Economic Issues in the Antitrust Assessment of Hospital Competition: Overview

Rapid consolidation in the hospital industry, as health care markets respond to consumer pressures for more cost-effective delivery of health care services, has focused increased attention on antitrust enforcement theories and actions. This paper reviews the Federal agency challenges of four recent hospital mergers that have all been denied by the courts, but for varying reasons. Questions raised include the appropriate definition of the product and geographic markets, the extent of realizable merger-specific efficiencies and the influence of non-profit status on hospital behavior. The lack of conclusive empirical economic evidence on these topics undoubtedly contributes to the current divergence of opinion among regulators, courts and hospitals. This paper also identifies how each of the subsequent papers in this special issue contributes valuable findings to inform the lively debate.     

中国蜂蜜在日本市场的需求弹性

日本是中国蜂蜜出口的最大市场,占中国蜂蜜出口总额的40%,对中国蜂蜜贸易的发展至关重要。本文以日本蜂蜜市场1995年5月至2004年12月的进口数据为基础,运用近似线形需求系统模型(LA-AIDS)估计中国蜂蜜在日本市场的收入弹性、自价格弹性和交叉价格弹性,分析中国蜂蜜在日本市场的贸易地位与竞争策略。研究结果表明,在日本蜂蜜进口市场,中国蜂蜜的价格对来自阿根廷的蜂蜜进口量有较大的影响力,但实施价格战会使中国蜂蜜的利润损失大于阿根廷。最优的竞争策略是努力维持市场份额,通过质量与安全水平的提升来获取较高的价格和利润率。     

THE IMPACT OF CUSTOMER RESPONSE ON INVENTORY AND UTILIZATION POLICIES

Drawing on extensive fieldwork at a semiconductor manufacturer, this research provides a framework for understanding how customer response and long production delays interact, leading to increased demand amplification across a company's supply chain. Investigating the impact resulting from the higher demand amplification, suggestions are derived for the company's capacity utilization and inventory policies     

Does Regulation in Credit,Labour and Business Matter for Bank Performance in the EU-10 Economies?

Cost efficiency scores for banks in ten new EU member countries of Central and Eastern Europe are estimated using a parametric approach (data envelopment analysis) for the period prior to and immediately following their accession (2000–2010). These are then used in both fixed effects and dynamic panels to estimate the impact of regulation on bank specific efficiency in the transition economies of the EU. Using the Fraser Index of Economic Freedom (Gwartney, Hall, and Lawson 2012) we find that, among all the indices of economic freedom, the composite regulation index that includes regulation in credit, labour and business has more importance for the banking sector as results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact on bank efficiency. By decomposing the regulation index into its three components (credit, business and labour regulation) we find that strict labour regulation is associated with lower bank cost efficiency while certain aspects of credit regulation such as foreign ownership and competition as well as private ownership are significantly associated with improved efficiency. The dynamic panel vector autoregression (VAR) results using impulse response functions and variance decomposition further support the validity of these results. These findings are valuable for both academics and policy makers in their attempts to understand the drivers of bank efficiency.     

外部需求与多产品出口企业创新:机理与事实

本文拓展了Mayer等的多产品理论模型,在多产品异质性框架下纳入企业创新行为,从微观视角揭示了外部需求变动对于多产品出口企业创新行为的影响,并分析企业生产率在其中扮演的"角色"。研究发现:外部需求扩张对多产品出口企业创新具有显著的抑制作用,但是分组回归结果表明,外部需求扩张对企业创新行为的影响存在生产率门槛,高生产率企业可以在需求扩张中提高创新水平,低生产率企业则降低创新水平;机制检验表明,外部需求扩张通过规模效应促进企业创新,通过竞争效应抑制企业创新,规模效应和竞争效应分别随企业生产率提高而强化和弱化;异质性分析表明,外部需求扩张对于多产品出口企业创新的抑制作用具有普遍性,一般贸易企业、民营企业、外资企业和高技术企业在外部需求扩张中提高创新水平的生产率门槛较低。本文为多产品企业有效应对外部需求变动、制定合理创新决策和推进对外贸易高质量发展提供理论依据和政策启示。     

中国出口鼓励贸易政策的经济效率问题

本文首次创立了评估出口鼓励贸易政策经济效率的指标体系,并通过这些指标体系来分析中国出口鼓励贸易政策的经济效率.作者借鉴J.丁伯根提出的定量经济政策工具的效率系数理论,并将该理论延伸到出口鼓励贸易政策中,首次提出了出口鼓励贸易政策工具的效率系数,并对出口退税、出口补贴和出口信贷3项主要的出口鼓励贸易政策的效率系数进行了实证检验,最后提出当前出口鼓励贸易政策向高效率方向调整的政策建议.     

Unrestricted Entry and Nonprice Competition: The Case of Technological Adoption in Hospitals

Medical technology adoption is a major contributor to rising health care expenditures in the US. Multiple market failures provide incentives for hospitals to adopt technologies. Unrestricted entry may result in excess capacity and reductions in output that are inefficient with respect to cost and quality. We analyze the effects of hospital entry in the market for coronary artery bypass graft surgery on the number of procedures performed at both the market and firm levels, using California data from 1983 to 1990. We test the hypothesis that entry has differential effects on hospital output in a market with nonprice competition, depending on market structure. Results show that as the proximity of the nearest competitor increases with entry, hospital output declines. Holding distance to the nearest competitor constant, increasing the number of competitors results in a smaller, but still significant, decrease in output. When there are few incumbents nearby, however, output does not change significantly with entry, suggesting "business-augmenting" effects that result in increased physician referrals offset much of the conventional "businessstealing" effects.     

