History-based price discrimination and entry in markets with switching costs: A welfare analysis

We analyze history-based price discrimination in an asymmetric industry, where an incumbent, protected by switching costs, faces an entrant who does not have access to information about consumers’ purchase histories. We demonstrate that consumer surplus is higher with uniform pricing than with history-based price discrimination. We find that the entry decision is invariant to whether the incumbent implements history-based pricing or uniform pricing. This implies that the potential abuse of market dominance imposed by history-based price discrimination is exploitation, not exclusion. Finally, we establish that the profit gain to the incumbent from history-based pricing exceeds the associated loss to consumers.     

A model of Chinese central government

Why was the Chinese State able to promote economic growth during the reform era, yet has been unable to do so over the previous 30 years? In this article, we focus on a specific aspect of the question, which will contribute to the development of a more comprehensive explanation: the specific institutional arrangement that may induce the autocratic government to adopt growth‐enhancing policies. We consider a standard political‐agency model (Besley, 2006) where the incumbent leader may or may not be congruent, and where, to maintain power, both leader types need the support of the selectorate, an elite group having a say in selecting the leader, as well as associated access to special privileges. Primarily, we find that in autocracies, without electoral discipline to restrain the opportunistic behaviour of a leader, the size of the selectorate should be intermediate; if it is too small, the selectorate is captured by the leader and has no disciplinary role, but if too big, the leader's incentives are diluted.     

UPSTREAM MARKET FORECLOSURE

This paper investigates how an incumbent monopolist can weaken potential rivals or deter entry in the output market by manipulating the access of these rivals in the input market. We analyse two polar cases. In the first one, the input market is assumed to be competitive with the input being supplied inelastically. We show that this situation opens the door to entry deterrence. Then, we assume that the input is supplied by a single seller who chooses the input price. In this case, we show that entry deterrence can be reached only through merger with the seller of the input.     

Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy

In this paper, we aim at empirically uncovering the existence of price leadership in the passenger transport market, whose oligopolistic structure facilitates the strategic interaction among companies, with price being one of the principal elements of competition. The strategic interaction is particularly favoured by the fact that prices are easily observable online by all competitors. The analysis focuses on selected Italian city-pair markets that differ from one another with respect to the degree of inter- and intra-modal competition and to the characteristics of the transport services provided. We exploit this heterogeneity to study transport operators’ strategic interactions in different competitive environments. We find evidence of the existence of price leadership, even though results differ across city-pair markets. In particular, it emerges that the incumbent operator, in either the air or the rail sector, always holds the role of leader.     

ENTRY AND QUALITY SIGNALLING WHEN ONLY SOME CONSUMERS ARE INFORMED OF THE ENTRANT'S QUALITY

This paper focuses on competition between an incumbent and an entrant when only the entrant's quality is unknown to (some) consumers. The incumbent may or may not know the entrant's quality. The model reveals a separating equilibrium where the entrant's high price signals its high quality when the proportion of informed consumers is at some intermediate value. The case in which the incumbent knows the entrant's quality generates two additional equilibria. When the proportion of informed consumers is large enough, firms choose their prices as in the complete information case. The entrant's high price in combination with the incumbent's low price signals the entrant's high quality. When the proportion of informed consumers is at some intermediate value, the incumbent's high price signals the entrant's low quality, while its low price signals the entrant's high quality. Interestingly, we find that entry may be facilitated with informational product differentiation.     

进入管制与产品质量

本文分析了政府进入管制对厂商最优质量水平及市场平均质量水平的影响。在模型中 ,消费者对产品质量的主观推断存在误差 ,而产品需求在短期内保持稳定。财政收入最大化政府设置行政性进入壁垒并对非法进入者进行惩罚。因而 ,非法进入者虽然可以以冒牌的方式进入行业或市场 ,但有面临被处罚的可能性。分析结果表明 ,政府一定有动力实施管制 ,且将查处的力度确定如此水平 ,使得冒牌厂商“打而不死” ;此时 ,市场平均质量水平则低于或等于无管制情形。本文的分析还表明 ,在位厂商和非法进入者的均衡质量水平均与管制力度呈负相关关系。     

Leaders and competitors

The purpose of this article is to investigate the properties of equilibrium in a market with a leader. In particular, we examine how the equilibrium values depend on existing competitors. When the number of competitors is exogenously given, most equilibrium values, including the leader??s strategies, depend on the structure of the competitors: the number of incumbent competitors, their technologies, and their objective functions. In contrast, when an entry is endogenous, the equilibrium values, including not only the leader??s strategies but the entrants?? as well, are independent of such properties of the incumbent competitors. We provide several applications of our main result in industrial organization issues.     

