Price cap regulation of a dominant firm facing competition

Price cap regulation is typically applied to natural monopolies operating with subadditive costs. Price caps are known to provide superior incentives for the regulated monopoly to pursue cost reduction and, in a multiservice/product context, undertake welfare enhancing price discrimination. It is well known that capping a Laspeyres index of the firm’s prices induces the monopoly to charge socially optimal “Ramsey” prices in the long run. This paper examines the suitability of the Laspeyres form of regulation when the regulated firm faces competition in the market for one of its services (outputs). We present the appropriately modified Ramsey pricing rule for the regulated dominant firm and demonstrate that capping a Laspeyres index of the dominant firm’s prices leads to prices that satisfy this pricing rule in the long run.     

DURABLE-GOODS MONOPOLY WITH MAINTENANCE

A two‐period durable‐goods monopoly product model with a competitive maintenance market is examined. Three types of monopoly solutions are calculated and contrasted to the social optimum: rentals, committed sales and uncommitted sales. Among other things, it is shown that contrary to the conventional wisdom a seller with committed power does not wish to commit ‘to act like a renter’ when maintenance is performed by buyers. This is due to the different objective functions of the buyer and seller. Furthermore, unlike earlier works, it is shown that the socially optimal amount of maintenance/repair does not occur in any sales case.     

Low prices cum selective distribution versus high prices: how best to signal quality?

We investigate the best signalling strategy for a monopoly introducing a new product with unobservable quality when second-period sales are linked to first-period ones and the firm may tailor its distribution network to exclude some consumers. When producing a high quality product rather than a low quality one is relatively costly with respect to the increase in quality, optimal signalling is by price alone. But when the cost differential is lower, it will be optimal to set a low first-period price, not to serve all would-be consumers at this price (selective distribution) and raise the price afterwards. Paradoxically, this strategy allows a larger customer base to be reached than in the case of pure price signalling.     

On the Regulation of a Vertically Differentiated Market

The aim of this paper is to investigate a vertically differentiated market served either by a multiproduct monopolist or by duopolists, in which a public authority aiming at increasing the welfare level can choose among two instruments, namely, quality taxation/subsidisation, and minimum quality standard. In the monopoly case they are equivalent as to the social welfare level, in that both allow the regulator to achieve the second best level of social welfare he would attain if he were to set qualities under the monopoly pricing rule, while they are not equivalent in terms of the distribution of surplus. In the duopoly regime, we show that there exists a taxation/subsidisation scheme inducing firms to produce the socially optimal qualites.     

Environmental taxes and industry monopolization

This paper considers a market with an incumbent monopolistic firm and a potential entrant. Production by both firms causes polluting emissions. The government selects a tax per unit of emission to maximize social welfare. The size of the tax rate affects whether or not the potential entrant enters the market. We identify the conditions that create a market structure where the preferences of the government and the incumbent firm coincide. Interestingly, there are cases where both the government and incumbent firm prefer a monopoly. Hence, the government might induce profitable monopolization by using a socially optimal tax policy instrument.      

Why some product innovations are licensed and others are not?

We study in a Stackelberg industry the licensing of a product that embodies an innovation (quality-improving product) whose owner may be the firm that plays as a leader or a follower in setting output in the the product market. We find that the innovation is transferred (and social welfare is reduced) if its owner is the market-leader firm. However, if the innovation is in the hands of the market-follower firm, it is not licensed, even though licensing would be welfare enhancing. Thus, subsidizing R&D with the mandatory licensing of the resulting innovation may be a socially desirable policy.     

Welfare and product testing by a regulated monopolist

This paper studies a monopoly firm with the ability to conduct costly pre-market testing of its product in order to predict how safe this product is to consume. While there are private incentives to test, the amount of testing effort supplied by a monopolist need not be optimal. In a model which allows for an imperfect system of liability, we characterize and compare the allocations of testing effort and output at the full social optimum, the pure monopoly solution, and the second-best regulated optimum wherein the regulator chooses testing effort and the monopolist chooses output and price.     

