On the Regulation of a Vertically Differentiated Market

The aim of this paper is to investigate a vertically differentiated market served either by a multiproduct monopolist or by duopolists, in which a public authority aiming at increasing the welfare level can choose among two instruments, namely, quality taxation/subsidisation, and minimum quality standard. In the monopoly case they are equivalent as to the social welfare level, in that both allow the regulator to achieve the second best level of social welfare he would attain if he were to set qualities under the monopoly pricing rule, while they are not equivalent in terms of the distribution of surplus. In the duopoly regime, we show that there exists a taxation/subsidisation scheme inducing firms to produce the socially optimal qualites.     

Sequential Entry in a Vertically Differentiated Market

This paper considers a sequential entry game of homogeneous firms in a vertically differentiated market. A firm can choose any variety of products, with a fixed cost per product. Each product can be withdrawn afterwards without exit costs. Then each firm chooses one product at most in equilibrium because of a commitment problem. The first firm chooses the highest quality if the fixed cost is so large that subsequent entry is blockaded. It chooses middle quality to deter entry of a low–quality firm if the fixed cost decreases. Hence everyone becomes worse off as the entrant becomes more dangerous. JEL Classification Numbers: D43, L13.     

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.     

Tax Competition in Vertically Differentiated Markets with Environmentally Conscious Consumers

This paper analyses the effects of tax competition on environmental product quality, pollution and welfare in a two-country, vertically differentiated, international duopoly, in which consumers are environmentally conscious. The firm in each country chooses first the environmental quality of its product (which reflects the emissions generated in the production process) and then the price. In equilibrium one country will be more polluted than the other because firms choose different levels of environmental quality of their products. We find that a country’s optimal commodity tax is higher if the domestic firm is the more polluting supplier. Furthermore, non-cooperative commodity tax rates are inefficiently high in equilibrium. This is because, in this framework with environmentally aware consumers, commodity taxes affect the choice of firms regarding their emissions. Therefore, a domestic tax reduction not only raises the profits of the foreign firm but also lowers its emission levels, resulting in higher welfare for the other country. We also analyse the optimal cooperative and non-cooperative commodity and emission taxes with border tax adjustments. With these two policy instruments available, commodity taxes are higher.     

Partial Privatization in a Differentiated Mixed Oligopoly

A model of differentiated mixed oligopoly is developed to systematically discuss the welfare consequences of partial privatization of a public firm. We analytically derive the optimal degree of partial privatization not only in the short run with restricted entry but also in the long run with free entry. It is shown that the short-run optimal policy is non-monotonic in the degree of love of variety, while the optimal degree of privatization is monotonically increasing in the consumer's preference for variety in the long run.      

Price Competition and Consumer Externalities in a Vertically Differentiated Duopoly with Information Disparities

In this paper, we extend the model of vertical product differentiation to consider information disparities about quality differences and their effects on price competition. If uninformed consumers overestimate vertical differentiation, asymmetric information is a source of market power and informed consumers exert positive externalities on high quality product purchasers and negative externalities on low quality product purchasers. Such a result is consistent with the fact that information undermines brand. If uninformed consumers are skeptical, adverse selection issues arise and market demands may be perfectly inelastic to prices. With elastic demands equilibrium prices may be either distorted downwards or reflect real quality if the share of informed consumers is suffciently high. Therefore, with skeptical consumers firms may want either to signal quality or subsidize information provision.     

European Integration, Intra-industry Trade in Vertically Differentiated Products and the Balkan Countries

The aim of this paper is to examine the relation between the integration process and the intensity of intra-industry trade between two countries of different levels of development. Our theoretical model and results indicate that trade liberalization and the establishment of the Free Trade Areas between the Balkan countries and the EC have led to the growth of the intra-industry trade between Greece—EC member state—and those countries. The main instruments of this process have been the Europe Agreements and the Stabilization and Association Agreements between the Balkan countries and the EC. The paper presents a model in vertically differentiated products in a Free Trade Area context and proceeds to depict the intensity of intra-industry trade between Greece and the Balkan countries.      

