A Stackelberg Oligopoly with Nonidentical Firms

This paper extends the Stackelberg model to include any number of nonidentical firms and demonstrates significant counterintuitive results. For example, entry of an additional firm may increase the quantities and/or profits of some existing firms; it may also increase the total industry profit.     

Stackelberg Mixed Duopoly with a Foreign Competitor

We investigate Stackelberg mixed duopoly models where a state‐owned public firm and a foreign private firm compete. We examine a desirable role (either leader or follower) of the public firm. We also consider endogenous roles by adopting the observable delay game of Hamilton and Slutsky (1990). We find that, in contrast to Pal (1998) discussing a case of domestic competitors, the public firm should be the leader and that it becomes the leader in the endogenous role game. We also find that in contrast to Ono (1990) eliminating a foreign firm does not improve domestic welfare in mixed oligopolies.     

Endogenous Timing in a Mixed Oligopoly with Foreign Competitors: the Linear Demand Case

We introduce foreign private firms into the model of Pal (1998) and investigate the impact of the introduction of foreign private firms on the endogenous timing in a mixed oligopoly in the linear demand case. We find that the public firm chooses to be a follower of all domestic private firms and that the public firm chooses not to be a leader of all foreign private firms, which is in contrast to Matsumura (2003).     

Public Monopoly,Mixed Oligopoly and Productive Efficiency

In general, the introduction of competition into the public sector seems to lead to higher cost‐efficiency in service production. However, there are examples of substantial cost increases in some areas. In this paper, using a mixed oligopoly model, we investigate the effects of deregulation on the cost‐reducing incentives of a public firm. Our results show that a firm that is a public monopoly has greater incentive to conduct cost‐reducing investment than a public firm within mixed oligopoly market.     

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.      

人民币新汇率形成机制下的上市公司外汇风险暴露

本文运用国际金融理论中经典的Augmented Market模型、2005年7月21日人民币汇率形成机制改革之后20个月的汇率变动数据和股票市场收益率数据来分析中国上市公司在新汇率形成机制下的外汇风险暴露问题。实证研究的结果显示,中国A股上市公司的整体股票收益率对汇率波动的敏感程度非常显著,且人民币兑美元汇率的升值推动了A股上市公司平均收益率的上升。     

Entry Deterrence in a Unionized Oligopoly

We investigate wage determination between an incumbent firm and its labour union under threat from another firm entering its product market. In equilibrium, it may be optimal for a labour union of the incumbent firm to lower its wage demand. This may make it possible for the incumbent firm to maintain a higher employment level, in that the lower wages can help the firm deter the entry of a rival firm. This will yield a higher profit for the incumbent firm and a lower utility level for the labour union compared with those in an equilibrium with no threat of entry.
JEL Classification Numbers: J51, L10     

Market Instability in a Stackelberg Duopoly

m -period duopoly model with inventory costs, where each firm chooses when to produce. We find that, in contrast to most existing works concerning endogenous roles of the firms, no pure strategy equilibrium exists when m is strictly larger than two. This result indicates that no stable pattern of allocation of roles exists except for a two-period model; thus the leader-follower relationship inevitably becomes instable. Received August 1, 2000; revised version received July 20, 2001     

On Endogenous Efficiency in Public and Private Firms

This paper reconsiders a model proposed by De Fraja (1993) to compare public and private production under complete and incomplete information. It is argued, in contrast to previous results, that such a model provides no convincing grounds to sustain the productive superiority of public ownership. It is also suggested that meaningful comparisons of efficiency require settings where differences in ownership imply different implementation constraints.     

Stackelberg leadership in a dynamic duopoly with stochastic capital accumulation

I propose a dynamic duopoly model where firms enter simultaneously but compete hierarchically á la Stackelberg at each instant over time. They accumulate capacity through costly investment, with capital accumulation dynamics being affected by an additive shock the mean and variance of which are known. The main findings are the following. First, the Stackelberg game is uncontrollable by the leader; hence, it is time consistent. Second, the leader invests more than the follower; as a result, in the steady state, the leader’s capacity and profits are larger than the follower’s. Therefore, the present analysis does not confirm Gibrat’s Law, since the individual growth rate is determined by the timing of moves.JEL Classification: C61, C73, D43, D92, L13Financial support within the project The post-entry performance of firms: technology, growth and survival lead by Enrico Santarelli, co-financed by the University of Bologna and MIUR, is gratefully acknowledged. I thank Uwe Cantner, Roberto Cellini, Roberto Golinelli, Helen Louri, Enrico Santarelli, Antonello Scurcu, Peter Thompson, two anonymous referees and the audience at the final workshop of the project (Bologna, November 22-23, 2002) for useful comments and discussion. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Cartel Stability in a Delivered Pricing Oligopoly

Using the spatial price discrimination framework, the relationship between the locations of firms and their ability to collude is investigated. Gupta and Venkatu (2002) show that in a duopoly model agglomeration at one point is the most stable location. We find that agglomeration stabilizes the cartel when there are three firms, too. When there are more than three firms, however, agglomeration of all firms is never the most stable location. With four firms, the following location pattern produces the most stable cartel: two firms at one point and the other two at the farthest point from the first two.     

