Competition and UK Defence Policy

Defence is a 'public good' that economists (until recently) have regarded as necessarily supplied by government. But it can use the market to maximise efficiency and minimise costs. Dr Hartley shows how, and with what results.     

产业政策、产品市场竞争与企业债务融资

关注产业发展和资源配置效率,现实考察特定行业的企业融资效率,不仅需要分析产业政策的冲击,还需重点检验产品市场竞争的影响。选取A股非金融类上市公司2006-2015年数据为研究样本,统计分析我国产业政策对企业债务融资的影响,并结合产品市场竞争分析产业政策影响下银行的信贷资金配置效率。结果表明,相比未受产业政策支持的行业企业,受产业政策支持的行业企业债务水平较高,且产品市场竞争越激烈,这种正向效应越强。研究结论对于产业政策的有效实施和信贷资源的优化配置具有重要启示。     

New Directions in Competition Policy

‘When a man has learnt his lesson very well, it surely can be of little importance where or from whom he learnt it.’ The paper discusses whether universities can continue to be the‘template for the extension and transmission of knowledge.’Technical and social changes are already undermining the universities’previous near-monopoly of delivery of higher education. Alternative delivery methods ought to be considered on their own merits and barriers to entry should be removed. The ideal form of higher education is not necessarily residence combined with traditional teaching and associated research.     

Can We Privatise Competition Policy?

How large a role is there for government in competition policy? Graham Mather, general director of the Institute of Economic Affairs and a part-time member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, argues the case for loosening the Stock Exchange listing requirements.     

“店选网购”的竞争效应及其反垄断政策涵义

随着互联网和电子商务的发展,消费者在店商试选后以较低价格从网商购买商品的“店选网购”现象非常普遍,厂商或店商经常以其存在搭便车问题为由采取维持转售价格予以限制。本文通过构建具有横向差异化的霍特林模型,考察“店选网购”的竞争效应。研究表明,尽管“店选网购”存在搭便车问题,却能促进店商与网商间的竞争,降低店商和网商的价格和利润,使消费者从中获益,但对社会福利的影响结果是不明确的;其反垄断政策涵义是,“店选网购”具有促进竞争和存在搭便车问题的双重特性,不能简单地作为豁免维持转售价格的正当理由,而应根据实际情况具体分析。     

Competition, Imperfect Competition, and Dynamic Market Processes

Abstract . Contrary to the conventional hypothesis, the structural elements on the supply side of free product markets are not stable. The variability in the structures of free markets is readily apparent in an appropriate analysis of the emergence, growth, and maturity of free product markets. In this analysis, supply-side entrepreneurship plays a prominent role—one which is only imputed to entrepreneurship in the conventional specification of market conditions. In order to correct this deficiency in the conventional specification, an alternative specification is summarized in which are treated explicitly the effects of entrepreneurial activity with respect to the discovery and development of economically feasible new products and processes and the choice of and variations in the quality characteristics of the products of individual firms. This indicates that firms can and do influence the stage of development—and hence the related size—of a market and their relative shares of it by new product and process development and the quality of their output. In this way entrepreneurial activity affects particular product market structures.     

The Case for International Competition Among Economic Policy Makers

How can governments and civil servants be controlled? Professor Roland Vaubel, of the University of Mannheim, explains how competition between nations improves economic policy.     

Product Market Competition,Monetary Policy Regimes and Inflation Dynamics: Evidence from a Panel of OECD Countries

We empirically analyze the impact of product market competition on the responsiveness of inflation to macroeconomic imbalances. If competition is high the response of inflation to lagged inflation, unemployment and import prices is reduced, while inflation is more responsive to changes in productivity growth in countries in which competition is above the OECD average. Given the (‘good luck’) macroeconomic trajectories of the 1990s–2000s, the structural reforms that made goods markets more competitive improved the ability of OECD economies to smooth (dis)inflationary shocks, while changes in the monetary policy framework had a modest role in taming inflation during the Great Moderation.     

Competition,regulation and bribery

Bribery of government officials is commonly used to obtain contracts in many foreign countries. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) made it illegal for US firms to pay bribes, even in the absence of regulation on the bribe-taking side of the transaction. Opponents of the law claimed it would put US firms at a competitive disadvantage relative to foreign suppliers who were not subject to the same regulation. This paper models the effects of two types of anti-bribery regulation. In general, regulation of bribe takers reduces the disciplinary effect of competition and is ineffective in deterring bribery unless the penalties exceed the gains. The impact of regulation of bribe payers (i.e. suppliers) depends on whether the law is applicable to all bribe payers, firms' costs and the existence of contract price constraints on the purchasing side of the transaction. The results lead to empirically testable hypotheses about US exports to bribery-prone countries.     

