Optimal dynamic volume-based price regulation

We consider a model of optimal price regulation in markets where demand is sluggish and asymmetric providers compete on quality. Using a spatial model, which is suitable to investigate the health care and education sector, we analyse within a dynamic set-up the scope for price premiums or penalties on volume. Under the assumption of symmetric cost information, we show that the socially optimal time path of quality provision off the steady state can be replicated by a simple dynamic pricing rule where the dynamic part of the rule is ex-ante non-discriminatory in the sense that the price premium or penalty on volume is common across providers, despite their differing production costs. Whether the price schedule involves a penalty or a premium on volume relates to two concerns regarding production costs and consumer benefits, which go in opposite directions. Price adjustments over time occur only through the price penalty or premium, not time directly, which highlights the simplicity and thus applicability of this regulation scheme.     

Digital monopolies: Privacy protection or price regulation?

Increasing returns to scale in data gathering and processing give rise to a new form of monopoly, referred to here as digital monopoly. Digital monopolies create new challenges for regulators and antitrust authorities. We address two in this paper: market power arising from improved match values and from reduced privacy. The digital monopoly’s profit and social surplus always increase as privacy decreases. However, consumer surplus is non-monotone in privacy. Without privacy, the match value is perfect but completely extracted by the digital monopoly. In contrast, as privacy goes to infinity, match values and social surplus go to zero. With regulated prices, consumer surplus is maximized without privacy protection. As with natural monopolies, price regulation thus remains an appropriate tool in the digital age to capture the social benefits from increasing returns to scale without harming consumers.     

Organizational leadership: How much does it matter?

I study the influence of leadership on organizational performance and worker wellbeing using data from the 2004 and 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). Our most conservative estimates from fixed effects regressions on a panel of organizations reveal that virtuous leadership is significantly and positively linked to an upbeat assessment of organizational performance, and an increase in worker wellbeing. Specifically, the estimates reveal that an increase in leadership quality by one standard deviation increases organizational performance and worker job satisfaction by 0.27 and 0.73 standard deviations, respectively, while it leads to a fall in worker job anxiety by 0.13 standard deviations. The results support the hypothesis that good leadership is vital for the success of business, including worker wellbeing, which organizational policymakers ought to heed. There is a dearth of empirical evidence on organizational leadership as an institution and its influence on organizational outcomes, which this article aims to address.     

Entry and product quality under price regulation

Spence (1975, footnote 5, p. 420) has shown that, in equilibrium, a price-regulated monopoly will supply a socially suboptimal level of quality. This tendency to undersupply quality has been used to justify an expansion of regulatory controls to the quality dimension in certain regulated industries (e.g., electricity and telecommunications). In this paper, we examine the effects of entry on equilibrium product quality in an industry which is price-regulated. A generalized conjectural variation model is used which allows both monopolistic and oligopolistic market structures. Using this model, we find that regulation generally leads to a socially nonoptimal (either too high or too low) level of quality, where the direction of the resulting departure from optimal quality depends upon the conjectures that firms form. Spence's result is obtained as a special case. We then demonstrate that a policy that encourages (or, at least, does not discourage) entry into the regulated market will cause equilibrium quality to move in a social-welfare-improving direction, regardless of the direction of the original distortion.     

Product choice under price regulation: Evidence from out-patient dialysis markets

Using a dataset of dialysis facilities operating in more than 1000 U.S. counties in 2007, I examine the product choice of two types of firms: multiproduct dialysis facilities and single product dialysis facilities. I simulate the effect of a Medicare policy proposal in 2008 which reduces the regulated price of a common product that is produced by both types. I find that the policy decreases the number of single product dialysis facilities but increases the number of multiproduct facilities, holding patient behavior and provider cost structure constant. I also find strong evidence for market segmentation between single product and multiproduct dialysis facilities.     

State intervention for food price stabilisation in Africa: Can it work?

Although its arguments may have more general applicability, this paper discusses the desirability and options for the stabilisation of staple food prices principally in Eastern and Southern Africa. It addresses three broad questions: (i) why is stabilisation of food (grain) prices desirable? (ii) what is technically feasible? and (iii) can the governance and trade issues thrown up by suggested mechanisms be solved? It considers a number of options for price stabilisation, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each and suggesting situations in which each may be appropriate.     

