Monopoly and Oligopoly Provision of Addictive Goods

This article investigates monopoly and oligopoly provision of an addictive good. Consumer preferences are modeled as in Becker and Murphy (1988). Addictive goods have characteristics that create interesting strategic issues when suppliers are noncompetitive. We characterize the perfect Markov equilibrium of a market with noncompetitive supply of an addictive good and compare it with the efficient solution. Depending on particular parameter values, we find a wide variety of possible steady-state outcomes, including ones with output above the efficient level and price below marginal cost. We also find that market power can be disadvantageous.     

存在非耐用品时耐用品的出租或销售问题

文章建立了一个两期数学模型,其中一个耐用品厂商有可能还拥有一种非耐用品.基于这个模型,文章讨论了厂商对其耐用品的出租或销售偏好.结果发现,这种非耐用品的存在可以改变厂商对其耐用品的出租或销售行为,厂商喜欢出租而不是销售其耐用品这个经典结论并不一定成立,最终结果既取决于这两种产品之间的关系,又取决于这种非耐用品的存在时期.     

Dynamic Voluntary Provision of Public Goods: A Generalization

In this note we examine if the proposition offered by Fershtman and Nitzan (1991) and Wirl (1996) in the context of a dynamic voluntary provision model with a linear production function can be generalized to a more general CES formulation. By comparing the steady-state stocks of a public good in open-loop and feedback Nash equilibria with that under the cooperative solution, we demonstrate that their ranking among the steady-state stocks is indeed preserved under the CES framework.     

Durable-Goods Monopoly with Varying Demand

This paper solves for the profit-maximizing strategy of a durable-goods monopolist when incoming demand varies over time. We first characterize the consumers' optimal purchasing decision by a cut-off rule. We then show that, under a monotonicity condition, the profit-maximizing cut-offs can be derived through a myopic algorithm, which has an intuitive marginal revenue interpretation. Consumers' ability to delay creates an asymmetry in the optimal price path, which exhibits fast increases and slow decreases. This asymmetry creates an upward bias in the level of prices, pushing them above the price charged by a firm facing the average level of demand. The optimal policy outperforms renting and can be implemented by a time-consistent best-price provision.     

Dynamic Voluntary Provision of Public Goods and Optimal Steady-State Subsidies

This paper examines a differential game model of voluntary provision of a public good in which private agents' contributions accumulate over time and derives subsidy rules that achieve the socially efficient steady state. It is shown that the optimal subsidy rule is a simple one when agents use the open‐loop strategy, while under Markovian strategies it intricately depends on the parameters of the economy.     

由自然垄断的动态性谈中国电信业的政府规制

自然垄断作为一个特殊的行业,由于成本的劣加性等原因导致企业垄断定价,为了减少消费者福利损失,政府不得不对自然垄断行业进行规制。然而由于技术、需求等方面的变化,这种垄断性并不具有永久性,使得政府的规制政策也作相应的调整。自然垄断行业动态性说明中国电信业政府规制的变化过程。     

Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with a Positional Good

We analyse positional effects in a monopoly market with vertical differentiation, comparing monopoly and social planning. The provision of quality under monopoly depends upon the relative size of positional effects and the hedonic evaluation of quality. An elitarian equilibrium where quality increases in the level of positional concern emerges under monopoly, only if the market is sufficiently rich. Under social planning, quality increases in the level of positional externality, independently of market affluency. As long as partial market coverage obtains under both regimes, the monopoly deadweight loss decreases as the positional externality becomes more relevant.     

对垄断的再认识

全球竞争首先表现为世界垄断性公司的国际竞争 ,其结果是垄断从一国走向国际 ,因此 ,二十一世纪国际经济的真正特点不是自由竞争 ,而是全球垄断。在竞争和行政手段无法真正打破垄断的情况下 ,真正从普通公众利益出发的只能是依靠法律手段打破垄断。     

A Dynamic Tiebout Theory of Voluntary vs. Involuntary Provision of Public Goods

This paper considers a dynamic model of Tiebout-like migration between communities that utilize distinct allocation procedures for public goods. At issue is whether voluntary or compulsory procedures are more likely to prevail over time. We model infinitely lived individuals who make repeated, sequential location decisions over one of two communities. Each community uses a distinct mechanism for allocating public goods. The first is one in which contributions are given voluntarily by the citizenry of the community. The second is a compulsory scheme by which individuals are taxed proportionately to wealth with the tax determined by a majority vote. Opportunities to accumulate wealth exist via accumulation of public capital.
The Markov Perfect equilibria of the dynamic game are studied. Our main result shows that when accumulated wealth converges to a steady state, individuals' locational choices eventually select the involuntary provision mechanism. This holds despite the fact that unanimous location in the voluntary provision community may in many cases remain as a Nash equilibrium of the static game each period. We also describe conditions under which voluntary provision survives. These conditions require that accumulation of capital fails to decrease wealth dispersion over time. The results are shown to be consistent with findings relating inequality to school choice.     

