Collusion in a price-quantity oligopoly

In the context of an infinitely repeated oligopoly game, we study collusion among firms that simultaneously choose prices and quantities. We compare a price cartel with a price-quota cartel and analyze when and why firms prefer the latter to the former. Output quota may be required to solve coordination and incentive problems when market demand is sufficiently elastic. If market demand is sufficiently inelastic, then the cartel faces a trade-off between increasing prices and the amount of costly overproduction. We find that a price cartel prices consistently below the monopoly price to mitigate excessive production. In this case, a quota arrangement allows firms to avoid overproduction and to sustain the monopoly price. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that an overall price increase in conjunction with more stable prices and market shares is indicative of collusion in industries where production precedes sales and outputs are imperfectly observable.     

Evaluating the impact of reforming the food subsidy program in Egypt: A Mixed Demand approach

Food subsidy is one of the policies considered to protect consumer welfare against food price increases, in particular when the insufficient local production has to be complemented by food imports with volatile prices. Egypt has experienced several “food crises” (the latest in 2008), which put an halt to attempts to reform in depth the system of food subsidies because of social unrest. In this paper, we use a Mixed Demand approach to analyze the consumption structure of Egyptian households. Our model specification takes into consideration the characteristics of the Egyptian food subsidy system, where some food items have predetermined quotas while others are associated with predetermined (subsidized) prices. Price, income and quota elasticities are estimated from the Egyptian family expenditure survey, and welfare change measures are derived by income class. Simulations of various options to eliminate subsidies on selected food items are conducted. We estimate the negative welfare impact of the reforms, especially in the context of increasing food prices, by comparing welfare effects of policy options by income quartiles and by household category (rural, urban).     

Food price seasonality in Africa: Measurement and extent

Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias. This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption.     

Food policy research for improving the reform of agricultural input and output markets in Central Asia

Agriculture is a significant component of the Central Asian economies. Since independence, the republics have implemented agricultural reforms in varying measure, yet production has fallen sharply across the region. The more ambitious agricultural reform programs have included measures aimed at liberalizing agricultural marketing, trade and prices. However, so far the expected supply response has yet to emerge. The objective of this paper is to highlight key policy and research issues surrounding reform of agricultural markets. It summarizes the main features of agricultural performance since the reforms, highlighting trends in grain and cotton, livestock, input use, and trade and analyzes key constraints to improvement of the sector, emphasizing price policy, sequencing problems, and institutional weakness. It presents a research agenda by identifying the main research needs for better agricultural policy design. It calls for more research on input and output market efficiency, private sector development, the effects of reform on farmers, sequencing issues, comparative advantage, water management, land tenure and farm size.     

How useful is the PSE in determining agricultural support?

The support of the agricultural sector in developed countries plays a major role in the international policy agenda. The producer support estimate (PSE) is one of the best known measures which has been developed by OECD and is used all over the globe. In the PSE all types of support are aggregated and one of the main components (70% at OECD level) is the market price support (MPS). Here we show by means of characteristic examples that the MPS has no clear relation to basic economic measures determining support for producers as a consequence of policy intervention. The MPS overestimates the consequences of tariffs and export subsidies and underestimates the consequences of quota systems in determining producer support. Misperception of the size and directions of support may affect policy decision-making wrongly. The paper indicates that weighted average producer prices, corrected for quantity restrictions, may be more useful than the reference prices and quantities used by OECD.     

转型期中国宏观产权制度的形成机理

中国地方政府围绕资本形成展开竞争,导致产权改革的非均衡推进,从而演进出政府对各生产要素利益保护不一致的宏观产权制度,这种宏观产权制度在过去的30年里是极具效率的。但随着资本日益丰富以至于不再稀缺,我们有必要在进一步产权改革的基础上建立政府适度退出机制,以使政府对各生产要素的利益保护都趋于正常值水平。     

Farm policies and added sugars in US diets

We examine how US farm policies for sweetener crops have affected the consumption and composition of sweeteners in the US diet. R&D expenditures have lowered the unit cost of commodities used in sweeteners, but have generated more technical progress in corn than in sugar crops, increasing use of corn in food production, ceteris paribus. Commodity programs have raised the price of sugar and decreased the price of corn. Thus, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) became an inexpensive substitute for sugar in food from 1970 on. However, the effect of policy on ingredient prices has become less important over time. Today the farm value share in sweetened food is below 5% and HFCS is a specialized input in many food items, with limited substitution possibilities. The current link between US sweetener consumption and farm policy is weak. Recent evidence from other high-income countries shows little relationship between sweetener consumption and sugar policies.     

