higher (lower) product evaluations and increased (decreased) brand choice. In addition, due to greenwashing concerns, many consumers may be skeptical of product‐level sustainability information, and we address the moderating role of this skepticism on retailer‐related perceptions.     

Competitiveness of Firm Behavior and Public Policy for New Technology Adoption in an Oligopoly

Economic growth requires that firms adopt new technologies. However, it may be insufficient or excessive in less competitive industries from the social welfare point of view. In this case, a government subsidy or tax is necessary. We analyze the optimum subsidy or tax policy for new technology adoption by firms when firms maximize the weighted average of absolute and relative profits. We do not consider that firms really maximize the weighted average, but the weight on the relative profit is used as a parameter indicating competitiveness of firm behavior. We show that the optimum policy is likely to be subsidization (or taxation) when the set-up cost for new technology adoption is large (or small). It is likely to be subsidization (or taxation) when competitiveness is large (or small), that is, it is near to perfect competition (or joint profit maximization).     

Oligopoly and trade: what, how much, and for whom?

This paper integrates the Cournot oligopoly model with the Ricardian comparative advantage model. The Ricardian trade pattern is robust, and only can be reversed in extreme conditions. Trade volume increases substantially with increases in competition in world export industries. In a symmetrical world, a threshold level of competition determines whether capitalists as a group usually gain or lose from trade. Under all circumstances workers never lose even if a country has a comparative disadvantage in a perfectly competitive world industry, but workers gain less in that country than they do in the rest of the world.     

Measuring Price Effects of Concentration in Mixed Oligopoly: An Application to the Swedish Beef-slaughter Industry

Empirical studies of market power focus exclusively on industries with private firms. Yet, it is not uncommon to find private firms competing with public firms or cooperatives (coops) within the same market. We develop an empirical procedure for measuring market-power and cost-efficiency effects of concentration in mixed oligopoly consisting of coops and investment-owned firms (IOF) and apply the procedure to the Swedish beef-slaughter industry. We find that the cost-efficiency effect of coop concentration more than offset its market power effect, resulting lower beef prices. IOFs are found to be price-takers in both cattle procurement and beef sales.      

Company Taxation and Merger Incentives in International Oligopoly: on International Policy Coordination with Strategic Trade

We analyse how national taxation of firms is likely to affect merger incentives in international markets. In particular, we ask whether non-coordinated trade policies stimulate cross-border mergers that are overall inefficient, and if this then is an argument for international coordination of such policies? We address this issue in a setting where policy makers use two-part tariffs to tax exporting firms. The analysis reveals that while non-coordinated policies may induce cross-border mergers by allowing the firms in question to play national policy makers out against each other, this can nevertheless be overall welfare enhancing compared to market outcomes under coordinated policy making.     

从寡头竞争视角看公司治理结构演变在国际贸易中的作用

文章通过构建企业间贸易寡头竞争模型,演示了公司治理结构差异对于企业市场力的影响,认为公司制度的演变在一定的条件下具有与政府政策干预同样的利润转移效应,从而揭示了公司治理结构演变在国际贸易中的作用。     

信息不对称理论研究

信息不对称理论是微观经济学研究的一个核心内容．用来说明在不完全信息市场上,相关信息在交易双方的不对称分布对市场交易行为的影响,以及由此而产生的市场运行效率问题,经济学家为了解决这个问题提出了若干理论和模型,一定程度上解决了由于信息不对称带来的逆向选择和道德败坏问题,为合理利用市场资源要搜寻信息、市场信号、契约设计以及建立健全法律法规,不断改善宏观干预手段和方法、加强道德教育和社会监督的解决措施。     

试论信息非对称条件下的消费者主权保护

消费者主权是现代市场经济的基本特征和维护市场机制高效运行的重要保障。但由于消费信息的非对称而使消费者主权受到了诸多损害,从而不利于市场机制的高效运作和市场经济的健康发展。为此,应分析消费信息非对称对消费者主权造成的损害,采取有效措施,保护消费者主权,促进经济健康发展。     

非对称信息及相关问题的经济学思考

非对称信息是指某些参与人拥有信息,但另一些参与人不拥有信息。非对称信息引发了逆向选择、道德风险、委托——代理等问题。从市场运行效率角度对非对称信息进行经济学分析。在明确非对称信息内涵的基础上,分析由它所引发的相关问题,进而提出针对非对称信息的相应对策。     

Asymmetric Collusion with Growing Demand

We characterize collusion sustainability in markets where demand growth triggers the entry of a new firm whose efficiency may be different from the efficiency of the incumbents. We find that the profit-sharing rule that firms adopt to divide the cartel profit after entry is a key determinant of the incentives for collusion (before and after entry). In particular, if the incumbents and the entrant are very asymmetric, collusion without side-payments cannot be sustained. However, if firms divide joint profits through bargaining and are sufficiently patient, collusion is sustainable even if firms are very asymmetric.