Referrals in search markets

This paper compares the equilibrium outcomes in search markets with and without referrals. Although it seems clear that consumers would benefit from referrals, it is not at all clear whether firms would unilaterally provide information about competing offers since such information could encourage consumers to purchase the product elsewhere. In a model of a horizontally differentiated product market with sequential consumer search, we show that valuable referrals can arise in the equilibrium: a firm will give referrals to consumers whose ideal product is sufficiently far away from the firm's offering. We allow firms to price-discriminate among consumers, and consumers to misrepresent their tastes. We found that the equilibrium profits tend to be higher in markets with referrals than in markets without. Consumers tend to be better off in the presence of referrals when search costs are not too low, and under a certain parameter range, referrals lead to a Pareto improvement.     

Ordered search in differentiated markets

This paper presents an ordered search model in which consumers search both for price and product fitness. I construct an equilibrium in which there is price dispersion and prices rise in the order of search. The top firms in consumer search process, though charge lower prices, earn higher profits due to their larger market shares. Compared to random search, ordered search can induce all firms to charge higher prices and harm market efficiency.     

Publication of Information and Market Response: The Case of Airline on Time Performance Reports

This paper investigates market response to publication of on time performance information. Theory suggests that reduction in search costs generates more honest airlines and better quality service, a distribution of price-quality bundles, increased demand, exit by inefficient airlines and reduction of price rigidity. An ARIMA study of U.S. domestic airline operations finds that after publication of performance information the market generated better performance, increased quality distribution, enhanced demand, exit by four of fourteen airlines and reduced price-quality rigidity. Publication of information may improve performance in markets characterized by asymmetric information and high search costs.     

The role of institutional arbitrage in the search for product innovation: Firm level evidence from Norway

Evolutionary theorizing conceptualizes the discovery of new products as a successful outcome from searching for innovation in which firms combine new and old knowledge and resources. Prior research has shown that the propensity for discovering new products is greatest when firms cross a technological and/or organizational boundary in the search for new knowledge. In this paper, we add a new dimension to this literature: we examine whether, and to what extent, crossing a national boundary, as when firms use knowledge from network partners in foreign countries, influences the likelihood that firms will introduce new products into the market. Drawing on theorizing on institutional arbitrage in the literature on national innovation systems (NIS) and varieties of capitalism (VOC), we propose that companies that cross a national boundary in searching for innovation are significantly more likely to introduce new products. Detailed survey data on firms; data on their network partners, including their location; and regression analysis show that the use of knowledge from actors in foreign NIS has a positive influence on product innovation.     

Quality certification vs. product traceability: Consumer preferences for informational attributes of pork in Georgia

Consumer willingness-to-pay for informational attributes of food products is important information for food producers and supply chain participants and policy makers. We examine consumer demand in the pork sector of the Republic of Georgia. Results of conditional and mixed logit estimation, conducted on choice experiment data, reveal that Georgian consumers treat quality certification and product traceability attributes as substitutes. We also find that producers and other supply chain participants should be concerned primarily with maintaining the appearance of pork products. Retailer specific factors such as location and type of outlet can also substitute for product traceability. Store location and product appearance, however, are complementary attributes. In light of the recent turbulence in Georgia these consideration may be of paramount importance as participants in the supply chain seek to rebuild damaged infrastructure.     

Group identity in markets

We present a laboratory experiment that measures the effects of group identity—one's perceived membership in social groups—on market transactions in an oligopoly market with a few sellers and buyers. We artificially induce group identity using art preferences and college majors in different treatments, respectively. Subjects are randomly assigned into the roles of buyers and sellers and interact repeatedly. We find that the presence of groups influences both the selection of trading partners and the determination of prices. All else equal, sellers are more likely to make offers to ingroup buyers, and the buyers are more likely to accept offers from ingroup sellers. There are considerable intergroup price differentials with the outgroup sellers charging a lower price than the ingroup sellers.     

Intellectual capital in business-to-business markets

This paper reports on research concerning the level of knowledge assets possessed by firms in business-oriented vs. consumer-oriented industries. Further, the research also covers the level of competitive intelligence activity in these industry groups, estimating the level of interest of competitors in acquiring another firm's knowledge assets. From this information, we can begin to develop ideas about what types of firms and industries can really benefit from knowledge management systems and investment, as well as which can benefit from knowledge protection systems. As a result, the issues of knowledge management and knowledge protection become much more strategic and more obviously dependent on circumstances. Such a conclusion begs the question of what measures will help us to determine important circumstances and optimal knowledge strategies for competitive advantage, clearly opening up the field to a wide range of future research streams.     

Vertical mergers in procurement markets

This paper uses computational methods that reveal ambiguous strategic effects of vertical mergers in a duopoly setting featuring incomplete information about sellers' costs, and differences in sellers' productive capabilities. First, vertical mergers can be jointly unprofitable. Second, the buyer's preferred merger partner is almost always the seller with lower expected costs, and is typically the larger seller. Third, vertical mergers always reduce the unintegrated seller's profits, sometimes dramatically. Finally, vertical mergers can increase total welfare. Some of the results contrast qualitatively with unambiguous findings from models with symmetric sellers, which suggests that caution should be used in drawing general inferences from those models.     

Reducing overreaction in contract markets

Predicting market share can be difficult for industrial firms whose sales occur in the form of a few large contracts received at irregular intervals during the course of a year. This article discusses the problems that this type of sales pattern may cause and provides a solution for determining probabilistic share forecasts.     