Corporate social responsibility and marketing channel coordination

We analyze a simple linear demand bilateral monopoly situation where one of the firms, either the up-stream manufacturer or the down-stream retailer, is socially concerned in terms of its desire to enhance its end-customers’ welfare in addition to the traditional profit motive. Two cases are explored: the up-stream producer exhibits corporate social responsibility (CSR) in one case and the down-stream retailer in the other. In the two-stage game, the retailer makes their quantity-setting decision in stage-two, given the two-part tariff (wholesale price and fixed franchise fee) set by the stage-one producer. In this setting, among other things, we find that the optimal channel-coordinating tariff is very different from the standard pure profit-maximizing two-part tariff. For example, if either firm in the supply/marketing chain exhibits CSR, we show the optimal wholesale price does not equal the manufacturer’s marginal production cost, nor does the fixed fee equal the monopoly profit earned by the retailer. Finally, we find that our two-part tariff CSR model provides a theoretical rationale for the empirical finding of little to no correlation between CSR and firm profits.     

Complementarity between product and process innovation in a monopoly setting

In this article we study complementarity between market-enhancing product innovation and cost-reducing process innovation in a monopoly setting. First, we consider the possibility for a firm to alternatively invest only along one of the two directions and compare the incentives of process vs. product innovation. Then, we allow the firm to invest simultaneously in both activities, showing that both investment levels and profit are higher than in the case of individual investment. Thus, product and process innovations are complementary, and the firm always prefers the simultaneous adoption of both activities.     

Pigouvian Taxation in Tourism

The paper studies the characteristics and the effects of a tax imposed by a local government on the land used to create new tourists' accommodations. First, a dynamic policy game between a monopolist in a tourist area and a local government is considered. In each period the former has to decide the size of land undergoing development, whereas the latter has to choose the tax to levy on each newly developed area unit. Linear Perfect Markov strategies are derived for both the non-cooperative and the public monopoly case. In equilibrium, a public monopoly would develop land more rapidly than a private monopoly. Furthermore, the more the monopolist discounts the future, the more the long run use of the natural resource is reduced. Second, the properties of the tax are studied considering an oligopolistic market structure. The tax alone does not lead to the socially optimal level of land use. However, its combined effect with another policy instrument such as a quota, induces the optimal level of resource use.     

Socially excessive dissemination of patent licences

Abstract .  Compared with the social optimum, a monopolist usually sells too little. This result seemingly includes the case of a lab that licences its patented cost innovation: Katz and Shapiro (1986) find 'conditions under which [the lab] will issue fewer than the socially optimal number of licences.' However, I find instead that its incentives can be socially too high; the monopoly seller may sell too much. For example, it can be profit maximizing to sell several licences, while it is socially optimal that none is sold.     

Research and development and trade policies for product innovation in the presence of foreign competition

This paper examines two policy instruments — a matching grant and import tariffs — for encouraging research and development (R&D) in product innovation by a domestic firm when it faces foreign competition. We do so by developing a theoretical model of product innovation where R&D effort is endogenous and its outcome uncertain. We examine the effects of a reduction in import tariffs on private expenditure on R&D, on public support for such R&D, and on total R&D expenditure. We find that in response to a reduction in import tariffs, the domestic firm always reduces its private R&D investments, but the total level of R&D expenditure (i.e., including public support) might go up depending on the level of tariffs. In particular, we find that it will go up if the initial level of tariff is higher than a critical level. When tariff is endogenous, we find that the socially optimal level of tariffs is positive. One finding that is of particular interest is that supporting private attempts to product innovate in the form of a matching grant program leads to a socially optimal level of product R&D.     

ON CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE, WAGE INDEXING AND A MONOPOLY UNION

The Rogoff proposition (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 100 (1985), pp. 1169–90) that it is socially optimal to delegate monetary policy to a central banker that is more inflation‐averse than society has been widely accepted and implemented in practice. However, there is a literature that argues that, if there is an inflation‐averse monopoly union in the economy, it is optimal to delegate monetary policy to an ‘ultra‐liberal’ central banker, i.e., a central banker that is interested only in output. In this paper, we examine whether introducing wage indexing into the latter models has any effect on the optimal degree of central bank conservativeness and find that, once a monopoly‐type labour union is introduced, wage indexing does not matter for the determination of the optimal degree of conservativeness of the monetary authority.     