THE IMPACT OF DEMAND UNCERTAINTY AND CONFIGURATION CAPACITY ON CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMANCE IN A CONFIGURE‐TO‐ORDER ENVIRONMENT

This paper examines the simultaneous impact of demand variability, demand skew, and configuration capacity on customer service in a configure‐to‐order environment. Simulation is done in ARENA and data are analyzed using ANOVA and MANOVA. The findings indicate that the factors studied have differential impact on performance both individually and interactively.     

美国监狱私有化原因研究

私有化是将政府整体或部分职责转移到私人部门的过程,监狱私有化意味着私人部门参与提供传统上由政府提供的管教服务.探究美国监狱私有化的原因,有助于估计私人监狱运动的发展前景.美国监狱私有化现象的主要动因在于快速增长的囚犯、监狱过度拥挤和成本问题.尽管监狱私有化不一定向声称的那样能够大幅度降低成本和提高效率,但是真正重要的是认识到私有化节约成本和提高效率本身是竞争过程的结果.最为重要的事情是决定如何最好地提供有关服务,而不是简单地选择要么由公共部门,要么由私人部门负责监狱体系的运转.通过引入竞争力量与机制,监狱私有化也许仍然有发展的空间.     

中国外汇储备适度规模与需求结构研究——基于修正的Agarwal模型

本文对Agarwal模型进行修正,并运用修正后的模型对中国1994--2010年的外汇储备适度规模进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,中国外汇储备的实际规模自2004年起超过适度规模;中国外汇储备的需求结构发生了很大变化,其中预防性需求已经占据绝对的主导地位,同时预防性需求中,用于维护外汇市场稳定的干预性储备已经成为其中的主导需求。     

Internal Versus External R&D: A Study of R&D Choice with Sample Selection

This paper extends previous analyses of the choice between internal and external R&D to consider the costs of internal R&D. The Heckman two-stage estimator is used to estimate the determinants of internal R&D unit cost (i.e. cost per product innovation) allowing for sample selection effects. Theory indicates that R&D unit cost will be influenced by scale issues and by the technological opportunities faced by the firm. Transaction costs encountered in research activities are allowed for and, in addition, consideration is given to issues of market structure which influence the choice of R&D mode without affecting the unit cost of internal or external R&D. The model is tested on data from a sample of over 500 UK manufacturing plants which have engaged in product innovation. The key determinants of R&D mode are the scale of plant and R&D input, and market structure conditions. In terms of the R&D cost equation, scale factors are again important and have a non-linear relationship with R&D unit cost. Specificities in physical and human capital also affect unit cost, but have no clear impact on the choice of R&D mode. There is no evidence of technological opportunity affecting either R&D cost or the internal/external decision.     

Spatial Interaction,Spatial Multipliers and Hospital Competition

The hospital competition literature shows that estimates of the effect of local market structure (concentration) on pricing (competition) are sensitive to geographic market definition. Our spatial lag model approach effects smoothing of the explanatory variables across the discrete market boundaries, resulting in robust estimates of the impact of market structure on hospital pricing, which can be used to estimate the full effect of changes in prices inclusive of spillovers that cascade through the neighboring hospital markets. The full amount, generated by the spatial multiplier effect, is a robust estimate of the impacts of market factors on hospital competition. We contrast ordinary least squares and spatial lag estimates to demonstrate the importance of robust estimation in analysis of hospital market competition. In markets where concentration is relatively high before a proposed merger, we demonstrate that Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) can lead to the wrong policy conclusion while the more conservative lag estimates do not.     

Foreign Direct Investment and mark-up dynamics: Evidence from Spanish firms

A review of the literature indicates that Foreign Direct Investment has the potential to increase the intensity of competition and to act as a channel for technology transfers. Using a Spanish firm level data set, we disentangle these effects by estimating a dynamic model of firm level performance, which we proxy by mark-ups. We find that FDI has a positive long-run effect on the mark-ups of targets, but this is limited to firms in R&D intensive sectors. In addition, we find weak evidence that foreign presence dampens margins. However, this effect appears to be more than compensated by positive spillovers in the case of knowledge intensive industries.     

Laffont and Tirole's Competition in Telecommunications : A View From the US

This article briefly reviews Competition in Telecommunications by Laffont andTirole (2000); it presents the major conclusions of the book and corrects certain errors. In addition, this article treats related topics, some specific to the US telecommunications industry. In US telecommunications access to incumbents facilities are priced based on cost model estimates. Several of the important sources of misunderstandings of telecommunications costs and cost estimates are described including: multiple meanings of 'access,'meanings of cross-subsidy; nature of loop costs; the many dimensions of marginal costs in telecommunications, misuses of long-run cost concepts; and misuses of 'most efficient' provider assumptions. The methods of cost calculations and legal and regulatory requirements in the US are described, as are the implications for incentive regulation, changing technology, efficient pricing, and measures of efficient competitive entry.