Quantifying the Effects of Price Discrimination Under Imperfect Competition*

This article analyzes the effects of broadband carriers switching from price discrimination to uniform pricing. Broadband carriers often use third-degree price discrimination. In Colombia, broadband carriers rely on government-issued socio-economic information to segment markets. I use demand and marginal cost estimates to quantify the effects of switching from price discrimination to uniform pricing in an environment of high income disparity. The results provide direct evidence of large consumer surplus transfers from poorer to wealthier households. Poorer households respond by subscribing to slower Internet plans, which may undermine prior efforts to increase download speeds in this demographic.     

Common Knowledge Reference Price and Asymmetric Price Adjustments

There is abundant empirical evidence showing that asymmetric price adjustments exist in a wide variety of markets. Prices tend to rise faster when costs rise, relative to the rate at which prices drop when costs fall. This paper argues that a common knowledge reference price—a government suggested retail price—eases the existence of asymmetric price adjustments in a scenario where costs are ever-increasing. Our analysis of the Colombian retail gasoline market suggests that when costs rise by more than the reference price, prices tend to rise more slowly relative to when costs grow by less than the reference price.     

Multiproduct Price Regulation Under Asymmetric Information

We discuss the regulation of a multiproduct monopolist when the firm has private information about cost or demand conditions. The regulator offers the firm a set of prices from which to choose. When there is private information only about costs, the firm should always have a degree of discretion over its pricing policy. When uncertainty concerns demand, whether discretion is desirable depends on how demand elasticities vary with the scale of demands. If a positive demand shock is associated with a reduction in the market elasticity, discretion is good for overall welfare; otherwise it is not.     

A Conjoint-based Product Designing Procedure Incorporating Price Competition

Conjoint analysis has become a major tool in the process of designing and concept testing consumer packaged goods and industrial products. In most applications, however, product concepts are tested against existing sets of competing brands without considering potential competitive reactions. Although many researchers have recognized the need for models to incorporate competitive reactions, few methodological developments have been published thus far. Instead of what-if analysis, which depends heavily on the managers' intuition about the competitors' reactions, S. Chan Choi and Wayne DeSarbo propose a game theoretic approach that models competing firms' reactions in price. This price reaction model is incorporated in the conjoint simulator for evaluating product concepts against competing brands. They illustrate the methodology using a commercial data set previously collected.     

An Asymmetric Oligopolist can Improve Welfare by Raising Price

We demonstrate that, in Bertrand/Cournot equilibrium, a firm with a relatively small market share may improve social welfare by raising its price. This could be because the price increase can mitigate an output-structure distortion: if there are two goods which have the same marginal cost, then, under some conditions, the good in higher demand (the efficient good) will have a higher markup rate than the other good (the inefficient good). This suggests that the output structure is distorted in favor of the inefficient good, since the higher markup rate of the efficient good should lead to a considerable increase in demand for the inefficient good.     

Price Commitments in Standard Setting under Asymmetric Information*

Standards may create market power for the holders of standard essential patents (SEPs). To address these concerns, the literature advocates price commitments, whereby SEP holders commit to the maximum royalty they would charge were their technology included in the standard. We consider a setting in which a technology implementer holds private information about profitability. In this setting, price commitments increase efficiency not only by curbing SEP holders' market power, but also by alleviating distortions in the design of the royalty scheme. We derive conditions under which price commitments can be implemented using a simple royalty cap as used in practice.     

Bertrand Competition with an Asymmetric No‐discrimination Constraint

Regulators and competition authorities often prevent firms with significant market power, or dominant firms, from practicing price discrimination. The goal of such an asymmetric no‐discrimination constraint is to encourage entry and serve consumers' interests. This constraint prohibits the firm with significant market power from practicing both behaviour‐based price discrimination within the competitive segment and third‐degree price discrimination across the monopolistic and competitive segments. We find that this constraint hinders entry and reduces welfare when the monopolistic segment is small.     