Exclusion via Non‐Exclusive Contracts

We establish that non‐linear vertical contracts can allow an incumbent to exclude an upstream rival in a setting that does not rely on the exclusivity of the incumbent's contracts with downstream firms or any limits on distribution channels available to the incumbent or rival. The optimal contract we describe is a three‐part quantity discounting contract that involves the payment of an allowance to a downstream distributor and a marginal wholesale price below the incumbent's marginal cost for sufficiently large quantities. The optimal contract is robust to allowing parties to renegotiate contracts in case of entry.     

Level of access and infrastructure investment in network industries

In this paper, we study how the terms of access to an incumbent’s infrastructure (i.e., the level of access and price) affect an entrant’s incentives to build its own infrastructure. Setting a high level of access (e.g., a resale arrangement), which requires relatively small up-front investment for entry, accelerates market entry, but at the same time delays the deployment of the entrant’s infrastructure. This is also true for a lower access price. We show that the socially optimal access price can vary non-monotonically with the level of access. We also study the case where access is provided at two different levels, and show that access provision at multiple levels can delay infrastructure building. Finally, we modify our baseline model to allow for experience and/or market share acquisition via access-based entry, and show that high levels of access may accelerate facility-based entry.     

Competition Between Exclusive Religions: The Counter‐Reformation As Entry Deterrence

This article sets forth a theory of competition between exclusive religions as an entry deterrence game, in which the incumbent may find it profitable not to accommodate but to deter the competitor's entry by precommitting to sufficient capacity expansion in the event of entry. If entry costs are high enough, deterrence is optimal and the incumbent remains a monopolist, although the entry threat distorts its effort upward. The model is then applied to the Catholic Church's reaction to the Protestant Reformation. It is argued that the model provides a better fit to the historical data of the Counter‐Reformation than the price‐cutting model proposed by economists Ekelund, Hébert and Tollison ( 2004 , 2006 ).     

Is piracy sustainable?

We develop a model of international trade between three countries, one of which hosts pirates. When the number of pirate ships increases, the probability for one of the pirate ships (for one commercial ship) encountering a commercial (pirate) ship decreases (increases). Then, the commercial ships have an incentive to spend more on defence and pirate ships to invest less on attack. If pirates operate under free entry, they do not internalize the entry externality. Then, their number rises until it reaches a level such that their attack power has become negligible and the defence of the commercial ships has reached a high level. The economy settles in a full deterrence equilibrium. However, if the number of pirate ships is controlled by an authority, which maximizes piracy's profit, the economy settles in an equilibrium where piracy is active and commercial ships spend less on defence. Piracy is a substitute for trade. Piracy depends on the terms of trade of the pirate country and on the relative efficiency of the attack versus the defence.     

Sustainable positive profit multiple-price strategies in contestable markets

One of the most important features of contestable market is the incumbent's inability to react to entry. While in the traditional literature, this prevents the incumbent from earning positive profits, in multiple price setting it allows him to make a binding commitment to maintain his strategy even if entry occurs. It is shown that as a result of this pre-commitment, any natural monopolist can find a multiple price strategy that yields positive profit, and prevents entry.     

我国知识产权保护中的企业与政府行为分析

文章以知识产权得到有效保护时计算机软件的价格和产量为比较标准,分析了我国知识产权保护中的企业与政府行为及其后果。文章得出结论认为:与知识产权完全实施时相比较,侵犯知识产权的行为不仅降低了国内类型软件产量,提高国内软件的价格,而且也降低了国外软件开发商在中国市场的利润,而这正是发达国家与我国在与贸易相关的知识产权问题上存在摩擦的主要原因。从短期静态利益考虑,地方政府在追求社会福利最大化时,零查处概率是最佳选择。政府查处盗版的最优概率是查处侵犯知识产权的边际收益等于边际成本时的概率,盗版现象虽不可能被完全杜绝,但却可以被控制在一定的范围和程度内。     

Regulation and Access Pricing: Comparison of Regulated Regimes

The statutory duties of regulators of British utilities include both the encouragement of competition and protection of consumers (through price caps). Competition depends on the terms on which new entrants can gain access to the monopolist's network. Where the incumbent in the retail market also owns the network, the regulator may determine prices in the capped and access markets separately or may make the price cap explicitly dependent on entry in the uncapped market. Contrary to the received wisdom that access charges should be separately regulated we show that higher welfare can be obtained in some circumstances by allowing the incumbent to determine access charges. This is achieved by permitting the incumbent to choose from a menu of retail prices which the regulator makes conditional on the extent of entry in the retail market.     

