Strategic delegation in consumer cooperatives under mixed oligopoly

The main aim of this paper is to study the propensity of consumer cooperatives (Coops) to use incentive schemes in situations of strategic interaction with profit-maximizing firms (PMFs). Our model provides a reason why Coops are less prone than PMFs to pay variable bonuses to their managers. We show that this occurs under price competition when in equilibrium the Coop prefers to pay a flat wage to its manager relying instead on her intrinsic motivation, whereas the profit-maximizing rival adopts a variable, high-powered incentive scheme. The main rationale is that, by recruiting a manager whose preferences are aligned with the company goals (e.g., a consumer-owner), the Coop is per se highly expansionary in term of output. Therefore, the Coop does not need to rely on an externally hired manager who sets prices aggressively to expand market share and quantity. Furthermore, adopting a monetary reward based on sales and profits leads to distorted incentives with respect to the Coop’s goal, which after all is the welfare of its members.     

Collusive outcomes in price competition

In this paper we provide a sufficient condition for collusive outcomes in a single-shot game of simultaneous price choice in a homogeneous product market with symmetric firms and strictly convex costs. We also prove the counterintuitive result: if the second derivative of the cost function is nonincreasing in output, it is easier to sustain collusion when the number of firms increases.     

Product quality and competition: evidence from the broadband industry

Access to high-quality broadband internet is important in many different respects such as in communication, education, commerce and information acquisition. We investigate the relationship between the number of broadband providers in an area and the quality of broadband service provided where download speed is used as a proxy for quality. We find that increased competition in an area positively affects the access to fast download speeds. This finding is robust to three different top download speeds tested. Additionally, a theoretical model is provided which shows that competition can decrease the profits associated with offering slow speeds; this gives an incentive for providers to offer higher speeds as a way to increase profits.     

Price and quantity competition under free entry

This paper complements that of Cellini et al. (Cellini, R., Lambertini, L., Ottaviano, G. I. P., 2004. Welfare in a differentiated oligopoly with free entry: A cautionary note. Research in Economics, 58:125–33.), which shows that Cournot competition may generate higher welfare compared to Bertrand competition in an economy with free entry. Unlike them, we provide a more general proof for this result and show that Cournot competition generates higher welfare compared to Bertrand competition when the products are sufficiently differentiated. If the products are close substitutes, welfare is higher under Bertrand competition. We show that these qualitative results hold whether or not number of varieties increases market size. We also show when the active firms earn higher profits under Bertrand competition compared to Cournot competition.     

Commitment and price competition in a dynamic differentiated-product duopoly

This paper characterizes linear Markov-perfect equilibrium in a duopolistic environment where firms engage in dynamic price competition. Firms have constant (but potentially different) marginal costs and produce differentiated products. We show that, for the case of linear demand, dynamically stable Markov-perfect equilibrium prices are strictly higher than one-shot Nash equilibrium prices, but lower than fully collusive (monopoly) prices. We provide closed-form solutions for the Markov-perfect equilibrium prices which, in principle, can be estimated given data on firm demand and costs. Our results suggest that static two-stage models of price commitment are on reasonably solid ground in that they might be viewed as a reduced form for more complicated dynamic models.     

Electoral competition under imperfect information

Summary. This paper considers electoral competition between two office-motivated parties and one voter, in the presence of two alternative policies and under imperfect information. The theory of refinements of Nash equilibrium predicts the outcome of this three-player game: both parties faithfully use their information and try to find the best policy for the voter. We discuss the meaning of this model for Politics and prove that the same result holds for any number of voters, provided that parties are expected plurality maximizers and that voters satisfy a version of the sincere voting assumption adapted to this strategic setting.Received: 12 December 2001, Revised: 16 June 2003JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D72, D82.Correspondence to: Jean-François LaslierThanks to Gabrielle Demange, Françoise Forges, Roger Guesnerie, Jean-Fran çois Mertens, Thomas Palfrey, Sylvain Sorin and other participants in workshops and conferences in Caen, Paris, Caltech and Yale. Thanks also to two anonymous referees and to Paul Heidues and Johan Lagerlöf for their comments. This work was originated when K. Van der Straeten was at THEMA (Université de Cergy-Pontoise) and DELTA.     

Price normalization under imperfect competition

In general equilibrium models of imperfect competition the equilibria depend on how prices are normalized. This note shows that a price normalization preserves convexity properties if and only if prices are measured in terms of a fixed commodity bundle. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for helpful comments, inspiring a simplification in the proof of the main result, and the argument in the Remark.     

