Intermarket network externalities and competition: An application to the media industry

Intermarket network externalities occur when the utility of a good produced in a given industry varies with the size of the demand for a good produced in another. A particularly significant example of this phenomenon is provided by the interaction between the media and advertising industries. Media consumers vary according to their willingness to pay for a media good, which depends on the advertising volume. In the advertising market, advertisers vary according to their willingness to pay for an advertisement, which also depends positively on the audience reached. We model a situation of competition between two content providers who are rivals in both the media and advertising industries, choosing simultaneously the newspaper prices and the advertising rates. We characterize the equilibria of the game and explore how they depend on audience attitudes towards advertising. Our main finding is that two-sided interactions may induce exit by one of the media companies from either only the advertising market or both markets.     

The ‘Special’ World: Stalin's Power Apparatus and the Soviet System's Secret Structures Of Communication

ABSTRACT

Two of the most defining trends of the nineteenth century were the growth of international trade and the increased role of government activities in the economy. In the conjuncture between these developments lie taxes on foreign trade. Sweden was one of the examples where customs revenue became the single most important source of revenue before WWI. This article sets out to test how this source of revenue could increase as much as it did. The analysis focuses mainly on trade policy and how tariffs were set and how that affected revenue. The results show that Swedish liberalisation of trade forced a switch in the fiscal structure of tariffs, moving revenue to fewer commodities. Increased importance was given to consumption goods with lower elasticity of demand. Trade continued to increase under fiscal taxation, which led to increases in revenue. During the early period increased revenue was achieved with higher tariffs on a few key commodities. Towards the end of the century tariffs on agricultural and capital goods became more fiscally relevant, which could have clashed with protectionist intentions. The article highlights that more work is needed on this fiscal component of trade policy.     

Foreign investments in Russia’s electric power industry

Foreign investments in Russia??s electric power industry and their role in the institutional and regulatory reorganization of its reformation are analyzed in the article. A comparison of the revenue efficiency of electric power generation companies on the Russian and European markets is made.     

Property-Price Determinants in Indonesia

Price formation provides critical insights into the attributes of fledgling property markets in developing countries. This article investigates asking-price formation across the Indonesian archipelago, including previously unstudied regional property markets. We compile a rich micro dataset of asking prices for residential, commercial, and undeveloped land from a nationwide classifieds database. Through a hedonic price analysis we identify the impact of property and advertisement attributes on asking prices for each type of property, using spatial fixed effects to control for spatially correlated unobservable characteristics at the district and city levels. Results indicate that property characteristics, land ownership status, and advertising method are all statistically significant indicators of asking price. We find considerable heterogeneity in asking-price formation in residential, commercial, and undeveloped land, and identify key differences between urban and rural markets.     

ASEAN‐5 bond market development: Where does it stand? Where is it going?

Since the late 1990s' Asian crisis, ASEAN‐5 countries have expended considerable effort in developing their bond markets. However, the size of these markets relative to GDP has hardly changed. Can we explain this? And does it mean that domestic markets have not, in fact, developed? The article argues that bond market growth has been held back by a sharp fall in business investment, which has left firms with little need for bond borrowing. Even so, markets have developed in other ways, to such an extent that substantial amounts of foreign portfolio investment have begun to flow into ASEAN‐5 bonds. These developments have important ramifications. With the investor base growing and infrastructure investment likely to rise, ASEAN‐5 bond markets could expand rapidly, holding out the prospect that the region could finally achieve ‘twin engine’ financial systems in the near future.     

Economic performance and international trade engagement: the case of Portuguese manufacturing firms

By combining economic and financial data for Portuguese manufacturing firms with data on their exports and imports, we uncover some aspects of the relationship between international trade engagement and firms’ performances. In line with recent theoretical and empirical developments in the international trade literature: (i) we testify that Portuguese international trade is highly concentrated, especially on the import side, and both in inter- and intra-sector terms; (ii) we corroborate previous studies and theses according to which two-way traders outperform only importers, only exporters and above all domestic firms; (iii) we find that the greater the diversification of markets and goods (especially with regard to imports), the better the performance achieved by internationalised firms; (iv) we notice that the higher the intensity of firms’ international trade (especially imports), the better their performance; (v) we also present evidence that destination markets for exports and origin markets for imports are also important in explaining firm’s performance.     