Quota Enforcement in Resource Industries: Self-Reporting and Differentiated Inspections

Quotas are frequently used in the management of renewable resources and emissions. However, in many industries there is concern about their basic effectiveness due to non-compliance. We develop an enforcement model of a quota-regulated resource and focus on a situation with significant non-compliance and exogenous constraints on fines and enforcement budget. We propose a new enforcement system based on self-reporting of excess extraction and explicit differentiation of inspection rates depending on compliance history. We use differentiated inspections to induce firms to self-report excess extraction. This system increases the effectiveness of the quota by allowing the regulator to implement a wider range of aggregate extraction targets than under traditional enforcement, while ensuring an efficient allocation of extraction. In addition, inspection costs can be reduced without reductions in welfare.     

Vertically Linked Industries,Product Quality and Minimum Quality Standards

This paper extends the seminal model of vertical product differentiation by Ronnen (1991) to a two‐tier supply chain. While Ronnen considers the duopoly case, we add a vertical structure such that each downstream firm procures an input from a monopolistic upstream supplier. While simultaneous up‐ and downstream regulation in the form of a minimum quality standard restores Ronnen's findings, if only one firm is regulated in the vertical chain, a free‐rider effect results: all the bargaining power is given to the non‐regulated member of the chain, which uses it to free‐ride on the pressure exerted by the regulator onto the other member.     

On the Social Desirability of Patents for Sequential Innovations in a Vertically Differentiated Market

We consider a market for vertically differentiated goods where firms enter over time, after having developed innovations characterised by different quality levels. We show that patent height and length interact to determine the ultimate emergence of duopoly. In general, imposing quality improvements on later entrants entails the persistence of monopoly, while a duopoly equilibrium emerges when the second innovator is allowed to produce a sufficiently inferior quality and the patent protection granted to the first innovator is not too long-lasting.     

Process and Product Innovation: Complementarity in a Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with Discrete Consumer Types

This paper examines the complementarity between process and product innovation where process innovation reduces the marginal cost of quality. In the context of a vertically differentiated monopolistic market with discrete consumer types, we investigate how the nature of (fixed versus variable) innovation costs and the distribution of consumers over different types affect the complementarity between process and product innovation. We show that under variable innovation costs a process innovation is more likely to occur alone than both innovations together when taste diversity (or consumer heterogeneity) is not significant and/or when there are more low-type than high-type consumers.     

Differentiated Products,Divided Industries: Firm Preferences over Trade Liberalization

The recent focus on firms in international trade suggests two conjectures about preferences over trade policy – only the most productive firms should support freer trade, and industries can be internally divided over reciprocal liberalization. This paper clarifies the content and scope of these claims. The most productive firms are generally not the greatest beneficiaries from trade liberalization and may oppose further liberalization due to increased competition in export markets from compatriot firms. Exporting industries will feature no support for trade if foreign competition is too strong or barriers too unequal. The key analytic factor generating intra‐industry division is product differentiation, both directly, by increasing export opportunities for less efficient firms, and by inducing home market effects wherein larger countries are more competitive. The implications of these findings for the distributional effects of liberalization and the study of trade politics are discussed.     

网络型产业规制问题探讨

政府规制是弥补"市场失灵"的手段,网络型产业具有明显的"市场失灵"特性.针对这些"市场失灵",探讨了目前世界流行的一些规制方法.     

Pricing Discretion and Price Regulation in Competitive Industries

Price capped firms enjoy a large degree of pricing discretion, which may harm customers and competition. We study two alternative regulatory regimes to limit it: the first regime (Absolute) places a fixed upper limit to the prices charged in captive markets, while the other regime (Relative) constrains the captive prices relatively to the competitive ones. Under the Relative regime, captive prices are only weakly lower and competitive prices are always higher than under the Absolute regime. However, the number of competitors and/or their output may be higher under the Relative regime. While the effects on aggregate welfare are ambiguous, there is some evidence that the Relative regime is more likely to increase consumers’ surplus and social welfare the more efficient are the competitors.     