Competition reform and household welfare: A microsimulation analysis of the telecommunication sector in Ethiopia

This paper presents a novel simulation method for estimating the likely welfare effects of policy reforms aimed at increasing competition in strategic economic sectors such as mobile phone services. The proposed method relies on a partial equilibrium simulation approach and estimates the welfare impacts on current consumers and the potential welfare effects among new consumers brought into the market by changes in prices due to competition. This approach is applied to the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in Ethiopia, one of the three countries in the world with a monopoly in the market for mobile phone services. Based on household budget survey data for 2015/16 and departing from a baseline reform scenario that dilutes the market share of the state-owned monopoly to 45 percent, the simulation model estimates a 25.3 percent reduction in the price of mobile services and an increase in 5.7 million new users of mobile services. The predicted drop in prices and increased users would generate a combined relative welfare gain of 1.18 percent (1.09 percent among current users and 0.09 percent among new users), that could be translated into a 0.31 percentage point decline in the national poverty rate and equivalent to lifting about 275,000 people out of poverty. Alternative reform scenarios that dilute the market share of the monopoly to 75 percent and to 30 percent are expected to reduce poverty rate in 0.13 and 0.52 percentage points, respectively. The method proposed in this study represents a useful tool for promoting competition reforms in developing countries, particularly in sectors known for excluding significant segments of the population because of high consumer prices.     

A protectionist foodgrain price policy : The case of rice in Panama

Panama has pursued a protectionist price policy for rice, with domestic prices well above the world market level. The government marketing authority purchases sufficient rice to support the established price level and stores or exports the surplus. Although producers benefit, this policy imposes significant costs on consumers, government expenditures and economic efficiency. One policy recommendation is to bring domestic prices in line with the international level. Although free trade is one possibility, a market stabilization programme could be retained. At a minimum Panama's rice price should reflect domestic demand and not production costs. The unfavourable rice-fertilizer price ratio also deserves attention.     

转型时期的卫生问题与健康公平

中国在如何建立与社会主义市场经济体制相适应的卫生事业等公共服务方面的改革还没有取得相应的成果。近年来．卫生改革的效率和公平性在某种程度上甚至出现了下降的状况。医疗费用快速上涨引发的看病贵、看病难问题已经成为人们普遍关注的经济和社会热点问题。本文在叙述经济转型过程中的卫生事业面临的挑战和问题的基础上，着重探讨问题的成因和根源，在完善社会主义市场经济体制的背景下对如何增强卫生发展的公平与效率、充分发挥医疗卫生和健康保障在建设和谐社会中的作用提出一些意见和建议。     

Domestic and international impacts of the rice trade policy reform in the Philippines

Faced with high domestic rice prices that have fueled inflation above the 2018 target and penalized poor consumers the most, the government of the Philippines has decided to abandon the quantitative restrictions on imports and replace them with tariffs. This paper uses a global rice model based on a partial equilibrium framework to assess the possible impacts of this reform on imports, production, consumption and prices. In contrast with past similar studies, we address three key concerns (i) the heterogeneity in farm price across 16 regions in response to the combined effect of the tarriffication and the average historical trend in productivity increase at 1.5% between 2001 and 2018, (ii) the differentiation of imports by origin partly due to the different tariffs applied to countries within and beyond the Association of South East Asian Nations, and (iii) the effect on domestic prices in third countries. The simulation results suggest that the reform would increase imports by 2.47 million tons (20.7%) in 2019. We also find a large decline in farm prices and retail prices respectively by PhP 6.1/kg (30.1%) and PhP 7.6/kg (17.4%) in 2019 that explains an increase in rice consumption. We estimate the fall in total inflation at 1.2% in 2019 but less over time. Further, the large fall in farm prices in 2019 is shared quite evenly among regions in the short term but returns to pre-reform levels in the near term. Using a higher price elasticity of supply for one region obtained from panel data surveys, we show a more pronounced decline in production than the national average. Such differentiated results confirm the relevance of using a regionally disaggregated model to design more targeted policies. We also show a slight increase in world prices, which led to small increases in the domestic prices of South and Southeast Asian rice markets. While this reform is largely pro-poor consumers, policy makers would need to use the additional tariff revenue to help rice growers either increase their competitiveness and modernize their rice production or shift to other crops.     