纵向一体化、排他性销售与寡头竞争中的非对称均衡

跨国公司往往通过使用排他性销售渠道（ED）或者纵向一体化（VI）进入东道国并进行竞争。这两种竞争策略的相似性和不完全替代性,使之成为本文的分析对象。在同一个东道国进行竞争的两个生产相似产品的寡头,当一方欲领先一步,应选择何种竞争策略来先动;当竞争对手先动选择一个竞争策略时,己方采取何种策略才能减少甚至摆脱后发劣势。本文通过建立两寡头Stackelberg数量竞争模型分析表明,跨国公司现实竞争中对于VI或者ED的偏好决不是偶然。而是经过理性博弈后的一种均衡。     

Commercial Real Estate Leasing, Asymmetric Information, and Monopolistic Competition

We model the choice of lease type, gross lease versus net lease, in an environment in which lessees have private information with respect to their expected intensity of utilization of the leased space, and in which lessors have market power with respect to the pricing of the lease. Unless the lessor can provide operating services at lower cost than the lessee, there exists a lemons problem. We examine a market in which lessors can provide operating services at lower cost. Given asymmetric information with respect to expected lessee utilization and/or damage to the leased space, the lessor offers both a gross and net lease, where the higher expected utilization lessees select the gross lease and the lower expected utilization lessees select a net lease. Lease pricing depends on both the lessor's beliefs with respect to lessee utilization of the space and the lessor's market power. In a monopolistic market, relative to a competitive market, a lessor charges higher rent for a gross lease relative to a net lease in order to extract a portion of the gain from shifting operating services to the lessor. Given the higher rent for a gross lease, a smaller proportion of lessees (only very high utilization lessees) selects a gross lease in a monopolistic market. Therefore, the expected cost savings associated with shifting operating services/provision of maintenance to the lessor are smallest in a monopolistic market.     

审计市场中的合并、产业专用化投资和价格竞争

本文从产业组织的角度，分析了审计市场的合并、产业专用化和价格竞争等竞争行为，并进一步探讨了这些行为对审计质量和社会福利的影响。本文认为，审计质量的信号传递机制推动了产业中的合并行为，而审计产业的专用化投资行为在于策略性地阻止进入。由于审计产品的异质性、信任品特性以及强大的买方谈判能力使得审计市场存在激烈的价格竞争，而合并和产业专用化投资有助于事务所降低成本。因而，审计市场的竞争提高了社会福利。     

Mortgage Brokers,Origination Fees,Price Transparency and Competition

This article examines the dynamics between mortgage broker competition, origination fees and price transparency. A reverse first‐price sealed‐bid auction model is used to motivate broker pricing behavior. Confirming the model predictions, our empirical analysis shows that increased mortgage brokerage competition at the Metropolitan Statistical Area level leads to lower fees. The findings are robust to different measures of fees as well as different measures of competition. We also provide evidence that broker competition reduces mortgage origination fees on retail (nonbrokered) loans as well. In addition, our results indicate that pricing complexity is an important determinant of fees, and increased broker competition is associated with a higher probability of a loan being priced with transparency. Our results suggest that mortgage brokers increase competition and lower fees in the mortgage market.     

我国彩电产业的价格竞争、价格战与产业绩效

一、彩电产业价格战诱因与动机的初步分析从 2 0世纪 80年代初期至 1 990年为止 ,我国彩色电视机产量和销量都获得了较大的增长。 1 985～ 1 990年 ,彩电产量与市场销量分别从 435 .3万台和 378.6万台增加到 1 0 33万台和980万台。随着国内彩电厂商生产规模的扩大 ,规模经济因素逐渐发挥作用 ,一些在成本结构上具有优势的企业为了更好地扩张规模 ,开始运用价格竞争手段。例如 ,四川长虹于 1 989年率先发起了价格战 ,这为行业领先企业迅速扩大市场份额提供了基础。不过 ,价格竞争在这一时期对业内企业带来的冲击力 ,被两个因素所大大缓解。一…     

