Nonexclusionary input prices under quantity competition: vertical integration,foreclosure and sabotage

A vertically integrated provider is a monopoly supplier of an input essential for its rival to produce downstream output. Market exclusion in the form of inefficient foreclosure or sabotage can arise when input prices are, respectively, ‘too high’ or ‘too low’ relative to the downstream price. The range of nonexclusionary input prices within which neither form of market exclusion arises is determined by displacement ratios. The safe harbour range of downstream-to-upstream ‘price-cost’ margin ratios is decreasing in the degree of product homogeneity and approaches a single ratio in the limit as the products become perfectly homogeneous. The bounds of nonexclusionary input prices are markedly wider under Bertrand–Nash competition than they are under Stackelberg competition.     

电信企业基于价格行为的纵向市场圈定与接入规制

电信企业能否达到纵向市场圈定目的,与实施市场圈定的企业和被圈定企业在下游市场的成本差异有关。本文通过构建一个两阶段博弈模型,分析了电信企业基于价格行为的纵向市场圈定与接入规制问题。研究发现,当主导企业的下游附属企业具有成本优势时,则其通过实施价格策略性行为能够达到纵向市场圈定目的;当其处于成本劣势时,则不能通过价格行为实现纵向市场圈定。因此,规制机构在制定接入规制政策时,应根据下游市场两个企业的成本差异选择合理的接入规制方法。当新进入企业成本较低时,可采取有效成分接入定价法和由市场决定接入价格的两种接入规制方法;当两者成本相同时,可采取激励性接入规制方法;当新进入企业成本较高时,可对两者实行不对称接入规制。     

Bilateral Oligopoly,Private Information,and Pollution Permit Markets

We analyze the effects of strategic behavior and private information in pollution permit markets in which all firms have market power. The market is characterized by supply-function equilibria. Firms submit net supplies for permits and a market maker determines the market-clearing price. Net supplies depend on abatement cost functions, which in turn depend on private information parameters. We calculate the increase in aggregate abatement costs due to strategic behavior and private information and show that private information attenuates the effects of strategic behavior.      

Liberalisation,competition and ownership in the presence of vertical relations

This contribution analyses a market with an upstream bottleneck monopoly and a downstream activity that may either be vertically integrated or separated. Separation always reduces the consumer surplus, and the total surplus unless there are large cost reductions. Downstream competition from a public or private network monopoly would crowd out other firms, also when public ownership is associated with more modest objectives than welfare-maximisation. A market is therefore less likely to remain a mixed oligopoly than without vertical relations. However, private firms would survive in a moderately welfare-improving mixed oligopoly with cross-subsidisation and access charges equal to marginal costs.

政治晋升激励机制下的地方重复建设——横向与纵向的比较分析

本文从政治晋升激励的角度考察了中国重复建设的内在机制。本文的分析表明,横向政治晋升激励的作用机制和纵向政治晋升激励的作用机制并不相同,由此得到落后地区是否进行重复建设的条件也就不相同。中国宏观经济环境中存在的价格扭曲放大了横向和纵向政治晋升激励的作用。为了降低落后地区进行重复建设的程度,中央政府需要对不同地区地方政府的官员采用不同的政治晋升激励,也需要努力推动自然资源和初级产品的价格体制改革。     

企业纵向一体化问题研究--以中国上市公司为例

在一定条件下,纵向一体化能够节约企业间的交易费用,稳定上下游企业之间的产品供销关系,提高企业的市场绩效和竞争力,因而成为较为流行的一种企业组织形式.在证券市场的支撑下,希望通过纵向一体化方式来提升竞争力的上市公司越来越多,目前我国上市公司的纵向一体化经营模式已涉及到较多的行业和领域,对企业的经营和行业竞争环境产生了较大影响.     

The foreclosure argument for exclusive dealing: The case of differentiated retailers

I analyze a cooperative characteristic-form game between two differentiated producers and a downstream retail sector. When there is a single downstream retailer, the game always has a nonempty Core, involving the retailer being a common dealer. Each producer can at most earn his increment to the collusive industry profit. This result is similar to what is obtained in the literature in an extensive-form noncooperative formulation of the game. When there are two differentiated downstream retailers, the Core is empty when products and retailers are too homogeneous. For sufficient product and retailer differentiation, the Core is nonempty. In these cases the retailers are always common dealers for both products.     

Vertical Innovation and Catching-Up: Implications of EU Integration for CEECs-5

We analyze the role of vertical innovation in trade patterns for developing economies trading with technologically advanced countries. A model is presented where the international diffusion of knowledge, promoted by economic integration, is the source of a technological catching up and leads to a convergence in the quality of traded goods, with a positive effect on exports. We then turn our attention on the evolution of trade between the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs-5) and their European Union partner countries, assessing whether economic integration has increase the quality of the goods produced. For the period 1995–2005, we find evidence of the increasing role of intra-industry trade and vertical differentiation and a process of specialization in higher quality products, especially in the medium- and high-skill sectors.

