Differential pricing, parallel trade, and the incentive to invest

I consider the case for imposing uniform pricing on a monopolist in a setting where markets can be segmented according to differences in marginal costs and/or consumer demand. I also analyze the ex ante impact on incentives to invest in R&D. I show how two opposite trade-offs arise. When differential pricing is demand-based, uniform pricing has good ex-post welfare properties but leads to lower investment ex ante. Conversely, when differential pricing is cost-based, uniform pricing has bad ex-post welfare properties but leads to higher investment ex ante.     

Net Neutrality with Competing Internet Platforms

We propose a two‐sided model with two competing Internet platforms, and a continuum of Content Providers (CP's). We study the effect of a net neutrality regulation on capacity investments in the market for Internet access, and on innovation in the market for content. Under the alternative discriminatory regime, platforms charge a priority fee to those CP's which are willing to deliver their content on a fast lane. We find that under discrimination, investments in broadband capacity and content innovation are both higher than under net neutrality. Total welfare increases, though the discriminatory regime is not always beneficial to the platforms as it can intensify competition for subscribers. As platforms have a unilateral incentive to switch to the discriminatory regime, a prisoner's dilemma can arise. We also consider the possibility of sabotage, and show that it can only emerge, with adverse welfare effects, under discrimination.     

Switching Costs in Vertically Related Markets

In the presence of switching costs, firms are ofteninterested in expanding current market shares toexploit their customer base in the future. However, ifthe product is sold by retailers, manufacturers mayface the problem of extracting too much surplus fromthe retailer. If this happens, then the latter has notan incentive to build a subscriber base. This paperwould like to connect two streams in the literature,on switching costs and vertical restraintsrespectively. An upstream–downstream duopoly model ispresented to analyse the mutual incentive for firms toenter into particular trading relationships. Whenswitching costs are high, then integrated structuresare predicted. On the other hand, when lock in effectsare not too relevant, mixed structures withindependent and integrated firms emerge as anequilibrium in growing industries. The results arediscussed with reference to the UK mobiletelecommunications industry.     

新兴市场区位特定优势所带来的超额利润问题探析——服务业和分销业案例

地域优势带来的额外利润问题不仅限于制造业。近年来,跨国公司陆续将服务型和销售型子公司转移至相对低成本的新兴市场,产生了与制造业转移同样的转让定价反避税挑战。在不同的转让定价方法下,处理该类型公司的地域优势问题遇到的挑战有所不同。面对这些挑战,纳税人和税务当局都必须通过客观而严密的经济学分析进行探讨,方能得出一个各方满意的解决方案。     

Entrepreneurial education and learning at universities: exploring multilevel contingencies

Abstract

Despite the worldwide increase in entrepreneurship education offered at universities, there is an ongoing debate whether and under which conditions this type of education contributes to students’ entrepreneurial learning. Building on human capital theory, we hypothesize that the exposure to various entrepreneurship education initiatives has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial learning outcomes. We also argue that this relationship is moderated by the entrepreneurial experience of the students, the teaching pedagogy applied in entrepreneurial initiatives offered at the university and the prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in the country. A multi-level analysis on a cross-country sample of 87,918 students resulting from GUESSS (‘Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey’) strongly confirms our hypotheses, and allows us to discuss implications for researchers, educators and policy makers with respect to the nature of entrepreneurial learning, the design of entrepreneurial education programs, as well as the contextual conditions that impact entrepreneurial learning outcomes.     

Growth accounting for the euro area

This article is concerned with the estimation of euro area potential output growth and its decomposition according to the sources of growth. The growth accounting exercise is based on a multivariate structural time series model which combines the decomposition of total output according to the production function approach with price and wage equations that embody Phillips-type relationships linking inflation and nominal wage dynamics to the output gap and cyclical unemployment, respectively. Assuming a Cobb?CDouglas technology with constant returns to scale, potential output results from the combination of the trend levels of total factor productivity (TFP) and factor inputs, capital and labour (hours worked), which is decomposed into labour intensity (average hours worked), the employment rate, the participation rate and population of working age. The nominal variables (prices and wages) play an essential role in defining the trend levels of the components of potential output, as the latter should pose no inflationary pressures on prices and wages. The structural model is further extended to allow for the estimation of potential output growth and the decomposition according to the sources of growth at different horizons (long run, medium run and short run); in particular, we propose and evaluate a model-based approach to the extraction of the low-pass component of potential output growth at different cut-off frequencies. The approach has two important advantages: the signal extraction filters have an automatic adaptation property at the boundaries of the sample period, so that the real-time estimates do not suffer from what is often referred to as the ??end-of-sample bias??. Secondly, it is possible to assess the uncertainty of potential output growth estimates with different degrees of smoothness.     

Firm Size Distribution in Small Samples

Sutton (1998) has recently proposed a theoretical lower bound to firm size inequality when a market is made of several independent submarkets. His results are valid asymptotically, as the number of submarkets becomes arbitrarily large. We show that, in small samples, his results can be interpreted as a positive relationship between an index of firm size inequality and the number of submarkets. We also test this relationship in the Italian motor insurance market.     

A cross-country panel approach to exploring the determinants of educational equity through PISA data

The main aim of the paper is to analyse the effect of country and school factors on a new measure of educational equity defined as the country proportion of resilient students, i.e. those who, despite their disadvantaged socioeconomic background, are able to obtain good educational results. We construct a cross country panel dataset by merging the five editions of OECD PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The panel analysis allows to exploit country and time level variation in the proportion of resilient students controlling for systematic and institutional differences. Our findings suggest that educational funding can help disadvantaged students to obtain the opportunities that they are otherwise lacking. In addition, this effect seems to be heterogeneous, and particularly driven by those countries whose economic development (in terms of per capita GDP) is lower.     

Price discrimination in input markets

We analyze the short‐ and long‐run implications of third‐degree price discrimination in input markets. In contrast to the extant literature, which typically assumes that the supplier is an unconstrained monopolist, in our model input prices are constrained by the threat of demand‐side substitution. In our model, the more efficient buyer receives a discount. A ban on price discrimination thus benefits smaller but hurts more efficient, larger firms. It also stifles incentives to invest and innovate. With linear demand, a ban on price discrimination benefits consumers in the short run but reduces consumer surplus in the long run, which is once again the opposite of what is found without the threat of demand‐side substitution.     

Unemployment fiscal multipliers

We estimate the effects of fiscal policy on the labor market in US data. An increase in government spending of 1 percent of GDP generates output and unemployment multipliers, respectively, of about 1.2 percent (at one year) and 0.6 percentage points (at the peak). Each percentage point increase in GDP produces an increase in employment of about 1.3 million jobs. Total hours, employment and the job finding probability all rise, whereas the separation rate falls. A standard neoclassical model augmented with search and matching frictions in the labor market largely fails in reproducing the size of the output multiplier whereas it can produce a realistic unemployment multiplier but only under a special parameterization. Extending the model to strengthen the complementarity in preferences, to include unemployment benefits, real wage rigidity and/or debt financing with distortionary taxation only worsens the picture. New Keynesian features only marginally magnify the size of the multipliers. When complementarity is coupled with price stickiness, however, the magnification effect can be large.