Cross-subsidization and cost misallocation by regulated monopolists

While cross-subsidization is understood theoretically as involving the sustainability of a cost allocation scheme, it is invoked in regulatory policy contexts, such as the divestiture of AT&T, where costs of serving unregulated markets may be borne by ratepayers of regulated monopolies. We analyze two cross-subsidization tactics—cost misallocation and distorted technological choice — under a spectrum of regulatory cost allocation policies. These tactics lead to higher prices in regulated markets and inefficient production in unregulated markets. Welfare effects are discussed; we conclude with observations on strategic behavior and regulatory policy.     

A general equilibrium analysis of financial regulation

This paper utilizes a general equilibrium approach to investigate the factor returns and output effects on a regulated and unregulated sector from imposition of a rate of return on investment regulatory constraint. The results differ from those of the ‘traditional’ partial equilibrium model of the regulated firm as originally developed by Averch and Johnson (AJ). The differences are explained by the fact that the general equilibrium approach assumes the existence of efficient capital markets whereas the AJ approach does not. Introduction of the competitive capital market framework in the study of financial regulation through the general equilibrium methodology is this paper's major contribution.     

Investment Incentives of a Regulated Dominant Firm

We study the investment incentives of a regulated, incumbent firm in a deregulation process. The regulator cannot commit to a long-term regulatory policy, and investment decisions are taken before optimal regulatory policies are imposed. We characterize the regulated incumbent's incentive to invest when a deregulation process is initiated and an unregulated firm enters the market as a result. The change in the marginal return to investment depends on how the investment changes the firm's virtual cost—the sum of its physical production and information costs. When the marginal return to investment increases due to deregulation, social welfare increases as a result of higher investment and more competition. Otherwise, the change in social welfare depends on the total of the effects in the fall of investment and increased competition. We also present conditions under which deregulation enhances welfare.     

Market power,private information,and the optimal scale of pollution permit markets with application to North Carolina's Neuse River

We extend the analysis of optimal scale in pollution permit markets by allowing for both market power and private information. We characterize the total costs (abatement costs and damages) under market power and private information and compare them to total costs under competition. It is possible for both market power and private information to lead to lower total costs than competition, but generally the differences between the three market structures will be small. We also conduct an optimal scale analysis of nitrogen pollution from waste water treatment plants (WWTP) into North Carolina's Neuse River System. An economic model of damages and abatement costs is integrated with a hydro-ecological model of nitrogen flow through the Neuse. We determine the optimal number of trading zones and allocate the WWTP into these zones. Under the most likely regulatory scenario, we find cost savings of 1.55 million dollars per year under the optimal market design relative to the typical 303(d) regulation in which the WWTP are not allowed to trade.     

Entry, Prices, and Investment in Regulated Industries

The paper studies how the optimal regulatory policy is affected by the possibility of unregulated firms entering the market. In such cases, the regulator may prefer to limit price and cost reductions in the regulated incumbent. The extent to which this happens is shown to depend on the extent of the regulator's commitment: if it commits to a chosen policy, then the market outcome following entry is less competitive than it would be without commitment: price and production costs are both higher. We also show that, unlike the natural monopoly case, incentives for cost reducing investment are stronger when the regulatory policy has a short regulatory interval.     

Don’t let your robots grow up to be traders: Artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and asset-market bubbles

Researchers who have examined markets populated by “robot traders” have claimed that the high level of allocative efficiency observed in experimental markets is driven largely by the “intelligence” implicit in the rules of the market. Furthermore, they view the ability of agents (artificial or human) to process information and make rational decisions as unnecessary for the efficient operation of markets. This paper presents a new series of market experiments that show that markets populated with standard robot traders are no longer efficient if time is a meaningful element, as it is in all asset markets. While simple two-season markets with human subjects reliably converge to an efficient equilibrium, markets with minimally intelligent robot traders fail to attain this equilibrium. Instead, these markets overshoot the equilibrium and then crash below it. In addition to firmly establishing the role of trader intelligence in asset-market equilibrium, these experiments also provide insights into why bubbles and crashes are consistently observed in many asset-market laboratory experiments using human subjects.     

Mobile phone termination charges with asymmetric regulation

We model competition between two unregulated mobile phone companies with price-elastic demand and less than full market coverage. We also assume that there is a regulated full-coverage fixed network. In order to induce stronger competition, mobile companies could have an incentive to raise their reciprocal mobile-to-mobile access charges above the marginal costs of termination. Stronger competition leads to an increase of the mobiles’ market shares, with the advantage that (genuine) network effects are strengthened. Therefore, ‘collusion’ may well be in line with social welfare.      