Farm subsidies and obesity in the United States: National evidence and international comparisons

Many commentators have claimed that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the “obesity epidemic” by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant. But U.S. farm policies have generally small and mixed effects on farm commodity prices, which in turn have even smaller and still mixed effects on the relative prices of more- and less-fattening foods. Other factors have had much more influence on reducing the farm prices of food commodities and the consumer prices of food such that any effects of U.S. farm policies on U.S. obesity patterns must have been negligible. Moreover, while many arguments can be made for changing U.S. farm subsidies, even entirely eliminating the current programs could not be expected to have a significant influence on obesity rates. International evidence reinforces this finding. The countries that support their farmers most strongly tend to have relatively low obesity rates. In these countries the main support for farmers comes through trade barriers and higher consumer prices, which—like U.S. policies for sugar, dairy, orange juice, and beef—discourage consumption and reduce obesity. In contrast with agricultural subsidies, agricultural R&D has had a significant effect in the past on the relative price of food commodities and food, and has the potential to influence obesity patterns in the future, but R&D policy is a very blunt instrument for pursuing public health policy objectives.     

Shadow vs. market prices in explaining land allocation: Subsistence maize cultivation in rural Mexico

Prices may fail to explain farmers’ land allocation if the relevant decision prices are “shadow prices” that deviate from market prices. This may be the case for farmers who attach significant non-market values to their crops. I theoretically explain why land allocation may not respond to market signals even if transaction costs are not binding. I use nationally representative rural household data from Mexico to show that shadow prices better explain the land subsistence farmers allocate to traditional maize in this center of maize diversity. I discuss the importance of non-market values in understanding supply response and on-farm conservation of traditional crops.     

下游行业需求不旺 炼焦煤市场难有起色——来自2012年(第二届)国际炼焦煤资源与市场高峰论坛的报道

介绍了国际炼焦煤资源与市场需求的最新状况,就宏观能源战略、钢铁行业焦煤需求、国际炼焦煤供给、中国炼焦煤供给等相关问题进行了分析和探讨。认为,未来几年我国钢材需求增速放缓,炼焦煤整体供过于求。并建议作为钢铁行业的上游,炼焦煤生产企业应积极寻求精细化发展,控制产能保价格,坚持煤炭市场化改革。     

New technology introduction in a marginal coffee area of Colombia

Income stagnation in the downward cycle of primary product prices is a problem for small farmers in developing countries. The recent abrupt price decline in coffee poses a large adjustment problem in marginal production areas. One method of farm income stabilization for marginal export crop production areas is diversification into food crops with improved technology. The potential for a cushioning of this farm income decline via the introduction of improved food crop technology was examined. A substantial moderating effect was obtained even without uprooting the improved coffee technology. Moreover, an analysis of the constraints to the earlier introduction of the Caturra coffee variety helped identify some of the components of farmer decision making relevant to adoption of new technology.     

欧美天然气管理体制与运营模式及其对我国的启示

欧洲各国天然气政策基本按欧盟指引来制定,重点之一是推进天然气市场化进程,推动管网独立与第三方准入机制的建立。欧洲天然气市场的上游价格完全放开,但对管道运输、储气和配气等环节,各国都进行了严格的价格和利润率监管。美国对天然气价格的管制经历了从不管制到控制井口价格再到完全放开三个发展阶段,灵活的天然气价格机制是保障天然气稳定供应的重要因素。目前中国仍处于天然气发展的初步阶段,大型一体化公司解体拆分模式不可照搬硬套,管网独立未到时机,国家能源供应安全保障应该放在发展的首要位置;欧美国家天然气产业组织结构和政府监管模式与各国历史、政治传统紧密相关,没有固定模式,中国应根据自身的资源特点、市场发展、国家政治体制以及经济文化传统等制定适合自身的天然气行业管理体制;随着中国天然气消费的快速增长和消费者价格承受能力的逐步增强,应适时建立天然气价格的市场形成机制。     