Monopoly extraction of an exhaustible resource with two markets

Abstract.  Although much has been written about monopoly extraction of natural resources, the case of a resource being sold in two separate markets has escaped notice. We find that a monopolist facing two different iso‐elastic demand schedules extracts more rapidly than the social planner, whether or not arbitrage prevents price discrimination between markets. JEL classification: D42, Q3     

论市场经济中反垄断与垄断利用

生产集中导致垄断,垄断阻碍自由竞争,发展市场经济,必须反对垄断。为此,各国政府普遍制定了《反托拉斯法》,并以此维护本国企业的竞争秩序。但实际效果怎样呢?应如何看待我国的垄断现象?应如何有效地反对垄断和合理地利用垄断?本文对相关问题加以探讨。     

Monopoly Power and Stagflation

Post Keynesian economists have followed Joan Robinson's criticism of general equilibrium theory as abolishing history by allowing all contracts to be executed today for all future contingencies. This was the justification for the support of financial innovation to provide for the completeness of futures markets. The recent crisis has shown that force of history. Instead, many evolutionary and Keynesian economists have suggested the approach of cumulative causation as an approach that includes history and eschews equilibrium. This approach may provide a way to take history seriously in economic analysis.     

A Monopoly Classroom Experiment

The author uses a simple classroom experiment to develop the economic model of monopoly. As a pedagogical tool, the experiment introduces students to the nature of the monopoly problem and motivates them to think of the associated efficiency issues as a divergence between private benefits and social contributions. As a test of economic principles, the experiment highlights the role of information and fairness ideals in determining economic outcomes.     

Pareto-Improving Redistribution in a Monopoly

This paper discusses the impact of income transfers between consumers of a monopoly. In this context, redistributing the incomes could induce an increase of the demand elasticity which leads to a lower monopoly price, beneficial to any consumer. Under mild assumptions on the demand function, we prove the existence of a transfer maximizing the market coverage which remains advantageous for any contributing consumer. It is proved that the producer is also better off. Then the transfer is Pareto-improving. In the linear demand case, analytical results are found. Extensions to Cournot oligopoly and natural monopoly pricing are considered.
JEL Classification Numbers: D31, D64, H2, L13     

The Distributional Effects of Monopoly

This paper examines the relative burden of monopoly, measured using the equivalent variation, for different household income levels. The results indicate that, whatever the size of the absolute welfare loss due to monopoly, there may be a substantial effect on the distribution of welfare.     

Funding Public Goods with Lotteries: Experimental Evidence

Why do individuals participate in charitable gambling activities? We conduct a laboratory investigation of a model that predicts risk-neutral expected utility maximizers will participate in lotteries when they recognize that lotteries are being used to finance public goods. As predicted by the model, we find that public goods provision is higher when financed by lottery proceeds than when financed by voluntary contributions. We also find support for other comparative static predictions of the model. In particular we find that ticket purchases vary with the size of the fixed prize and with the return from the public good: lotteries with large prizes are more effective, and ticket purchases drop dramatically when the public good is not valued by subjects.     

Data Games: Sharing Public Goods with Exclusion

A group of firms decides to cooperate on a project that requires a combination of inputs held by some of them. These inputs are non‐rival but excludable goods, i.e., public goods with exclusion such as knowledge, data or information, patents or copyrights. We address the question of how firms should be compensated for the inputs they contribute. We show that this problem can be framed within a cost sharing game for which the Shapley value comes out as a natural solution. The main result concerns the regular structure of the core that enables a simple characterization of the nucleolus. However, compared to the Shapley value, the nucleolus defines compensations that appear to be less appropriate in the context of data sharing. Our analysis is inspired by the problem faced by the European chemical firms within the regulation program REACH that requires submission by 2018 of a detailed analysis of all the substances they produce, import, or use.     

我国的垄断与反垄断

垄断形成的原因有两种,一为自然独占,二为人为垄断。自然独占的形成主要有三种,其一,大规模投资的经济效益,即有些资本密集型产业往往需要大量的投资才能开始生产,如电力工业,由于固定投资额的庞大,遂产生了大规模的效果,其结果就形成了自然独占。其二,掌握了天然资源,如果企业掌握了生产某项产品所需要的主要天然资源,该企业自然成为该项产品或天然资源的独占者。其三,经营效益的发挥。按照新达尔文主义的观点,企业在掌握了经营管理诀窍之后,往往可能随经济环境的改变而日益壮大,形成独家经营的局面。人为垄断的形成主要有三种,其一,法律保障,企业往往因拥有某项专利权、版权等知识产权而形成他人加入的障碍,成为法律所保证的独占,这种独占在科技日益发展的今天尤为突出。其二,政府授意,由于某些商品或服务内涵的特殊性,政府往往授意某个行政单位或事业单位独立供应。这种物品或服务有两类,一是政府欲禁止而因某些人的特殊需要无法全面禁止的（如麻醉品）,二是涉及国民健康的物品或服务。其三,企业恶性竞争,某个企业挟其雄厚财力,以低地生产成本的价格打击竞争对手,迫使竞争者相继退出市场。     

Social Insurance with In-kind Provision of Private Goods

This paper addresses the desirability of providing in-kind transfers as a screening device to facilitate redistribution of income from able to disabled persons within a social insurance system. An optimal policy—consisting of cash transfers, income-contingent in-kind transfers of one good particularly demanded by disabled workers, and linear taxation of other commodities—is characterized. It is then asked whether and, if so, when this policy can be replaced by an "earning-tested scheme" that provides the in-kind good only to those indivi duals who have no earnings from labor or by a non-linear pricing policy.