The National Collegiate Athletic Association Cartel: Why it Exists,How it Works,and What it Does

In this essay we consider why American colleges and universities participate in big-time commercialized intercollegiate sports, and how sports came to play such a prominent role on American college and university campuses. We also review how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) developed as a body to regulate player safety and transformed itself into an economic regulator, the means by which the NCAA attempts to maintain its control, increase revenues, and reduce costs for college sports programs. We also examine how the organization succeeds in the face of institutional characteristics that imply that its cartel activities would be doomed. Finally, we speculate on what changes might be on the horizon for the NCAA and college athletics.     

Luxury goods may sell in the same price with Europe

Recently,the Ministry of Commerce announced international commodity center information of a number of countries.These centers will introduce distribution model of     

A practical approach to quality-adjusted price cap regulation

Price cap regulation is often combined with service quality regulation since price caps may create incentives for quality degradation. A service quality adjustment factor (the Q-Factor) in the price cap formula ensures that allowed prices fall as quality declines. This paper discusses some considerations in determining the appropriate form of the Q-Factor. The paper examines the difficulties involved in exploiting the price/quality tradeoff. In addition, the paper presents a quality-corrected price cap procedure—possessing desirable properties—that can be implemented with reasonable informational requirements.     

A note on price cap regulation and competition

This paper examines the properties of a price-cap regulatory regime similar in design to a plan recently proposed by AGT Ltd. in hearings on Alternative Forms of Regulation before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The price-cap plan incorporates a number of novel features which include (i) quantity weights that evolve through time rather than remaining fixed; (ii) adjustments for productivity that incorporate yardstick competition; and (iii) allowing the weights to reflect the firm's market power or absence thereof in the presence of competition. Hence, should competitive circumstances permit, the regulatory regime allows for its own sunset.     

The price effects of greening vacant lots: How neighborhood attributes matter

We identify the effects of greening vacant lots on nearby housing prices and show how neighborhood attributes matter to these outcomes. Using data from a longstanding program in Philadelphia, we find that prices for houses within 1,000 feet of a greened vacant lot rise by about 4%, consistent with the literature, with the effect size increasing over time. Using the extensive data available in Philadelphia, we show how these effects vary by the attributes of the neighborhood in which they occur, with larger effects in areas with a high share of vacant land and higher-than-average median household incomes, with peak responses estimated at 19% and 15%, respectively. We demonstrate the importance of sample selection bias adjustment for identification of the effect of vacant lot greening.     

Productivity measurement and price cap regulation: Issues for local exchange carriers in the USA

The success of price cap regulation depends, in part, on proper specification of the price cap formula's productivity offset. The productivity offset should be based on the long-term trend rate of growth of industry total factor productivity (TFP) to emulate competitive pricing outcomes and provide the proper efficiency-enhancing incentives, and to remain relatively immune from the short-term fluctuations inherent in productivity measures. The measurement of TFP should utilize standard index number techniques to aggregate dissimilar measures of output, capital, labor and other relevant input costs.     

Representational predicaments at work: How they are experienced and why they may happen

Representational predicaments reflect unfavorable perceptual or attributional incongruence between subordinates and superiors about the employees’ work, and adversely affect morale. Critical incident interviews were held with 63 Hong Kong Chinese employees from over 50 organizations. Stories about undervaluation of contextual performance were compared with stories about duly appreciated contextual performance, and stories about negative spotlighting (disproportionate emphasis on shortcomings or mistakes) were compared with stories about fair treatment of mistakes. Subordinates attributed undervaluation of contextual performance to: the superior’s unfamiliarity with the employee’s work, the superior’s perception that the work was of marginal importance, the subordinate’s lack of empowerment to report contextual performance, the lack of considerate attention by the superior, and the subordinate’s felt need to keep a low profile. Underlying factors were inhibitions against employee voice, leadership styles characterized by lack of benevolence and lack of individualized consideration, and absence of close subordinate-superior relationships. Subordinates attributed negative spotlighting to: the superior’s abusive behavior, prejudicial and hostile attitudes, or insistence on one “right way”; rivalry between the superior and the subordinate; and the absence of legitimate channels for upward feedback. Underlying factors were absence of just grievance procedures, and leadership styles characterized by authoritarianism, which could be compounded by lack of benevolence and lack of moral restraint, leading to abusive supervision. Cross-cultural research could establish whether large power distance and other cultural and institutional factors render Asian employees especially vulnerable to representational predicaments.     