Intra-industry differences in vertical integration, heterogeneous costs and pricing: the case of web hosting

In many differentiated product industries, both traditional and “new economy” activities, vertically integrated firms also supply inputs to apparent rivals in the downstream business. This generates heterogeneity between low- and high-sunk cost suppliers with implications for entry and competitive conduct. The web hosting market is typical with primary suppliers operating alongside resellers who rent server space from them. We explore the impact of competition in US hosting using a unique dataset covering 15,000 packages offered by 3,500 firms. The results suggest price is sensitive to competitor clustering in quality space; an outcome consistent with easy entry for resellers with ultra-low fixed costs.

An asymmetric oligopoly model and a method for its empirical application

The purpose of this paper is to develop an asymmetric game-theoretic static oligopoly model suitable for empirical work on oligopolistic markets. Prevailing models in applied research on oligopolistic industries are mainly of the type conjectural variations, Cournot models, although these models are known to be logically flawed from a game-theoretic point of view. As an alternative to these, a Bertrand model with three types of asymmetries is developed: firms can be concurrently asymmetric in cost levels and in the amount of product differentiation, where the impact from product differentiation on a firm's quantity demanded is divided into one relative-price component and one size component. This model is solved for different game-theoretic equilibria solutions. The conduct and performance of individual firms can be analyzed, and welfare effects in terms of consumer-surplus levels are calculated on the firm level. The model contains enough structure for direct use in applied research. A simple method for empirical use of the model is proposed, which minimizes the econometric task: By estimatingn+1 demand elasticities, the asymmetric market-demand structure for then firms will be completely specified.     

Incentives for subjects in internet experiments

Providing incentives to subjects in internet experiments can be tricky. One simple method is a high score (as in computer games). We test whether high scores provide adequate incentives in comparison to the usual performance based incentives. We find significant differences.     

The evolutionary firm and Cournot's Dilemma

Recently, competence/capability has been introduced as a rivaland as a complement to the idea of transaction-costs as thefoundation for a modern theory of the firm. However, while thecompetence-based approach may be inspired by evolutionary economics,it does not, in its current form, provide an evolutionary theoryof the firm. To transform this competence-based approach intoan evolutionary theory, the connection between the firm andVeblen's concept of social knowledge is more fully developed.Once established, the evolutionary theory of the firm is utilisedto bypass Marshall's reconciliation problem and solve Cournot'sDilemma.     

Local monopsony and free riders

In an industry with upstream economies of scale in the distribution of differentiated products to retailers which have monopoly power within separate local market areas, the retailers have an incentive to exert monopsony power due to the divergence between average and marginal costs in the distribution of those inputs. The retailers increase their ability to exert monopsony power by forming coalitions (that is, chains) across local markets. Sufficiently large retail chains may force input price below the seller's average cost, thus ‘free riding’ on the level of product variety supported by other retailers. Vertical integration, cartels, or other cooperative behavior, however, can be means to control the level of product variety, and may increase both industry profits and economic welfare. Policy applications to the cable television, motion picture, and pharmaceutical industries are discussed.     

Incentives for sabotage in vertically related industries

We show that the incentives of a vertically integrated supplier to “sabotage” the activities of downstream rivals can vary with both the type of sabotage and the nature of downstream competition. Cost-increasing sabotage is typically profitable under both Cournot and Bertrand competition. In contrast, demand-reducing sabotage is often profitable under Cournot competition, but unprofitable under Bertrand competition. Incentives for sabotage can vary non-monotonically with the degree of product differentiation.      

Strategic incentives under vertical integration: the case of wireline-affiliated wireless carriers and intermodal competition in the US

In its review of the Cingular/AT&T Wireless merger, the FCC noted the potentially conflicting incentives of wireline-affiliated (vertically integrated) versus independent (non-integrated) wireless carriers to act as intermodal competitors in the wireline exchange access market. Specifically, because Cingular and Verizon Wireless are owned by wireline carriers, they may have an incentive to compete “less aggressively” within their parents’ wireline territories while AT&T Wireless, an independent wireless carrier, would not. This paper examines these and other hypotheses by examining pre-merger data on the wireless plans offered by the three carriers. The empirical analysis suggests that AT&T Wireless did not design its plans based upon a regional strategy, whereas Cingular offered substantially smaller-minute wireless plans within its parents’ wireline territories. However, the results also suggest that Verizon Wireless did not design its plans in a markedly different fashion within and outside of its parent’s wireline region. It is posited that these findings might reflect the differing ownership and control structures of Cingular and Verizon Wireless.      

Vertical Integration and Market Foreclosure with Convex Downstream Costs

Received December 14, 2000; revised version received July 16, 2001