Competition Effects in a Liberalized Railway Market

This paper presents a game-theoretic model of a liberalized railway market, in which train operation and ownership of infrastructure are vertically separated. We analyze how the regulatory agency will optimally set the charges that operators have to pay to the infrastructure manager for access to the tracks and how these charges change with increased competition in the railway market. Our analysis shows that an increased number of competitors in the freight and/or passenger segment reduces prices per kilometer and increases total output in train kilometers. The regulatory agency reacts to more competition with a reduction in access charges in the corresponding segment. Consumers benefit through lower prices, while individual profits of each operator decrease through a higher number of competitors. We further show that the welfare effect of increased competition in the freight and/or passenger segment is ambiguous and depends on the level of competition. Finally, social welfare is higher under two-part tariffs than under one-part tariffs if raising public funds is costly to society.     

Unfinished business: The new approach to assessing vertical restraints

Conclusions  The new approach to assessing the competitive effects of vertical agreements is to be welcomed. For too long, European competition law on vertical restraints has been dominated by the “block-exemption dependency culture” that has stifled discussion about economic effects and cut down the number of reasoned decisions the Commission has been forced to issue. There is however a long way to go before a fully coherent policy on vertical agreements is developed, and this paper has highlighted some areas where the current views on the application of the new approach are either misconceived or incomplete. In particular, there remains a danger that the number of decisions will be stifled by excessive reliance on market share tests. Under the new regime, there should be a strong onus on the Commission and national competition authorities both to develop and extend the economic thinking contained in its Guidelines and to produce reasoned decisions that set out what agreements will be viewed as acceptable and those which will not.     

Vertical Product Differentiation and Advertising

A duopoly model is developed in which firms' strategic variables include brand quality, the number of distinct market segments to enter and price. Informative advertising is used to overcome consumer ignorance about brands. In contrast to many existing models in which firms engage in price competition, the subgame perfect equilibria of the game are not characterised by the production of vertically differentiated products. Further, whilst the firms typically produce identical high quality products, in some circumstances the production of homogeneous low quality brands can be an equilibrium strategy.     

Credit risk and bank competition in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates the relationship between bank competition and stability in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using financial statements on 221 banks from 33 countries over the period 2000–15, we provide evidence for a U-shaped relationship between bank competition and credit risk. Up to a certain threshold, higher levels of bank competition are associated with lower credit risk. Above this threshold, more competition increases credit risks as the positive effects of competition are outweighed by the adverse effects of rising competition. The optimal threshold appears to be higher for African banks compared to banks from developed countries. We also find that credit risk in Sub-Saharan Africa is not only related to macroeconomic determinants, such as growth, public debt, economic concentration and financial development, but also to the business and regulatory environment. In particular, bank risks appear to be lower in countries where credit registry coverage is higher and the tenure of supervisors is shorter.     

Input Pricing and Market Share Delegation in a Vertically Related Market: Is the Timing Order Relevant?

This paper adds to the literature on the strategic use of managers’ contracts in competition by examining whether market‐share delegation, in which managers receive rewards based on a combination of profits and market share, and the order of moves affect input pricing in a vertically related market. It shows that: (i) input pricing is not affected by delegation form and the order of moves between upstream and downstream firms under quantity competition; (ii) downstream firms obtain the same profit as in the simple Nash equilibrium regardless of delegation forms in a delegation–input price–quantity competition game; and (iii) the upstream monopolist will set input price beforehand regardless of the delegation form. Since the outcomes in our model create higher quantity and lower price in a Cournot product market, it lessens the double‐marginalization problem in such a vertically separated industry.     

A reappraisal of strategic trade policies with the endogenous mode of competition under vertical structures

This paper examines the endogenous choice of competition mode with strategic export policies in vertically related markets when each upstream firm located in each country determines the terms of the two-part tariff contract by maximizing generalized Nash bargaining. We show that (i) choosing Cournot (Bertrand) competition is the dominant strategy for both downstream firms when goods are substitutes (complements), which leads Pareto superior regardless of the nature of goods under the optimal trade policies; (ii) irrespective of rival’s competition mode, the optimal trade policy is an export subsidy under Cournot competition and an export tax under Bertrand competition; and (iii) trade liberalization may give rise to changes of competition mode and increase of social welfare.     