Differences in GDP Per Capita and the Share of Intraindustry Trade: The Role of Vertically Differentiated Trade

This paper examines the relationship between per capita GDP differences and bilateral intraindustry trade shares. The relationship is negative in OLS regressions but positive in fixed-effect regressions, and evidence is presented suggesting this is due to the presence of vertically differentiated trade. The paper begins by distinguishing between vertically and horizontally differentiated trade, and then finds a positive and significant relationship between GDP per capita differences and the trade shares only in the regressions on the vertically differentiated trade shares. It is shown also that the extent to which income distributions overlap affects only the share of vertically differentiated trade.     

大数据、个人信息保护和价格歧视——基于垂直差异化双寡头模型的分析

本文从价格歧视角度出发,讨论大数据时代非敏感个人信息保护的利与弊。传统文献认为,在垄断市场结构下,无个人信息保护会使厂商利用大数据对消费者进行一级价格歧视,从而最小化消费者剩余。本文则证明,一旦引入竞争,消费者总剩余和社会总福利在无个人信息保护和完全一级价格歧视时达到最大,而禁止价格歧视则带来产品的无效分配。此外,不同类型的消费者和厂商对个人信息保护政策的偏好不同。据此,本文认为引入竞争是解决企业利用大数据压榨消费者的有效途径,且消费者的非敏感个人信息应在竞争厂商间公平共享,从而为政策制定者在制定个人信息保护政策时根据行业特点协调各方利益提供了一定的理论依据。     

信息产业的管制模式与制度设计

信息产业的管制是一件关系到信息产业能否正常和顺利发展的大事,中国信息产业的制度设计应有合理的模式:以减少经济性管制和加强社会性管制作为信息产业管制的一个重要原则,政府应当退出那些竞争性较强的信息产业,以避免既当裁判员又当运动员的多重角色可能带来的管制失灵和市场失灵;应倡导自由竞争,制止一切"反接入"和"反兼容"的反竞争行为,严惩利用市场势力排挤、揉搓竞争对手的行为;要制定相关法规,加强对网络信息内容的社会性管制,坚决反对有害信息;严禁企业之间达成和进行有害于其他竞争者的协议和垄断交易,切实保护企业和消费者自由选择的权利;建议有条件的省区(直辖)市建立反托拉斯咨询专家组.     

自然垄断产业的网络瓶颈与接入管制政策

自然垄断产业的市场结构重组和民营化改革凸现了网络瓶颈的接入问题,它已成为自然垄断产业改革中最重要的理论和实践问题之一,也是促进自然垄断产业实现有效竞争的关键.本文以讨论网络瓶颈作为切入口,分析了拥有网络瓶颈资源的主导性企业的策略性行为,并提出相应的以促进竞争为导向的接入管制政策.     

污染产业转移成因及政府规制探讨

产业转移是地区分工和国际分工的客观要求,但由于环境外部性内在化程度在地区间存在差异以及地方政府追求特定目标动机的存在,使得污染问题伴随产业转移而影响了转入地的生态环境.结合江苏省内产业转移现状,探讨污染产业转移的成因,认为现有政府规制方式失灵,提出了解决污染转移的新方式.     

自然垄断行业规制的理论与改革

一、自然垄断行业规制的理论基础自然垄断是经济学中的一个传统概念。传统自然垄断理论将规模经济性作为判断自然垄断的根据。一般认为“所谓自然垄断,是指只要一家公司生产的全部产品的平均价格小于两家或两家以上的公司提供等量产品的平均之和,该行业便具有自然垄断性”。当一个产业的规模经济或广度经济相当强,以至只有一个厂商能够生存下来时,就会产生自然垄断。规模经济或广度经济所带来的成本劣加性使自然垄断获得了存在的理由。由于维持垄断可在技术经济上达到更高效率的结构因素,所以要通过参加规制来形成和维持垄断,通过价格规制和…