Robust results on the sharing of firm-specific information: Incentives and welfare effects

Contrary to much of the existing literature, we obtain robust and clear-cut results for the incentives and welfare effects of information sharing when information is firm-specific. We show that firms’ incentives to share this type of information are aligned with social welfare. Whenever revealing information is the dominant strategy (such as for Cournot firms revealing costs or Cournot and Bertrand firms revealing demand), it is socially beneficial. Only cost information in Bertrand competition will not be revealed but this is socially desirable, too. These findings are independent of distributional assumptions on random shocks and signals and hold for general asymmetric oligopoly with any mixture of substitute, complementary and independent goods.     

Spatial differentiation,divisible consumption and the pro-competitive effect of income

We analyze a spatial differentiation model with divisible consumption under one-stop shopping. Each consumer who visits only one store, chooses the quantities of the goods which maximize his/her utility function under the budget constraint (namely consumption expenditures must equal income minus transportation costs), choosing the store which provides him/her with the largest indirect utility. We derive the equilibrium price when the firms are located at the two extremities of Hotelling’s linear city and show that income increases have a pro-competitive effect.     

Demand and supply estimation biases due to omission of durability

We build a dynamic equilibrium model of a durable goods oligopoly with a competitive secondary market to evaluate the bias in estimating the structural parameters of demand and supply when durability is omitted. We simulate data from our dynamic model and use them to estimate the model’s static counterpart. We find that the static estimate of the elasticity of demand is an overestimate of the true elasticity and that the static estimate of the markup is an underestimate. Our results provide a benchmark on the magnitude and sign of the bias when static models are used for economic inference.     

媒介融合对广告策划的影响

本文基于媒介融合的背景下,从传媒格局、传播技术、营销环境与受众关系分析出发,探讨了媒介融合对广告策划的影响,同时阐述了广告策划的内容。     

Entrepreneurship: Origins and returns

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited liability companies. Based on this extended entrepreneurship concept, we find that entrepreneurship tends to be profitable. It also raises income variability, but the most successful quartile gains much more than the least successful quartile loses. Key determinants of the decision to become an entrepreneur are occupational qualifications, family resources, gender, and work environments. Individual unemployment encourages, while aggregate unemployment discourages, entrepreneurship.     

品牌集中度及其度量模型研究

市场集中度是描述市场结构特征的重要指标,它是从厂商角度对市场份额、业务规模等经济指标进行度量的,但它是一种静态指标,无法揭示不同品牌定位的厂商策略行为以及市场结构的动态演变。在引入品牌因素构建简单的品牌集中度模型及从消费者选择角度对市场结构的特征和演变进行分析后发现,厂商的市场份额与品牌需求强度系数呈同方向变动,与品型需求系数呈同方向变动,与价格呈反方向变动,与品牌信用度呈同方向变动;而且品牌信用度愈大,品牌集中度也愈高。中国电冰箱行业的市场结构特征和演进的实证分析显示,该模型具有较强的现实解释力。     

我国石油产业市场集中度与技术创新研究

用产业集中度指数(CRn),分别从产业总体层面和企业层面对我国石油行业市场集中度进行了分析,得出我国油气行业的市场结构属于寡占型市场结构。在此基础上,根据石油行业的技术创新现状,深层次分析我国石油行业技术创新的制约因素,旨在提高我国石油产业技术创新能力,进而提高国际竞争力。     

我国公益广告事业现阶段存在的问题及对策

近几年公益广告在我国方兴未艾,但国内缺乏对公益广告的理论研究。文章根据我国公益广告事业发展的现状特征对公益广告进行系统地阐述,分析我国公益广告事业现阶段存在的问题,并提出可行的对策。     

特许经营:房地产中介业发展的新途径

通过分析房地产中介市场引入特许经营的必要性，结合房地产中介特许经营的现状及运作要点，认为通过推行特许经营能规范房地产中介市场行为，提高服务质量，促进房地产中介市场健康的发展。并提出了发展特许经营，需要完善的相关政策和管理问题。     

电视商业广告中的女性形象

女性形象深得广告人的青睐,其中有着深刻的社会和文化内涵。本文试从传播学、社会学的角度通过女性在电视商业广告中呈现的整体形象,试图解析当前电视商业广告中女性形象形成的类别、原因,并对电视商业广告中女性形象的重塑提出看法。     

Robust firm pricing with panel data

Firms often have imperfect information about demand for their products. We develop an integrated econometric and theoretical framework to model firm demand assessment and subsequent pricing decisions with limited information. We introduce a panel data discrete choice model whose realistic assumptions about consumer behavior deliver partially identified preferences and thus generate ambiguity in the firm pricing problem. We use the minimax-regret criterion as a decision-making rule for firms facing this ambiguity. We illustrate the framework’s benefits relative to the most common discrete choice analysis approach through simulations and empirical examples with field data.     

Estimating a tournament model of intra-firm wage differentials

We consider the estimation of a tournament model with moral hazard (based on Rosen (1986), AER)) when only aggregate data on intra-firm employment levels and salaries are available. Equilibrium restrictions of the model allow us to recover parameters of interest, including equilibrium effort levels in each hierarchical stage of the firm. We illustrate our estimation procedures using data from major retail chains in the US. We find that only a fraction of the wage differential directly compensates workers for higher effort levels, implying that a large portion of the differentials arises to maintain incentives at lower rungs of the retailers.     

The intrinsic comparative dynamics of locally differentiable feedback Nash equilibria of autonomous and exponentially discounted infinite horizon differential games

The comparative dynamics of locally differentiable feedback Nash equilibria are derived for the ubiquitous class of autonomous and exponentially discounted infinite horizon differential games. The resulting refutable implications are intrinsic to the said class of differential games, and thus form their basic, empirically testable, properties. Their relationship with extant results in the optimal control theory and the static game theory is discussed. Separability conditions are identified on the instantaneous payoff and transition functions under which the intrinsic comparative dynamics collapse, in form, to those in optimal control problems. Applications of the results to capital accumulation and sticky-price games are provided.     

Influences of the Business Environment on Manufacturing Firms Technical Efficiencies: The Côte d’Ivoire Case

An unbalanced panel is used to estimate technical and managerial efficiency levels of manufacturing firms in Côte d’Ivoire. A stochastic frontier production model with non-neutral effects on technical efficiency of the business environment variables is specified. This specification allows to evaluate and to compare technical efficiencies and efficiency levels net of business environment influences. In order to determine net efficiency levels in the non-neutral case, a practical method based on the definition of an artificial environment is proposed. Results suggest that informal firms are less technically efficient than formal firms whereas their managerial performances are closed to those of formal firms.