Upstream conduct and price authority with competing organizations

We characterize the degree of price authority that competing upstream principals award their downstream agents in a setting where these agents own private information about demand and incur nonverifiable distribution costs. Principals cannot internalize these costs through monetary incentives and design “permission sets” from which agents choose prices. The objective is to understand the forces shaping delegation and the constraints imposed on equilibrium prices. When principals behave noncooperatively, agents are biased toward excessively high prices because they pass on distribution costs to consumers. Hence, the permission set only features a price cap that is more likely to bind as products become closer substitutes, in sectors where distribution is sufficiently costly, and when demand is not too volatile. By contrast, when principals behave cooperatively, the optimal delegation scheme is richer and more complex. Because principals want to charge the monopoly price, the optimal permission set features a price floor when the distribution cost is sufficiently low, it features instead full discretion for moderate values of this cost, and only when it is high enough, a price cap is optimal. Surprisingly, while competition (as captured by stronger product substitutability) hinders delegation in the noncooperative regime, the opposite occurs when principals maximize industry profit.     

Fractionalization and long-run economic growth: webs and direction of association between the economic and the social -- South Africa as a time series case study

In this paper it is considered that the relationship between nominal exchange rate and prices depends on the nature of the shocks impacting the economy. In order to identify the sources of nominal exchange rate and relative price fluctuations we impose long-run restrictions on the dynamics of these variables through a 2-variable and 3-variable SVAR, respectively. This methodology is applied to data on the Spanish economy and find that supply and real demand shocks move nominal exchange rates and relative prices in opposite directions. Nominal shocks, however, move both variables in the same direction. Thus, in this case, only under nominal shocks may exchange rate depreciations fuel inflation.     

Fiscal response to the COVID-19 crisis in advanced and emerging market economies†

The fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 crisis was swift and strong, in tandem with monetary policy. Advanced economies (AEs) deployed a much larger fiscal response than emerging market economies (EMEs) throughout the pandemic. This study focuses on the drivers of this divergent fiscal response in the first months of the pandemic. Apart from the fact that EMEs entered the crisis later than AEs, narrower fiscal policy space in EMEs, further reduced by the tightening of their financing conditions in the early stages of the pandemic, constrained their fiscal response. The size and composition of the fiscal response also depended on some structural factors, such as the level of income, the strength of the social safety nets and automatic stabilisers.     

Innovation in foreign enterprises: the influence exerted by location and absorptive capacity

ABSTRACT

This paper has as its aim to analyse multinational enterprises’ location decisions from the perspective of the knowledge-based firm in an attempt to answer the following questions: Are innovative MNEs more likely to be located in areas with a higher degree of agglomeration? Who benefits to a greater extent ? in terms of innovation ? from geographical proximity with other agents: national or foreign enterprises? What role does absorptive capacity play in the relationship between agglomeration and innovation? According to this research work, agglomeration differently influences the innovation of MNE subsidiaries – through knowledge spillovers – depending on the types of agglomerated companies. The analysis performed with a sample of firms located in Spain includes local and foreign companies and uses data from a survey conducted by the National Statistics Institute (INE for its Spanish initials) in 2016. The results show that the agglomeration of similar enterprises favours innovation amongst foreign firms, as opposed to local ones, which absorb both positive and negative effects.     

Are low-price promises collusion guarantees? An experimental test of price matching policies

In a symmetric differentiated experimental duopoly we test the ability of Price Matching Guarantees (PMG) to raise prices above the competitive levels. PMG are introduced both as a market rule (the selling price is always the lowest posted price) and as a business strategy (subjects decide whether or not to offer them). Our results show that PMG lead to a clear collusive outcome as markets quickly and fully converge to the collusive prediction if PMG are imposed as a market rule. Whenever subjects are allowed to decide whether to adopt PMG or not we observe that almost all subjects decide to adopt them and prices get very close to the collusive ones.      

Location in scientific-technological parks,dynamic capabilities,and innovation

Determining the sources of business success in highly dynamic and turbulent environments is very complicated. A broad consensus exists in this respect about the need to contemplate the innovation as a key element for competitiveness. This reasoning stems from its positive effects on growth and on efficiency, of innovative firms in comparison with non-innovative ones. Geographical location provides a unique and different context and this paper aims to analyse the influence exerted by the territory on dynamic capabilities and, consequently, on business competitiveness. Using a sample of 610 high-technology companies drawn from the Technological Innovation Panel (2012), it is confirmed not only that firms located in scientific-technological parks are more innovative but also that dynamic capabilities play a mediating role in this relationship.     

Robust design in multivariate systems using genetic algorithms

This paper presents a methodology based on genetic algorithms, which finds feasible and reasonably adequate solutions to problems of robust design in multivariate systems. We use a genetic algorithm to determine the appropriate control factor levels for simultaneously optimizing all of the responses of the system, considering the noise factors which affect it. The algorithm is guided by a desirability function which works with only one fitness function although the system may have many responses. We validated the methodology using data obtained from a real system and also from a process simulator, considering univariate and multivariate systems. In all cases, the methodology delivered feasible solutions, which accomplished the goals of robust design: obtain responses very close to the target values of each of them, and with minimum variability. Regarding the adjustment of the mean of each response to the target value, the algorithm performed very well. However, only in some of the multivariate cases, the algorithm was able to significantly reduce the variability of the responses.     

Leadership and overcoming coordination failure with asymmetric costs

We study how the heterogeneity of agents affects the extent to which changes in financial incentives can pull a group out of a situation of coordination failure. We focus on the connections between cost asymmetries and leadership. Experimental subjects interact in groups of four in a series of weak-link games. The treatment variable is the distribution of high and low effort cost across subjects. We present data for one, two and three low-cost subjects as well as control sessions with symmetric costs. The overall pattern of coordination improvement is common across treatments. Early coordination improvements depend on the distribution of high and low effort costs across subjects, but these differences disappear with time. We find that initial leadership in overcoming coordination failure is not driven by low-cost subjects but by subjects with the most common cost type. This conformity effect may be due to a kind of group identity or to the cognitive simplicity of acting with identical others.