Financial markets, specialization, and learning by doing

This paper considers three questions: (1) what is the role of financial markets in development, (2) why do some economies have such poorly developed financial markets, and (3) can government policy be used to promote financial market development? With respect to the first question, we formalize the widely-held notion that financial markets promote entrepreneurship, specialization, and learning-by-doing. However, if economic incentives for specialization are absent, financial markets may fail to form. This occurs when real interest rates are too low. We also discuss policies that can be used to promote financial market development. When these policies are successful, they will be growth promoting. Finally, we examine policies intended to manipulate returns on savings, which are often important components of “financial liberalizations”. We describe conditions under which such policies will be conducive to growth.     

The difficulties of supplying new technologies into highly regulated markets: the case of tissue engineering

This study provides an insight into the difficulties companies encounter in transposing basic science into commercially viable healthcare technologies, focusing on the issue of establishing a dominant supply model within a highly regulated market. The core issue is how to scale-up customised scientific processes into products able to supply wider and possibly mass markets. In tracing the development of approaches to scaling-up, the paper highlights the influence regulatory regimes have on high technology regulated products and services. The paper details the implications of two contrasting supply initiatives towards operationalising tissue engineering, based on differences in regulatory regimes between Europe and the USA.     

When does the majority become a majority? Empirical analysis of the time at which main market adopters purchase the bulk of our sales

The idea of a dual-market structure in the early stages of a product's life cycle has become one of the most widely accepted ideas among new product marketing practitioners in the past decade. Concepts such as “Early Market/Main Market” and “Visionaries/Pragmatists” have entered the lexicon of high-tech executives to express the notion that the market for new products is composed of early and main markets with a discontinuity in the diffusion process in between them. Moreover, these concepts have been at least partially tested and verified in the marketing academic literature in the past few years.We extend this branch of research by investigating the timing issues in dual-market cases. We define Change-of-Dominance Time (CD-Time) as the number of years it takes main market adopters to outnumber early market adopters. We empirically investigate this timing issue on a comprehensive data set of new product sales in the consumer electronics industry. We find that regarding explanatory determinants of CD-Time, external influence, such as advertising, to the early market is the most important explanatory variable.We examine the relationship between CD-Time and other early product life cycle phenomena: Takeoff, Saddle, and Rogers' size of adopter categories. We found relatively high correlations between these phenomena and CD-Time.The answer to the question “When does the majority become a majority?” is indeed “at 16%”! In a dual-market setting, the average time at which the main market outnumbers the early market is when 16% of the market has already adopted the product. In terms of time, in 75% of the cases the majority becomes a majority in 5 to 10 years.     

Microeconomic modeling of parallel markets: The case of agricultural goods in the USSR

In a centrally planned economy, non-market-clearing prices fixed by the state cannot be used directly to estimate consumer behavior models. This paper represents an attempt to overcome this problem by utilizing prices in a parallel “free” market. An equilibrium model incorporating parallel markets is discussed and a demand curve arising from this model is estimated using data for the markets for meat and milk in the USSR. the price and income elasticities of demand for these goods are found to be significantly higher than those estimated for the United States.     

Bundling, product choice, and efficiency: Should cable television networks be offered à la carte?

We conduct a numerical analysis of bundling’s impact on a monopolist’s pricing and product choices and assess the implications for consumer welfare in cable television markets. Existing theory is ambiguous: for a given set of products, bundling likely transfers surplus from consumers to firms but also encourages products to be offered that might not be under à la carte pricing. Simulation of “Full À La Carte” for an economic environment calibrated to an average cable television system suggests that consumers would likely benefit from à la carte sales. If all networks continued to be offered, the average household’s surplus is predicted to increase by $6.80 (65.6%) under à la carte sales (despite a total bundle price that almost doubles) and reduced network profits would have to be such that 41 of 50 offered cable networks have to exit the market to make her indifferent. Simulation of a “Theme Tier” scenario provides intermediate benefits. The incremental marginal costs to cable systems of à la carte sales and its impact in the advertising market and on competition are important factors in determining consumer benefits.     