Resource Extraction Industries in Developing Countries

Over the last one hundred and fifty years, the extraction and processing of non-renewable resources has provided the basis for the three industrial revolutions that have led to the modern economies of the developed world. In the process, the nature of resource extraction firms has also changed dramatically, from small-scale operations exploiting easily accessible deposits to large, vertically integrated, capital intensive transnational corporations characterized by oligopolistic competition. In the last ten to fifteen years, coinciding with processes of economic globalization, another major change has been occurring as resource extraction industries have been shifting their operations from developed to developing countries. This shift has greatly impacted the populations of these countries and raises a variety of ethical issues. This article investigates the nature of these changes and the ethical issues that arise, focusing in particular on the development impact of the activities of these industries and the potential adequacy of different policy approaches to regulating them.     

The Impact of the Recession on Competition Policy: Amending the Economic Constitution?

The strengths of the European competition regime are outlined before identifying challenges presented by the financial crisis. The argument moves from enforcement to systemic threats to the credibility of the economic models on which modern competition policy is based. It then turns from banking failures to the crisis in the European motor industry. It suggests that competition policy comprises an ‘economic constitution’ for the EU which is under threat, but registers the relative complacency of the competition agencies, and argues for a redefinition of policy. The conclusion suggests that the regulatory relationship between the state and the private sector will reflect scepticism about the market and that political changes in the UK and Europe offer radical choices between a reinforced or a marginalised competition policy which the competition policy ‘community’ needs to confront.     

我国企业参与奥运市场竞争的现状及对策研究

奥运赞助对企业而言有着重大的战略意义,它能为企业带来巨大的经济效益。在此背景下,我国企业纷纷通过加入奥运赞助计划进入奥运市场平台。在奥运市场平台上,赞助企业必须灵活运用营销的策略和技巧,学会驾驭大型赛事的影响过程,把握奥运营销的特性,更好地实现企业赞助奥运的目标。     

平衡计分卡在我国中小企业中的运用——以ML公司为例

当前,我国经济发展不断加速,信息科技发展较快,企业与企业之间的竞争日渐激烈。像过去那样,依赖竞价手段获得企业成功的案例已经难以见到。当前企业的竞争是综合能力的竞争,涉及诸如品牌、技术、人才、财务、规模、创新等各个方面。因而,过去的基于财务指标的绩效管理体系已经不适用于当前的大多数公司了。面对这样的实际变化,眼界开阔、资本雄厚的大型企业在绩效评价上已经做出了超前的改革。但目前无论在哪个国家,中小企业的数量抑或是对经济增长的推动都高于大型企业。因而,帮助中小企业适应如今的市场竞争模式,为其找到一个良好的绩效管理方式,帮助中小企业良性发展是当前经济发展的重中之重。而面对如此复杂的市场竞争环境,综合多个角度考量的平衡计分卡方法就是解决这一问题的最优解。但是一味地照搬照抄是不现实的,因而本文基于平衡计分卡的应用再结合我国中小企业的实际,分析了当前中小企业运用平衡计分卡的隐患,并提出相应的解决方法,希望为中小企业和平衡计分卡方法“牵线搭桥”。     

United Arab Emirates Trade Policy Review

This paper reviews the WTO's first Trade Policy Review (TPR) of the United Arab Emirates. The TPR raises a number of concerns about barriers to foreign investment and competition. In reviewing the evaluation, the approach adopted in this paper is to elaborate on two main issues, insufficiently developed in the TPR. The first is investment treaties, which are treated by the UAE as legally superior to and prevailing over domestic legal instruments. The second is free trade zones, which constitute an economic enclave free of barriers to foreign investment and competition. The paper provides preliminary statistical evidence on the relationship between inward FDI, free trade zones and bilateral investment treaties, suggesting the presence of a statistically significant positive association between the three. The evidence lends initial support to the concerns raised by the review.     