Second Mover Disadvantages in a Three-Player Stackelberg Game with Private Information

I consider a three-player Stackelberg. game where each player has its private signal concerning stochastic demand. I show that at a perfectly revealing equilibrium, the second mover earns the lowest and the third mover the highest expected profit of the three. I characterize this result by the strategic substitutes or complements relationships among three firms at the equilibrium. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D82, and L13.     

Demand-Creating R&D in a Symmetric Oligopoly

Spillovers with demand-creating research and development (R&D) activities are investigated by revisiting a widely employed market share rivalry demand structure. Positive technological spillovers may inflict positive or negative side effects on rivals and this has important implications for the effects on innovative efforts of loose or tight R&D cooperation in symmetric oligopolies. A comparison with the effects that apply with linear demand structures and implications for empirical research are also touched upon.     

Public Expenditures,Growth, and Distribution in a Mixed Regime of Education with a Status Motive

This paper tackles the issue of growth, distribution, and the provision of public services in a growth model with human capital accumulation where heterogeneous individuals decide whether to attend a publicly funded education regime or a privately funded one. Heterogeneity of individuals is introduced via their status‐motivation which is shown to affect their choice of education. In such a framework, we obtain an inverted‐U shaped relationship between growth and the size of the public education sector. In contrast with the general wisdom, we show that a larger public education sector is compatible with both a reduction of inequalities and an increase of long‐term growth. Although we demonstrate that in a majoritarian system all individuals agree on a lower size of the public education regime than that which maximizes growth, our analysis also highlights the tension between the direct beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries from the public regime.     

Oligopoly with a large number of competitors: asymmetric limit result

We address how profitable innovation is in a competitive market by investigating the asymmetric oligopoly model in which 1 firm (innovator) has a cost advantage that is not drastic enough for her to become a monopolist, and by inducing asymmetric limit outcomes when the number of the other firms (laggard firms) goes to infinity. If the innovator is the Stackelberg leader, two cases can arise: (i) the innovator behaves as in the competitive market or (ii) she occupies the entire market but cannot make the price. If we consider Cournot competition, the innovator becomes the partial monopolist. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Emission Taxes and Product Differentiation in the Presence of Foreign Firms

Industries characterized by differentiated products are important contributors of greenhouse gases and currently subject to market‐based policies such as emission taxes. In the context of developing countries, fears about foreign investment leaving the country are often used as an argument not to address industry emissions through emission taxes. This paper develops a Cournot model with product differentiation in the presence of abatement efforts where host and foreign firms are subject to an emission tax. The analysis indicates that abatement efforts and differences in pollution intensity coefficients across firms may play a significant role in the characterization of optimal policy. The analysis also suggests that the government may opt to encourage foreign, less pollution‐intensive firms via higher taxation. Additionally, this paper examines how an optimal emission tax may be adjusted as products become more differentiated; industry emissions may fall/rise as a result of more differentiated products. One important contribution of this paper is that it emphasizes the role of abatement efforts, product differentiation, and differences in pollution intensity coefficients across firms in the characterization of the optimal emission tax.     

On Stackelberg games in a homogeneous product market

In a homogeneous product duopoly with concave demand and strictly convex costs we bring together all the standard results of quantity Stackelberg games, provide some new results with price Stackelberg games and compare the equilibrium configuration of the quantity games with the price games. In the price Stackelberg game we show there is a unique SPNE where the leader chooses a lower price than the follower, but both get equal payoffs. We prove that generally quantity Stackelberg games are less competitive than price Stackelberg games. However, we also demonstrate the possibility of a reversal of this result.     

Oligopoly equilibria in exchange economies: a limit theorem

In a pure exchange economy, agents have the possibility of behaving strategically by putting only a part of their initial endowments on the market. An oligopoly equilibrium is defined to be a Nash equilibrium of the game in which agents choose simultaneously quantities to be put on the market. It is proved that under standard hypotheses, the oligopoly equilibrium leads to the competitive equilibrium when the economy is replicated an infinite number of times. Received: May 26, 1999; revised version: April 3, 2000     

论会计师事务所文化资源的开发

会计师事务所文化是一种资源，其文化资源对于会计师事务所发展具有重大意义。应充分认识会计师事务所文化资源的内涵，并结合我国会计师事务所文化资源开发中存在的问题，制定开发会计师事务所文化资源的具体措施，并指出会计师事务所文化资源开发的重点。