An Alternative Approach to the Institutional Economics of the Eurozone Crisis

I argue that the Eurozone crisis is neither a crisis of European sovereigns in the sense of governmental over-borrowing, nor a crisis of sovereign debt market over-lending. Rather, it is a function of the “sovereign debt market” institution itself. Crisis, I argue, is not an occurrence, but an element fulfilling a precise technical function within this institution. It ensures the possibility of designating — in the market’s day-to-day mechanisms rather than analytical hindsight — normal (tranquil, undisturbed) market functioning. To show this, I propose an alternative view on the institutional economics of sovereign debt markets. First, I engage literature on the emergent qualities of the institutions “market” and “firm” in product markets, concluding that the point of coalescence for markets is the approximation of an optimal observation of consumer tastes. I then examine the specific institution “financial markets,” where the optimal observation of economic fundamentals is decisive. For the specific sub-institution “sovereign debt market,” I conclude that the fundamentals in question — country fundamentals — oscillate between a status of observable fundamentals outside of markets and operationalized fundamentals influenced by market movements. This, in turn, allows me to argue that the specific case of the Eurozone crisis is due to neither of the two causes mentioned above. Rather, the notion of “crisis” takes on a technical sense within the market structure, guaranteeing the separation of herd behavior and isomorphic behavior on European sovereign debt markets. By the same token, the so-called Eurozone crisis ceases to be a crisis in the conventional sense.     

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMODITIES MARKETS: 'MESSY' VERSUS 'IDEAL' WORLDS

Adopting tradable permit market (TPM) programs to address air quality and water supply problems has become increasingly popular. However, economists evaluating these proposals have erred in comparing "ideal" permit markets with "messy" existing regulatory structures. In fact, permit markets also are likely to be "messy" due to the existing institutions and market imperfections. The physical and technological nature of these environmental commodities have and will continue to impose barriers to creating such markets. In addition, the analyses often do not adequately define the legal, management, and exchange institutions so as to capture how transaction costs and uncertainty will affect these markets. This paper identifies some specific factors that influence permit markets in environmental commodities and discusses the potential magnitudes of these effects.     

Fiscal adjustment and the costs of public debt service: evidence from OECD countries

We use a panel of 21 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 to investigate the effects of different fiscal adjustment strategies on long-term interest rates – a key fiscal indicator reflecting the costs of government debt service. As Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has shown, governments confronted with high deficits and rising debt may be forced to enact fiscal adjustments in order to avoid increasing market pressure and solvency problems. Over the last four decades, such measures taken by governments in OECD countries have varied in duration, size, composition and in their success to re-establish fiscal sustainability. We find that large and expenditure-based adjustments lead to substantially lower long-term interest rates. Small and revenue-based measures do not have an effect on interest rates. Financial markets thus only seem to value strict and decisive measures – a clear sign that the government’s pledge to cut the deficit is credible.     

Redesigning a 20th century regulatory framework to deliver 21st century energy technology

Electricity systems are shifting from a once highly centralised regulated model to become more renewable, distributed and consumer-centric. Australia has some of the highest installation rates of embedded renewable electricity generation in the developed world. This has been driven by increasing grid-supplied energy prices, policy incentives and declining technology costs. The emergence of cost-effective distributed battery storage and energy management systems is likely to fundamentally alter the electricity industry—which has been largely unchanged for decades. Evolutionary economics indicates that firms must adapt to new technologies and market conditions or they will become extinct. Energy markets will only evolve, however, if regulatory frameworks continuously adapt to ensure that consumer preferences for reliability, control and environmental outcomes are able to be achieved at lowest cost. Most importantly, regulators will need to ensure that facilitating efficient consumer decision making is prioritised.     

Job creation and job destruction in the presence of informal markets

In developing economies, the fraction of informal workers can be as high as 70% of total employment. For economies with significant informal sectors, business cycle fluctuations and labor market policy interventions can have important effects not only on the unemployment rate, but also on the allocation of workers across regulated and unregulated jobs. In this paper, using worker flows data from Brazil, we build, calibrate, and simulate a two-sector search and matching labor market model, in which firms have the choice of hiring workers formally or informally. We show that our model can explain well the main cyclical patterns that lead to those cyclical reallocations. We also show how the effect of government interventions in the labor market depend on the magnitude of the reallocation of labor across regulated and unregulated sectors. For our calibration, policies that decrease the cost of formal jobs, or increase the cost of informality, raise the share of formal employment while reducing unemployment.