Natural monopoly and differential pricing

Under uniform pricing a monopolist cannot make a positive profit in equilibrium. I analyze how differential pricing can be exploited by a natural monopolist to deter entry when entry is costless. In a two-stage game with price competition before quantity competition I show that the incumbent firm can deter entry and make a positive profit in equilibrium. The incumbent sets two different prices, the low price to deter entry and the high price to generate profit. Entry is not possible because of scale effects. If dumping is allowed for all firms no positive profits are realizable, but welfare is reduced. I show that for some parameter values the incumbent is forced to engage in a stunt (i.e., set a negative low price) to keep entrants out.     

Entry deterrence through credit denial

Firms in oligopoly can use debt to commit to a strategic position that negatively affects rival firms and improves profitability. In this paper, I show that an incumbent firm can deter entry by using debt to commit to such a low price that an entrant's lender will not finance entry, even if the entrant's expected profit from entry is positive. Empirical evidence shows that concentration and debt are positively related in several industries, indicating that debt may be used to reduce competition.     

The NOME law: implications for the French electricity market

In December 2010, France approved the law “Nouvelle Organisation du Marché de l’Electricité” (or NOME law) to promote competition in the retail electricity market. In practice, the law allows retailers to buy nuclear production from the incumbent, at a regulated access price. This mechanism works up to a ceiling of 100 terawatt hours, which represents one quarter of the incumbent’s production from nuclear plants. Each retailer is assigned a share of that amount proportionally to its portfolio of clients. We contribute to the debate raised by the NOME law regarding the evolution of retail market prices. We show that a price decrease results if the ceiling is sufficiently high compared to the market share of the retailers competing with the incumbent. This pro-competitive effect is stronger when the incumbent’s rivals take into account the impact of their market strategy on the redistribution rule. Finally, we find that, if the regulated price of the NOME electricity is set above the nuclear cost, the incumbent realizes a gain that may result in strategic withholding, weakening the pro-competitive effects of the law.     

GRADUAL NETWORK EXPANSION AND UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATIONS

ABSTRACT 1 : Universal service obligations are usually not competitively neutral as they modify the way firms compete in the market. In this paper, we consider a continuum of local markets in a dynamic setting with a stochastically growing demand. The incumbent must serve all markets (ubiquity) possibly at a uniform price and an entrant decides on its market coverage before firms compete in prices. Connecting a market involves a sunk cost. We show that the imposition of a uniform price constraint modifies the timing of entry: for low connection cost markets, entry occurs earlier while for high connection cost markets, entry occurs later.     

SETTLING LAWSUITS WITH PIRATES

A firm licenses a product to overlapping generations of heterogeneous consumers. Consumers may purchase the product, pirate/steal it, or forego it. Higher consumer types enjoy higher gross benefits and are caught stealing at a higher rate. The firm may commit to an out-of-court settlement policy that is “soft” on pirates, so high types purchase the product and low types steal it until caught. Settlement contracts, which include both cash payments and licenses for future product use, facilitate price discrimination. Settlement may either create social value by expanding the market or destroy value by limiting market access and possibly deterring more efficient entrants.     

Asymmetric access price regulation in telecommunications markets

In liberalized telecommunications markets, the incumbent typically enjoys several advantages over any entrant. Regulation in such asymmetric markets stimulates competition in the short and the long term if retail prices are low and the entrant's profits are high so that entry is encouraged. I show that asymmetric access price regulation with a cost-based access price for the incumbent and an access markup for the entrant is more successful than cost-based access price regulation applied to incumbent and entrant. This is a robust prediction with respect to the pricing strategies considered. Such asymmetric access price regulation is in accordance with European legislation.