Economic Patriotism, the Clash of Capitalisms, and State Aid in the European Union

This article analyses the political economy of state aid in the European Union (EU) using the concepts of economic patriotism and models of capitalism. State aid is analysed as a form of economic patriotism, which is conceived here as economic interventions which seek, by a number of means, to advance the perceived economic self-interest of particular groups and actors (firms, workforces, or sectors) defined according to their territorial status. The article argues that the paradox of neo-liberal democracy generated by liberal international markets, overlapping economic governance regimes (such as the EU and the World Trade Organisation), and nationally delimited political mandates presents new problems for policy-makers attempting economic interventions like state aid. Forms of economic patriotism are partly shaped by national institutional and social configurations and state traditions. Within EU economic governance, this generates a ‘clash of capitalisms’ whereby liberal EU anti-trust and competition policy norms proscribe certain state aid and industrial policy measures favoured by some European states. As traditional industrial policy becomes decreasingly viable, new modes of economic patriotic interventionism are enacted within contemporary processes of market-making, and the re-regulatory activity framing European markets. The paper focuses on French state aid responses to the global economic crisis, noting how the retreat of neo-liberal ebullience within the EU provides a conducive environment for resurgent French dirigiste approaches to state aid, indicating that the politics of economic patriotism and state aid will continue to be important features of the European political economic landscape in the years ahead.     

Information and Disclosure in Strategic Trade Policy: Revisited

In a recent paper, Creane and Miyagiwa (J Int Econ 75:229–244, 2008) show that the mode of competition determines whether information sharing occurs between firms and governments within an international duopoly context in which the firms are located in different countries. In this paper, we show that when a price instrument is implemented to control exports, then the relative number of firms located in each country is also critical. In particular, we illustrate that with quantity competition and under the presence of demand and cost uncertainty, information sharing does not occur when the number of firms in one country is higher than the number of firms in the other country and vice-versa. However, when direct quantity controls are implemented the number of firms is irrelevant and information sharing always occurs. Moreover, we show that the informational prisoner’s dilemma restricts only to the case where subsidies are implemented in both countries when the number of firms across countries is equal.     

Competition between Vertically Differentiated Platforms

This paper investigates the competition between vertically differentiated platforms in two-sided markets. We assume the presence of two competing platforms producing either higher- or lower-quality devices for consumers. Each platform decides the price of its hardware device for consumers and the royalty rate for software developers. We find that, despite the existence of quality differences, the decisions by the platforms about royalty rates are symmetric and only hardware pricing is asymmetric. We also demonstrate that an equilibrium may exist in which a lower-quality platform can enjoy greater profit than a higher-quality rival when there are higher development costs associated with creating software to meet the needs of higher-quality devices.     

黑龙江省装备制造业优化升级对策研究

近年来,黑龙江省装备制造业在快速发展的同时,迎来了许多新的问题和挑战。主要体现在技术改造投入不足,装备严重老化;自主研发和创新能力弱,产品技术结构不合理;专业化分工程度低,未形成产业集聚;装备制造业成本高,劳动生产率低等方面。应转换政府的经济管理模式和职能;发展生产性服务业,提升装备制造业核心竞争力;全力打造装备制造业产业集群,提高装备制造业自主创新能力;积极推进经济效益与环境的友好结合,从而实现经济效益、环境建设,产业结构优化同步发展。     

欧盟各国税收制度竞争与协调现状分析

伴随着欧洲经济一体化的不断扩大,欧盟各国普遍采用税收竞争的手段来吸引外来投资,改善本国企业竞争力,对于这种税收竞争所带来的后果,各国评价不一.文章试图通过对欧盟各国税收既有竞争又希望协调的现状进行分析,来探讨如何在欧盟内部消除有害税收竞争,实现税收协调的目标.     