On the proportionality of EU spatial ex ante coexistence regulations: Reply

Desquilbet and Bullock (2010) criticize some aspects of our analysis of the European Union’s (EU) spatial ex ante coexistence regulations (SEACERs) of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops presented in Demont et al. (2009). We argue that, besides misinterpreting some of our original arguments, the authors propose a policy analysis framework which is inconsistent with the main goal of the EU’s SEACERs. Their example incorrectly suggests that SEACERs play an additional role of regulating non-GM crop supply on the market. This would be inefficient from a policy economics perspective, especially in an open economy where global trade is taken into account. Therefore, we argue that analyzing flexibility of SEACERs in a market framework could lead to erroneous conclusions and in that case a simple farm level analysis such as presented in Demont et al. (2009) is preferred.     

An improved maize marketing system for African countries: the case of Zimbabwe

This article proposes a system for Zimbabwe which retains government control of national stocks and enables the parastatal marketing system to stabilize prices, at the same time ensuring a more rational delivery system in rural areas with prices reflecting storage and transport costs. The local population is encouraged to fulfill local needs, thus avoiding the expense of directing all marketing and processing through the urban areas. A more localized system will also have greater multiplier effects. Zimbabwe's maize marketing system is used to show how this system could be modified with benefits to rural consumers, producers and government. Data suggest there is little market exploitation: price differentials between markts reflect transport costs, returns on storage are reasonable, and voluntary procurement operations are usually able to stabilize prices. Zoning, movement restrictions and compulsory procurement have been shown to destabilize food markets; prices between markets are higher in periods of strict control than when marketing is relatively free. Controlled marketing answers a real political and economic need in Zimbabwe. Existing public food marketing agencies are not inherently inefficient. While stabilizing maize supply, there are important advantages in announcing preplanting prices, but any trade in maize only takes place after price setting. It is unlikely that there would be both imports and exports in any 1 year, except when previous contracts are being fulfilled. 2 policy options are available to cover anticipated periods of insufficient national maize production: the maintenance of a strategic reserve; and importation of maize to cover supply shortfalls. Single-channel marketing should be replaced by an internal free market operating between floor and ceiling prices by supply manipulation to prevent excessive producer and consumer welfare fluctuations. This system would be more efficient and have beneficial effects on development. It is more equitable for the rural poor, and result in greater stability of producer incomes, more reliable food supplies, higher producer prices and the release of public funds.     

Consequences of further opening of the Korean dairy market

This paper develops a simulation of Korean dairy policy that is tailored to the data, institutions, and policies in South Korea. It compares potential effects of changes in trade and domestic policy to baseline projections to 2015. Beverage milk continues to be supplied from domestic sources, implying imports compete in the manufacture of tradable products. We model manufactured dairy product supply, demand, and trade on a milk fat and non-fat-solid component basis reflecting product fungibility over the 10-year horizon used for our trade policy analysis. We find that if the domestic price support is removed with no change in trade policy, the market price of raw milk falls by about 2% and raw milk production declines by 4.5%. Under substantial tariff cuts of 30–40% with no effective change in domestic dairy policy, Korean fat and non-fat-solid prices fall by 7% and 11%, fat and non-fat-solid imports rise by 9% and 7% and Korea raw milk production falls by about 2% relative to the baseline. Prices of Korean farmer-owned dairy inputs, labor, and capital fall by about 1%.     

我国经济增长呈现稳中趋缓态势

当前,发达国家经济复苏继续巩固,新兴经济体增长存在下行压力,全球经济总体上进一步改善.我国内需潜力依然较大,经济增效提质取得进展,改革将为经济发展注入新动力.与此同时,产能过剩问题、财政金融潜在风险、房地产市场分化等矛盾和问题继续积累,经济下行压力加大,我国经济将呈现出稳中趋缓态势.初步预计,上半年我国经济将增长7.3％左右,居民消费价格将上涨2.4％左右.建议加快推进落实积极的财政政策,适度灵活运用稳健的货币政策,以城镇化为抓手扩大内需潜力,加快国有企业、要素市场、财税金融等领域的改革,管理好合理增长预期,推动我国经济持续健康发展.