Predatory reputation in US airline markets

Despite its long history in antitrust policy, predation remains a poorly understood phenomenon. The main difficulty is in empirically identifying predatory intent. I propose a method for measuring the effect of reputation, whose significance would enable us to infer predatory intents. Maximum likelihood estimation using simulated annealing algorithm is conducted with a sample of US airline markets. The results provide some support for the presence of entrants learning and reputation effect. As an application, I discuss how the outcomes of my empirical model could help analyze such antitrust cases as the American Airlines Case.     

Switching costs in local credit markets

Switching costs are a key determinant of market performance. This paper tests their existence in the corporate loan market in which they are likely to play a central role because of the complexity of contracts and the relevance of informational problems. Using very detailed data at bank-firm level on four Italian local credit markets we empirically show that firms tend to iterate their choice of the main bank over time. This inertia is not related to unobserved and time invariant firms' preferences across banks and can be attributed to the existence of switching costs. Moreover these costs are higher for single-bank firms. We also offer evidence that banks price discriminate between new and old borrowers by charging lower interest rates to the former in order to cover part of the switching costs. The discount amounts to about 44 basis points and is equal to 7% of the average interest rate. These results prove robust to a number of other potential identification drawbacks.     

钻井队物资质量管理信息系统的设计与实践

钻井企业生产用物料量大、种类多、价值高,使得钻井物料管理难度大、成本高,质量跟踪管理存在滞后与空白。钻井队物资质量管理信息系统对钻井过程中物料管理数据特性进行了研究,采用钻井队现场物料信息电算化的管理思想和面向对象设计的方法,基于SQL Anywhere数据库与mobile link服务器快速数据交换技术,设计实现了一个钻井队现场物资质量管理信息系统,并给出了系统的面向对象分析设计模型和系统组成模块。钻井队物资质量管理信息系统的应用,能对钻井队物料进行有效地管理,并为加强钻井队生产用物资的质量管理打下坚实的基础。     

Can Quality Certification Lead to Stable Cartels?

Cartel stability is investigated in a context of adverse selection whereconsumers are imperfectly informed about product quality. Producer collusionmay be necessary to signal quality via third-party certification. Whileexamining different cost structures for third-party certification, we showthat a stable cartel that provides information about product quality mayimprove overall welfare even if producers collude to reduce competition.     

On commodity taxation in vertically differentiated markets

We examine the impact of commodity taxation on vertically differentiated product markets when entry is allowed. We show that an ad valorem tax may have a dramatic effect on market structure by inducing the entry of a large number of firms in what was previously a natural monopoly. The producers of high quality products reduce market share after an increase in their unit production cost, leaving more room for lower quality products. While within a given market structure aggregate quality decreases monotonically with the tax rate, quality jumps upwards at tax rates that cause a change in market structure.     

油田水质管理信息系统的开发与应用

胜利油田分公司利用计算机信息技术．结合分公司、采油厂科研、生产、管理的特点成功开发出“油田水质管理信息系统”，取得较好的应用效果，实现了分公司、采油厂、污水站各类水质数据信息分散录入、处理，集中存储、共享，提高了数据信息的利用率，为各级领导在水质管理、新工艺、新设备的设计、选型提供决策支持。     

最低质量标准政府规制研究

本文认为在信息不对称和产品差异化的前提下,存在政府最低质量标准规制的必要性和必然性,而最低质量标准“阈值”的设置会对社会福利产生关键性影响。在此基础上构建了国内最低质量标准对贸易的促进和国外最低质量标准对我出口影响的模型。实证检验发现：GB18401国内最低质量标准政府规制对出口纺织服装产生正向影响;国外（以日本《肯定列表制度》为例）政府最低质量标准规制对我国出口产生负向影响。     

Managers' perception of relationship management in heterogeneous markets

Relationship management holds many promises of becoming a new paradigm in marketing and management. However, the development of relationship marketing is still difficult to accomplish in heterogeneous markets, since different management practices are needed in markets ranging from homogenous segments of customers with the same preferences to customers with individual demands for customized services. This paper investigates managers' perceptions of relationship development in heterogeneous markets. Results from a survey of 135 branch bank managers show that they perceive that the more heterogeneous the market, the more difficult to achieve relationship development. The study also finds that more difficult relationship development leads branch managers to perceive a more centralized locus of realized strategy. This suggests that firm relationship development needs to focus more on customer orientation and that realized strategies need to be at a local level to support this.     

Stabilizing food markets in eastern and southern Africa

A major challenge for agricultural policy in Africa is how to address the market instability-related causes of low farm productivity and food insecurity. This paper highlights structural changes affecting the behavior of food markets in eastern and southern Africa and discusses their implications for the design of strategies to stabilize food prices. These changes include (1) an increasing trend in maize prices toward import parity levels, reflecting an emerging structural maize deficit in much of the region; (2) increasingly diversified food consumption patterns in both rural and urban areas; (3) highly concentrated marketed maize surplus, which have largely unrecognized implications for the magnitude of price risk faced by most farm households; and (4) the strategic interactions between private and public marketing actors leading in some cases to heightened market instability and food crises. In the prevailing dual market environment now characterizing most of the region, greater coordination, transparency, and consultation between private and public market actors is needed to achieve reasonable levels of food price stability and predictability.