Product-Market Competition in the Water Industry: Voluntary Non-discriminatory Pricing

Since franchise bidding in the piped water industry is problematic due to extensive investment requirements, product-market competition or common carriage is a valuable alternative for the introduction of competition. This paper analyses product-market competition by considering a simple model of interconnection where competition is introduced between vertically integrated neighbouring water suppliers. The model contains water markets specificities such as local and decentralised networks and related difficulties of regulating access charges. Even without any regulation, we show that: (i) an inefficient incumbent will give up its monopoly position and lower the access price far enough so that the low-cost competitor can enter his home market; (ii) efficiency of production will rise due to liberalisation; and (iii) in contrary to prejudicial claims, investment incentives are not destroyed by the introduction of competition for the market. Investments of low-cost firms may even increase.JEL classification: L95, L43, D21, Q25     

Co-operation and Collusion: Making the Distinction in Marketing Relationships

Co-operative relationships between organisations may create added value for the partners involved, but they can also pose a threat to the competitiveness of markets. This paper reviews the economic and legal frameworks of co-operative marketing relationships and seeks to distinguish these from collusive relationships. A model of development from competition to co-operation to collusion is proposed, in which definitions of collusion are continually evolving in response to environmental change. This paper seeks to reconcile the benefits accruing to businesses involved in co-operative relationships, with the possible welfare loss resulting from restrictive relationships. Conceptual frameworks underlying buyer-seller relationships are evaluated from the perspective of models of economic efficiency and legal frameworks. A number of recent cases are evaluated in the context of this discussion.     

Cross-border mergers and market concentration in a vertically related industry: theory and evidence

We present a tractable model of oligopoly to identify the linkages between local competition and cross-border mergers in a vertically related industry. We show that the incentives for cross-border mergers rise with vertical integration in an industry when the premerger concentration in that industry is sufficiently high relative to the concentration in the same industry in a foreign country. We also show that the incentives for a merger between a foreign firm and a vertically integrated home firm will be higher than that for a merger between a foreign firm and a disintegrated home firm, when the premerger concentration at home is low relative to the premerger concentration in the foreign country. We then analyze a firm-level panel of 90,614 M&A observations, between 1990 and 2012, from 86 countries. Logistic regressions confirm that market concentration is an important determinant of cross-border M&A. Our results support the conjectures of our theoretical model and are consistent with recent empirical findings and theoretical predictions.     

共享经济视域下竞争政策的完善路径

共享经济作为基于互联网以及智能设备产生的新型经济模式,是以信息技术、定位导航系统、移动支付等创新技术的高度整合为基础,结合共享理念,并付诸商业实践的市场新形态。共享经济的优势在于最大限度发挥闲置资源的价值,加快行业改革的步伐与进程,并通过竞争政策及其机制彰显市场资源配置的最优化和共享经济的价值特征。共享经济相较于传统经济模式具有高技术性、信用依赖性、非占有性的特点,对竞争政策在共享经济领域的适用带来新挑战。在此背景之下传统行业的转型与新型行业或领域的兴起,使整个市场中竞争状况发生巨大变化。从实践角度多方面剖析共享经济企业的实际竞争状况,以共享经济交通行业和共享旅游住宿行业为例归纳共享经济的行业分布情况与企业数量,分别解析共享交通出行行业的平台模式和分时租赁模式的企业数量与产品差异程度,并根据波特竞争模型阐释共享经济行业的整体市场竞争环境。从共享经济的目标功能出发,分析共享经济的定价机制,阐述共享经济中的掠夺性定价行为、横向合并行为、独家交易行为等限制竞争行为的现状和表现形式,挖掘在共享经济视域下三种限制竞争行为规制的难题,提出共享经济视野下竞争政策的具体完善措施:转变竞争政策实施思维,明确竞争政策的优先地位;综合运用竞争政策工具,尤其是公平竞争审查制度的适用;从执法“零容忍”和构建竞争软文化两方面出发,推动竞争执法的常态化;构建合理有效的定价机制,以调动共享经济各方的积极性。