Wage formation in the context of collective bargaining

Summary The article analyzes wage developments resulting from collective bargaining between one union representing all employees and one employers' organization representing all employers. The context is an economy consisting of two markets: a labour market and a goods market. An analysis has been made of the costs and benefits for both parties in case of a strike. The strength of both parties has been analyzed, firstly under the assumption of perfect information and thereafter under the assumption of imperfect information. Important determinants of wage increases appear to be the strike costs, the horizon, the bargaining skills and the self confidence of both parties and the wage elasticity of the demand for labour.I acknowledge the helpful comments of Professors Muysken, Kuipers and Pen.     

The Netherlands Bank's narrow monetary policy

Summary In his article Mr. Timmerman describes the way the Netherlands Bank conducts its so-called narrow monetary policy,i.e. the policy pursued in the money and foreign exchange markets. The developments during the period October 1979–July 1981 serve as example of how movements in Dutch money market rates are dominated by exogenous factors. The author concludes that in a small open economy which maintains a stable exchange rate there is no room for an independent money market policy and that the hectic developments in the international money and foreign exchange markets have made illusory what until very recently was regarded as the most important objective of the narrow monetary policy,viz. an orderly money market. P.C. Timmerman was Deputy Director of De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. and is now Managing Director of De Bank van de Nederlandse Antillen. A similar article by the author appeared inZoeklicht op beleid, liber amicorum in honour of Professor G.A. Kessler.     

Bank market power and revenue diversification: Evidence from selected ASEAN countries

This paper examines the association between bank market power and revenue diversification using a sample of 153 commercial banks from five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). We find a non-linear relationship between bank market power and revenue diversification, where at lower degrees of market power (in loan and deposit markets) banks concentrate on revenue diversification. In contrast, those with greater market power focus more on traditional interest-based products. Our findings also indicate that credit losses experienced earlier, during and after the Asian financial crisis have encouraged ASEAN banks to diversify into non-traditional activities to compensate for their excessive losses. When the markets recovered and loan demand increased, however, traditional interest-based business has become more important. These results remain consistent across all models providing robust results.     

The Maghribi traders: a reappraisal?1

Previous studies concluded that a private‐order institution based on a multilateral reputation mechanism was particularly important in governing agency relations among the Maghribi traders who operated in the Muslim Mediterranean. The legal system and a bilateral reputation mechanism were particularly important among the Genoese traders. Initial cultural, social, and political factors led to this institutional distinction, while the incorporation of culture in the resulting institutions influenced subsequent institutional developments. In particular, the particularities of the late medieval European institutions contributed to the rise of the modern—impersonal—markets in Europe. The analysis also substantiates the contention that private‐order institutions can support sophisticated exchange and market‐promoting policies should take this into account, particularly in countries lacking an effective court system. An article by Edwards and Ogilvie challenges this analysis. It alleges that the Maghribis, like European traders, relied on court enforcement and a bilateral reputation mechanism in which a narrow social circle responded to opportunism. This article shows that Edwards and Ogilvie's analysis and conclusions are wrong. It refutes each of their empirical claims and presents additional pieces of evidence supporting the institutional distinction conjecture. The discussion is structured around the methodological challenge associated with comparative and historical institutional analysis.     

Agriculture: A perspective on medium‐term prospects

Future developments, both in rehabilitation of commercial agriculture, and commercialization of subsistence agriculture, depend on product markets, both local and foreign. International markets are depressed because of monetary factors, product expansion and agricultural policies of the USA and EC. Sanctions can harm export and local markets. Market expansion also depends on marketing efficiency. Increased incomes normally cause expansion of markets for animal products and feed grains. These products tend to have elastic demands, and exhibit a large degree of substitutability. Human demand for grain products is inelastic. Increased revenues will cause substitution of bread for white maize. Price and income elasticities of demand for vegetables are low. Market segmentation can be important in future. High elasticities of demand for certain fruits, some of which are mainly exported, provide scope for local market expansion. The 1990s may experience higher rainfall than the 1980s. Agricultural supply is inelastic. New developments, for example in present technology in much of the commercial sector, are inappropriate for new development. The same applies to product choice.     

The politics of social protection expenditure and financing in southern Africa

Social protection is expanding in southern Africa, but consideration of its fiscal base is usually limited to affordability concerns. Little attention is paid to the different sources of revenue or how the interests of contributors to social protection may affect spending priorities. This article suggests there is a link between revenue source and social protection spending. Aid dependent countries' social protection policy is mostly determined by donors. The governments of countries that rely on natural resources or Southern African Customs Union revenue are relatively free to shape social protection policy. Only in countries that rely on domestic tax-based revenue, where the government must consider the interests of the taxpayer, is there something resembling a social contract for social protection, in which the citizens engage with their government through an exchange-based logic. This article concludes that a broad and diversified tax base is an important mechanism for creating a reciprocal relationship of this kind and thus increasing social spending.     