对电力工程低价竞标的探讨

针对当前电力工程招投标中所出现的低价竞标问题分析了产生的主要原因,进一步论述电力工程低价竞标的可行性,最后提出电力工程低价竞标的基本对策。     

原油价格对中国物价的影响

鉴于投入产出表记录和反映了全社会各部门的经济活动和相关关系,本文首先利用中国国家统计局1997年124个部门的投入产出表,分析了原油价格上涨对中国物价的影响。结果表明,如果原油价格上涨100％,中国的批发价格指数将上涨6．2％,消费者物价指数将上涨2．2％。继而对2000年的投入产出表进行计算,结果显示,该两项指标已分别上升至12．1%和4．4%。这说明中国抗高油价的能力在减弱。分析还表明,中国受油价上涨影响最大的部门是石油制品业,其物价将上涨58．9％,其次是与运输有关的部门,特别是水上客运业(16．4％)和水上贷运业(15．5％)。除了详细考察油价对中国物价的影响之外,还从时间上(纵向)和从国际上(横向)分析了油价影响程度的变化、不同点及其原因。通过对亚洲主要国家的分析比较得出,日本的抗高油价能力最强．中国的抗高油价能力正在逐步减弱,并已接近韩国和东南亚等国的水平。     

Hassle Costs, Price-Matching Guarantees and Price Competition: An Experiment

We experimentally investigate whether the collusion-facilitating nature of price-matching guarantees survives the introduction of hassle costs incurred by buyers to enforce these guarantees. The presence of an arbitrarily small number of positive hassle costs buyers may completely undermine incentives for collusion. To evaluate this possibility, we develop four one-shot price competition models that test the hassle cost argument by varying proportions of positive and zero hassle cost buyers present in the market. Although the theory predicts that the competitive price should emerge in equilibrium in all four models, we experimentally find significant price differences.     

Competition and Price Discrimination: Evidence from the Parking Garage Industry

We study the relationship between competition and price discrimination through an empirical examination of hourly price schedules in the parking garage industry. We find that the degree of price schedule curvature decreases with competition, implying a greater proportionate drop in low‐end prices than in high‐end prices when competition intensifies. Our findings suggest that competition constrains a firm's capacity to exercise price discrimination, confirming the classic textbook theory. We also offer possible explanations for our findings, including a search cost explanation, for which we find some support in the data.     

Competition in Turkish mobile telecommunications markets: Price elasticities and network substitution

This paper estimates demand elasticities for Turkish mobile telecommunications markets. In contrast to most other studies, firm-level data is used to estimate dynamic panel data models including instrumental variable techniques. Both short- and long-run elasticities are calculated, yielding a long-run price elasticity of −0.72 for the post-paid market and of −0.33 for the pre-paid market. The short-run price elasticity is estimated to be −0.36 for the post-paid market and −0.20 for the pre-paid market. In addition, there is evidence of fixed-to-mobile traffic substitution for consumers who use pre-paid cards.     

Modelling Price Dispersion as an Outcome of Competition in the Irish Grocery Market

The paper empirically models price dispersion between related brands within product categories of the Irish Independent Grocery market. Retail brand prices are averaged over the independent shops stocking the brand. Since individual brands are retailed through different groups of shops, brands are priced over heterogeneous consumer segments. Brand price dispersion is estimated to increase with competition when conditioned on brand distribution structures, while controlling for other observed and unobserved deterministic factors. The data suggest that brand pricing across consumer groups induce varying degrees of localised price competition rather than pricing across segments to extract consumer willingness to pay.     

煤炭价格与石油价格的波动溢出效应分析

本文通过建立BEKK-MGARCH模型对煤炭价格与石油价格之间的关系做了深入的研究.结果揭示了煤炭市场价格和石油市场价格之间除了正相关关系外,有显著的双向价格溢出效应,而且波动是非对称的,波动溢出的短期模式和长期模式并不完全相同.煤炭与石油互为替代能源,当石油价格上升时,会对煤炭市场形成冲击,刺激煤炭价格上升;同样煤炭价格的上升在短期对石油价格也有些许冲击,但是长期来看,影响不大.     

Price Formation Under Small Numbers Competition: Evidence from Land Auctions in Singapore

This article examines the price formation process under small numbers competition using data from Singapore land auctions. The theory predicts that bid prices are less than the zero-profit asset value in these first-price sealed-bid auctions. The model also shows that expected sales price increases with the number of bidders both because each bidder has an incentive to offer a higher price and because of a greater likelihood that a high-value bidder is present. The empirical estimates are consistent with auction theory and show that the standard land attributes are reflected in auction prices as expected.