GDP steady-state multipliers under monopolistic competition revisited

New Keynesian general-equilibrium static models showed the fiscal multiplier is an increasing function of the degree of monopoly. Here, I develop a simple intertemporal model allowing us to study the steady-state role of optimal capital stock (and depreciation) in the fiscal policy transmission mechanism. The GDP multiplier may be locally decreasing in the degree of monopoly when the number of firms is fixed, but results depend strongly on the set of parameter values chosen. Using a net-output definition or allowing for free entry leads to unambiguous dominance of the long-run monopolistic multiplier over the Walrasian one.

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

Strategic incentives under vertical integration: the case of wireline-affiliated wireless carriers and intermodal competition in the US

In its review of the Cingular/AT&T Wireless merger, the FCC noted the potentially conflicting incentives of wireline-affiliated (vertically integrated) versus independent (non-integrated) wireless carriers to act as intermodal competitors in the wireline exchange access market. Specifically, because Cingular and Verizon Wireless are owned by wireline carriers, they may have an incentive to compete “less aggressively” within their parents’ wireline territories while AT&T Wireless, an independent wireless carrier, would not. This paper examines these and other hypotheses by examining pre-merger data on the wireless plans offered by the three carriers. The empirical analysis suggests that AT&T Wireless did not design its plans based upon a regional strategy, whereas Cingular offered substantially smaller-minute wireless plans within its parents’ wireline territories. However, the results also suggest that Verizon Wireless did not design its plans in a markedly different fashion within and outside of its parent’s wireline region. It is posited that these findings might reflect the differing ownership and control structures of Cingular and Verizon Wireless.      

价格竞争还是质量竞争--中国出口产品竞争力的实证研究

中国出口产品普遍被认为“价廉质次”,然而这并不能充分解释中国出口贸易长期增长的实质。对中国2001年加入WTO以来出口产品竞争力的实证研究表明：一方面,中国出口产品的相对单位价格呈现持续下降的趋势,这说明低价竞争是中国出口产品的一个主要特征;另一方面,中国出口产品质量在逐年上升,其中高技术出口产品的质量竞争力较为明显,这说明中国出口产品并未陷入低质量产品的陷阱。在新时期进一步深化对外贸易转型中,把握中国出口产品竞争力特征对我国对外贸易政策制定有重要意义。     

Competition,strategic delegation and delay in technology adoption

This paper examines how strategic managerial delegation affects firms' timing of adoption of a new technology under different modes of product market competition. It demonstrates that strategic delegation has differential impacts on adoption dates under Cournot and Bertrand competitions. Strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes always leads to early adoption in markets with Bertrand competition compared to that under no-delegation, but not necessarily so in markets with Cournot competition. It also shows that under strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption occurs earlier (later) in markets with Cournot competition than in markets with Bertrand competition, if the degree of product differentiation is high (low). In contrast, under strategic delegation with ‘relative-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption dates do not differ across markets with different modes of competition. It also analyses implications of firms' choice over types of managerial incentive schemes on the speed of diffusion of new technology.     

Imperfect competition and capital accumulation: the role of price normalization

We consider a capital-accumulation model with infinitely lived households and two production sectors. The intermediate-good sector is characterized by perfect competition, a constant-returns-to-scale technology, and production externalities. The final-good sector is a monopoly operating under constant returns to scale. We analyze the general equilibrium in the sense of Gabszewicz and Vial [Journal of Economic Theory (1972) 4: 381–400] for this economy and different price-normalization rules. It is shown that the qualitative behavior of the equilibrium paths depends crucially on the chosen normalization rule. In particular, whether equilibria are monotonic or oscillating and whether indeterminacy occurs or not may depend on the choice of the numeraire.     

How large are the gains to commitment policy and optimal delegation for New Zealand?

This paper measures the benefits of commitment-based monetary policy over discretion for a small open economy inflation targeting country—New Zealand. Significant gains accrue from commitment policy. If commitment-based policy is unavailable, the government can recoup much of the gains to commitment through optimal delegation, asking the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to care more about inflation stabilisation. The 1999 PTA, the core of the policy contract between the New Zealand government and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, placed an increased emphasis on stabilisation of output, interest rates and the exchange rate. This is inconsistent with a shift to optimal delegation behaviour and must stem from a changed perception of the welfare costs of macroeconomic stabilization on the part of the Government. This is shown to be true when the definition of inflation is extended to a medium term measure.     