Patterns of concentration in the newspaper industry

Abstract

This short paper, presented in 1967 as a thesis, is a resume of seven rather more specialised articles by the same author, together with some conclusions drawn from them. The original articles, running to 253 pages, described the concentration which has taken place in the structure of the Swedish press since 1945, resulting in a reduction of at least one-third in the number of daily newspapers and in the replacement, to a large extent, of fierce competition by local quasi-monopolies. The purely factual events were already known in some detail, in particular from the report of the Investigation into the Press (SOU 1965: 22) for which the author's own efforts were largely responsible. He is also responsible for the view, which rounds off his analysis of the structural development of the Swedish press, that growth and decline in newspapers are the result of a self-generated process of increasing strength within given marketing areas (e.g. local districts), the interaction of circulation, advertising and revenue automatically ensuring a continual increase in the lead of the largest paper until it finally eliminates its weaker competitors. This process is called by the author ‘the circulation spiral’ (upplagespiralen). The principle can be recognised in various forms in recent developments in the press of many western countries. Attention has been drawn to it by the present reviewer in connection with the even higher mortality rate in the Danish press, and it would appear to be relevant to the study of other branches of the economy.     

Economic Integration and Union Power

The standard utility-maximizing model of the trade union in a closed economy is reformulated for an environment where economic integration is under way or expected to occur soon. In the (European) realistic setting of union-dominated labor markets, domestic wages are shown to be affected by labor market developments abroad. This article provides an explanation of the international transmission of inflation and disinflation     

手机RSS新闻赢利模式初探

近年来中国传统报业效益急剧下滑,国家开始实行推进数字报业发展战略,其中,手机报是报社发展的重点之一,但是由于盈利率普遍很低,严重制约了其发展步伐。其中主要的原因是业务单一,没有能够走出一条独立发展的道路。只有发展手机RSS新闻模式,以广告作为主要收入来源,才能从根本改变局面,促进数字报业发展。     

Asia's evolving role in global wine markets

Over the past decade Hong Kong and China have become far more important to the world's wine markets, while Southeast Asia's imports of fine wine continue to grow steadily. This paper reviews recent developments in the light of comparative advantage theory before drawing on a model of global wine markets to project developments in Asia and elsewhere over the next five years under various economic growth, real exchange rate, and policy assumptions. It concludes that China is set to continue to be by far the most dominant player in Asia, and to change global markets for wines dramatically, just as it has been doing and will continue to do for so many other products.     

New series for agricultural prices in London, 1770–1914

New annual series for the prices of major agricultural commodities sold in London markets between 1770 and 1914 are presented. These series are based on bimonthly observations drawn from newspaper market reports. The products covered are wheat, barley (grinding and malting), oats, potatoes, hay, butter, beef, mutton, and pork. Annual prices are calculated for both calendar and production years. The new series are compared to existing series.     

如何从支付系统完善电子商务税收征管

电子商务给传统贸易方式和社会经济活动带来了巨大的冲击,同时也对税收制度、税收征管、税收规则等提出了新的挑战。银行的支付系统与电子商务交易以及电子商务税收征管都息息相关,但因为历史的原因,我国银行、税务、国库、工商、公安各自独立的网络体系又制约了目前依赖银行、工商等部门网络体系的税务机关对蓬勃发展的电子商务税收征管的进程。本文从基于"资金流"的电子商务税务征管思路出发,针对我国现状,探讨从银行支付系统本身以及银税横向联网等各方面来完善电子商务税收征管,使我国经济在21世纪能持续发展。     

国际商品市场中"一价定律"的验证:共同概率模型和动态贸易变量

本文讨论并引伸了Barrett和Li(2002)提出的共同概率模型,在原有基础上将贸易变量动态化,以增加在经验分析中所包含的信息量和解释能力。考虑到国际商品贸易的跨期性,我们的预期价格采用了商品期货价。我们用改进后的方法对中美大豆贸易做了实证分析,发现两国大豆市场自1995年以来基本上是整合的,并发现对竞争性均衡关系的偏离主要发生在早期,即在中国商品期货市场完善和农产品市场体制改革之前。研究还发现两国大豆价差在南美豆收获期后明显缩小。收益不确定性参数的t检验不显著在一定程度上表明了进口商对价格风险的规避行为。