Downstream Competition, Bargaining, and Welfare

I analyze the effects of downstream competition when there is bargaining between downstream firms and upstream agents (firms or unions). When bargaining is over a uniform input price, a decrease in the intensity of competition (or a merger) between downstream firms may raise consumer surplus and overall welfare. When bargaining is over a two-part tariff, a decrease in the intensity of competition reduces downstream profits and upstream utility and raises consumer surplus and overall welfare. Standard welfare results of oligopoly theory can be reversed: less competition can be unprofitable for firms and/or beneficial for consumers and society as a whole.     

垄断、竞争与经济增长

一个国家经济增长的实质就是垄断的不断形成与竞争逐渐产生的过程。没有垄断,经济增长就缺乏后劲;没有竞争,经济增长就失去了动力。垄断并非十恶不赦,它有其存在的基础,也有它消失的理由;新的垄断需不断问世,旧的垄断要及时退出历史舞台,只有这样,经济的持续增长才能实现。     

Competition,work rules and productivity

I develop a theory to explain why workers want restrictive work rules, those that induce wages to be paid for non-productive labor hours, and why competition reduces them. Work rules allow workers to maintain both high levels of employment and wages. They generate a fixed payment that transfers the firm׳s surplus to workers, which wages alone cannot do, making them robust to alternative modeling assumptions. Competition loosens work rules by reducing the firm׳s surplus, which increases productivity.     

Downstream Competition, Foreclosure, and Vertical Integration

This paper analyzes the effect of competition among downstream firms on an upstream firm's payoff and on its incentive to integrate vertically when firms in both segments negotiate optimal contracts. We argue that as downstream competition becomes more intense, the upstream firm obtains a larger share of a smaller downstream industry profit. The upstream firm may encourage downstream competition (even excessively) in response to high downstream bargaining power. The option of vertical integration may be a barrier to entry downstream and may trigger strategic horizontal spinoffs or mergers. We extend the analysis to upstream competition.     

Systems Competition, Vertical Merger, and Foreclosure

We address the possibility of foreclosure in markets where the final good consists of a system composed of a hardware good and complementary software and the value of the system depends on the availability of software. Foreclosure occurs when a hardware firm merges with a software firm and the integrated firm makes its software incompatible with a rival technology or system. We find that foreclosure can be an equilibrium outcome where both the merger and compatibility decisions are part of a multistage game which permits the foreclosed hardware firm to play a number of counter-strategies. Further, foreclosure can be an effective strategy to monopolize the hardware market.     

基于国防工业市场形成有效竞争的政策思考

竞争是市场经济得以维持和运转不可或缺的重要因素,是改进商品生产最有效的激励机制,没有竞争就没有市场经济。国防工业作为国家的战略产业,引入竞争已成为大势所趋。正是基于国防工业引入竞争的需要及我国国防工业市场的现状,本文研究了政府促成国防工业推行有效竞争应采取的政策     

财务杠杆、投资行为与企业竞争优势——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

以我国2001～2005年度工业类307家上市公司的面板数据为基础,运用因子分析和数据包络分析方法构建企业竞争优势变量,对财务杠杆、固定资产投资、无形资产投资与企业竞争优势之间的关系进行实证分析.结果表明,上市公司的财务杠杆与企业竞争优势显著负相关,固定资产投资与企业竞争优势显著正相关;但与低杠杆企业相比,扩大固定资产投资对于增强高负债企业竞争优势的作用更不明显.     

Knowledge Spillovers,Competition and Innovation Success

We study the relationship between a patent-based measure of knowledge spillovers that calculates technological proximity based on technologically relevant firms and innovation success. We find – for a representative sample of Swiss firms – that knowledge spillovers have a positive and significant association with the commercial success of innovative products. The paper shows the importance of market conditions for the relationship of spillovers with innovation performance: It is only positive and significant in markets with a medium number of competitors in the main product market, but not in monopolistic or polypolistic market structures.     

Multimarket Competition,Mobility Barriers,and Firm Performance

This study develops and tests a theoretical framework which suggests interactive dynamics, with strong performance implications, between the height of mobility barriers surrounding strategic groups and the extent of within‐group multimarket competition. Empirical analysis drawn from a longitudinal sample of pharmaceutical firms indicates that within‐group multimarket competition has strong positive effect on firm performance for strategic groups surrounded by high mobility barriers. As we move lower on the mobility barriers hierarchy, this effect decreases, becoming non‐significant for groups surrounded by moderate mobility barriers and negative for groups surrounded by low mobility barriers. These findings highlight the conditions under which mobility barriers and multimarket competition have significant performance implications. In addition, our results suggest that mobility barriers and multimarket competition are not substitutive but complementary devices promoting mutual coordination within strategic groups. Finally, our findings point to the need to consider multimarket contacts as an aggregate property of strategic groups.