Price competition between big and small supermarkets: evidence from Seoul

This article empirically investigates the level of competition between superstores and smaller retailers in the Korean retail industry where market entry and operational hours of the former are restricted in order to protect the latter. Applying spatial econometric methods to store-level price data from Seoul, we find that while spatial price correlations among same-size stores exist, product prices across different-size stores are spatially uncorrelated. This result implies that consumers may not view superstores’ and smaller retailers’ products as close substitutes, and thus their markets are likely to be segmented from each other.     

COOPERATIVE MANAGERIAL DELEGATION,R&D AND COLLUSION

Existing literature on managerial delegation indicates that collusive outcomes can be obtained in an oligopoly game through cooperative managerial delegation. In contrast, this paper shows that, if managers are delegated to choose R&D, in addition to choosing production levels, full‐collusive outcomes cannot be achieved through cooperative delegation. Moreover, (i) under cooperative delegation, semi‐collusion always yields lower profit, higher R&D, higher price and lower social welfare than that in the case of competition and (ii) cooperative delegation leads to a higher profit lower R&D, higher price and lower social welfare than the no delegation case, irrespective of product market conduct.     

Partial privatization in mixed duopoly with price and quality competition

We analyze price and quality competition in a mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing private firm competes against a state-owned public firm. We first show that the welfare-maximizing public firm provides a lower quality product than the private firm when they are equally efficient. In order to maximize social welfare, government manipulates the objective of the public firm that is given by a convex combination of profits and social welfare. It is demonstrated that an optimal incentive of the public firm is welfare maximization under the absence of quality competition, but it is neither welfare maximization nor profit maximization under the presence of quality competition. The result supports a completely mixed objective between welfare and profit maximizations or partial privatization of the public firm.      

Portfolio delegation under short-selling constraints

Summary. In this paper we study delegated portfolio management when the manager’s ability to short-sell is restricted. Contrary to previous results, we show that under moral hazard, linear performance-adjusted contracts do provide portfolio managers with incentives to gather information. We find that the risk-averse manager’s effort is an increasing function of her share in the portfolio’s return. This result affects the risk-averse investor’s choice of contracts. Unlike previous results, the purely risk-sharing contract is now shown to be suboptimal. Using numerical methods we show that under the optimal linear contract, the manager’s share in the portfolio return is higher than what it is under a purely risk sharing contract. Additionally, this deviation is shown to be: (i) increasing in the manager’s risk aversion and (ii) larger for tighter short-selling restrictions. As the constraint is relaxed the deviation converges to zero.Received: 25 July 2002, Revised: 12 December 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D81, D82, J33.Juan-Pedro Gómez: Correspondence toAn earlier version of the paper was circulated under the title “Providing Managerial Incentives: Do Benchmarks Matter?” We are grateful to an anonymous referee whose comments helped to improve the paper. We also thank comments by Viral Acharya, Alexei Goriaev, Ernst Maug, Kristian Rydqvist, Neil Stoughton, Rangarajan Sundaram, Fernando Zapatero and seminar participants at the 1999 SED meetings in Sardinia, the 1999 Workshop in Mutual Fund Performance at EIASM, Brussels, the 2000 EFA meetings in London, the Bank of Norway, the Stockholm Schools of Economics, the Norwegian School of Management and the 2001 WFA meetings in Tucson. Sharma gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Asociacion Mexicana de Cultura.     

Endogenous fluctuations under evolutionary pressure in Cournot competition

An evolutionary game theoretic model of Cournot competition is investigated. Individuals choose from a finite set of different behavioral rules. Each rule specifies the quantity to be produced in the current period as a function of past quantities. Using more sophisticated rules may require extra information costs. Based upon realized payoffs, the fractions of the population choosing a certain behavioral rule are updated according to the replicator equation with noise. The long-run behavior of the evolutionary system consisting of the population dynamics coupled with the quantity dynamics of the Cournot game may be complicated and endogenous fluctuations may arise. We consider a typical example where firms can choose between two rules: the Nash rule and the best-reply rule. We show that a homoclinic tangency between the stable and unstable manifold of the equilibrium occurs as evolutionary pressure increases, implying bifurcation routes to complicated dynamics and strange attractors.