Bertrand equilibrium with differentiated products considering fixed costs: Korean price regulation in the mobile telephone industry

In some industries such as telecommunications and electricity, the fixed costs are so high that competition is not sustainable without considering the fixed cost in pricing. The sustainability of competition is as important as enhancing competition when an industry is in the transitional period from being a monopoly owned or managed by the government to a competitive market structure driven by the market. A price competition model with asymmetric firms and product differentiation is considered in which firms compete with a normal profit constraint. The constraint is related to the sustainability of competition and can be realized through price regulation. With this constraint, firms gain only normal profit in equilibrium despite the asymmetry, and consumer surplus is maximized. The equilibrium is meaningful in defining the industry performance intended through the regulation. Moreover, the price regulation of the Korean mobile telephone market is considered to discuss any implications of this equilibrium.     

Bridging the gender gap in science and technology: How long will it take?

Conclusions Throughout the year the girls maintained the progress made in the first school and continued to develop their ability to implement physical science concepts in their modelling work. They reached a point sometime during year 4 when collectively they achieved parity with the boys in this respect. By the end of the year there were more concepts put into practice with greater frequency by girls than by boys as groups. Although it took a long time to reach this point it was achieved through practices compatible with normal teaching using materials easily available in school.Analysis of the models under the two criteria of variety and creativity showed that despite the greater frequency which girls incorporated physical concepts into the models made there was still a tendency for them to be conservative. They chose to make models which were the same as those illustrated on the work cards or those produced by other girls. Despite the fact that they made more models than the boys the range of models made by girls was smaller. Girls were also less likely to be creative They did not often modify their models by adding elements of their own design and rarely developed designs of their own in contrast to the boys which were often original and innovative.     

2009年全球汽油市场分析

因经济恶化,2008年全球汽油需求出现负增长。2008年全球汽油供应为2196万桶／日,需求为2207万桶／日,缺口由上年的34万桶／日缩小至10万桶／日。北美、中东、拉美和非洲存在汽油缺口,欧洲和欧亚地区供应过剩。2008年美国汽油需求由上年的929万桶／日降至897万桶／日,净进口量也由上年的100万桶／日以上下降至90．3万桶／日。预计2009年美国汽油消费将微升0．7％,至903万桶／日,但汽油市场依旧疲软。关国是欧洲汽油的传统出口市场,受前者市场低迷影响,欧洲汽油将不得不寻求其他出口市场。预计2009年欧洲汽油将过剩117万桶／日。2009年亚太地区炼厂新增一次炼油加工能力将达201万桶／日,这些新增炼油能力将对炼油毛利构成压力,并不得不寻找新的出口市场。中东地区成品油需求的快速增长成为汽油消费的新增长点。预计2009年全球汽油供应量将持平或略低于去年的水平,而需求将持续疲软,全年NYMEX RBOB与WTI价差将在8关元／桶左右的较低水平运行。全球汽油贸易格局将不再是简单的单方向路径。     

Access pricing: A comparison between full deregulation and two alternative instruments of access price regulation,cost-based and retail-minus

In this paper, two instruments of access price regulation, cost-based and retail-minus, are compared with the full deregulation hypothesis. For this purpose, a model that considers an upstream monopolist firm that sells a vital input to an independent firm and to a subsidiary firm in the downstream market is developed. The main conclusion of the paper is that retail-minus regulation avoids foreclosure and leads to better results than cost-based regulation in terms of investment level and consumer surplus. Moreover, retail-minus regulation allows a higher consumer surplus than deregulation of access price as long as the regulator carefully defines the retail-minus instrument.