Mixed duopoly, cross-ownership and partial privatization

This paper investigates the effects of cross-ownership on optimal privatization, and vice-versa, in mixed duopoly. It shows that cross-ownership is profitable to the private firm only if the level of privatization of the public firm is sufficiently high. In equilibrium, cross-ownership does not take place even if there is partial privatization. However, the possibility of cross-ownership significantly limits the socially optimal level of privatization in most of the situations. Moreover, it demonstrates that full nationalization is socially optimal, in case of sufficiently convex identical cost functions and homogeneous goods. These results have strong implications to both divestment and competition policies.     

Strategic tariffs, tariff jumping, and heterogeneous firms

The majority of research to date investigating strategic tariffs in the presence of multinationals finds a knife-edge result where, in equilibrium, all foreign firms are either multinationals or exporters. Utilizing a model of heterogeneous firms, we find equilibria in which both pure exporters and multinationals coexist. We utilize this model to study the case of endogenously chosen tariffs. As is standard, Nash equilibrium tariffs are higher than the socially optimal tariffs. Unlike existing models with homogeneous firms, we find that non-cooperative tariffs promote the existence of low-productivity firms relative to the socially optimal tariffs. This highlights a new source of inefficiency from tariff competition not found in models of homogeneous firms. In addition, we find that in many cases the Nash equilibrium tariff when FDI is a potential firm structure is lower than when it is not. As a result, FDI improves welfare by mitigating tariff competition.     

Economic Integration,Monopoly Power and Productivity Growth without Scale Effects

This paper considers how monopoly power affects the relationship between economic integration and economic growth that is not biased by a scale effect. In a two‐country model of trade, productivity growth is generated by firm‐level investment in process innovation, and the location of economic activity is determined by relative market size, trade costs and imperfect knowledge diffusion. Equilibrium features the partial concentration of manufacturing and the full concentration of innovation in the larger country. Increased economic integration raises the concentration of manufacturing in the larger country, and when monopoly power is strong, leads to decreased product variety, accelerated productivity growth and greater national welfare. With weak monopoly power, however, it raises product variety and dampens productivity growth, but may benefit or hurt welfare.     

The merits of new pollutants and how to get them when patents are granted

The performance of market based environmental regulation is affected by patents and vice versa. This interaction is studied for a type of innovation where a new technology reduces emissions of a specific pollutant but at the same time causes a new type of damage. If the new pollutant associated with this technology is sufficiently different from existing ones such that marginal damage is increasing in each of them but additive across pollutants, a diversification of the pollution portfolio is socially desirable. In a situation where the incentives to develop such a technology are created by patents, the efficiency of permits is affected by monopoly pricing of the patent-holding firm. This result carries over to other types of innovation. The performance of taxes is limited by either the inability to implement specific pollution mixes or monopoly pricing. For constant returns to scale at the industry level the combined use of taxes and permits ensures the first best mix of technologies and provides positive research incentives.      

Repair Market Structure, Product Durability, and Monopoly

This paper shows that a durable goods monopolist makes consumers choose a level of repairs which is below the socially optimal level if it monopolises the repair market as well. This distortion occurs due to the possibility of substituting new and used goods and a time inconsistency problem concerning repair decisions. However, if the monopolist is unable to commit the repair price, it may prefer to invite competitors into the repair market. If the repair market is competitive, even when the product market is monopolistic, the socially optimal level of repairs, and thus also the socially optimal durability level is chosen.     

The social value of information on product quality

In the context of a seller with private information about product quality, I show that revelation of information on product quality is sometimes, but not always, socially valuable. When it is socially valuable, there is generally a tradeoff between the acquisition and revelation of finer, but more costly information and the revelation of coarser, but less costly information. As a result, it can be socially optimal for firms to reveal only coarse private information.     

Licensing a quality-enhancing innovation to an upstream firm

This paper examines the case where a patent holder who is not a producer licenses its quality-enhancing innovation to an upstream firm, which sells its product through a downstream monopoly. It is found that the patent holder prefers a two-part tariff contract, which includes both a fixed-fee and per-unit output royalty. However, the royalty included in the licensing contract makes each firm price at a markup over marginal cost and therefore makes both consumers and the society worse off, if the innovation is small and the supplier is weak. From a welfare perspective, licensing by means of an ad valorem tax is more efficient, as it allows the upstream firm to be less aggressive when trading with the downstream firm.