Network externalities, discrete demand shifts, and submarginal‐cost pricing

Abstract.  The introduction of a new product often causes a massive (discrete) demand shift to the new product. This study demonstrates that if a large‐scale demand shift to a new product is accompanied by network externalities, it may result in 'submarginal‐cost pricing,' by which the seller sets its price below the marginal cost. This finding casts new light on dumping and safeguard issues in the real world. JEL classification: D42     

Urban Pollution,Unemployment and National Welfare in a Dualistic Economy

This paper undertakes a comparative static analysis in the Harris–Todaro (H–T) model by accommodating local pollution. Unlike in the classical H–T model where migration proceeds in response to urban–rural differences in expected earnings, we consider labor movement taking place according to the difference in utility, which is influenced by the quality of the local environment. The paradoxical result is that an improvement in pollution‐abatement technology gives rise to an increase in urban unemployment and has no effect on the workers' aggregate welfare.     

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。     

A TWO FACTOR MODEL OF INCOME DISTRIBUTION DYNAMICS

This paper analyzes empirical income distributions and proposes a simple stochastic model to explain the stationary distribution and deviations from it. Using the individual tax returns data in the U.S. and Japan for 40 years, we first summarize the shape of the income distribution by an exponential decay up to about the 90th percentile and a power decay for the top 1 percent. We then propose a minimal stochastic process of labor and asset income to reproduce the empirical characteristics. In particular, the Pareto exponent is derived analytically and matched with empirical statistics.     

Location choice,competition, and welfare in non-tradable service FDI

We investigate whether non-tradable service FDI is efficient from a welfare point of view. A fixed number of firms strategically decide which markets to locate in and then compete in quasi-Cournot fashion. Considering firm location in two symmetric markets, non-tradable service FDI may or may not be efficient for the source country, depending on the total number of firms, competition in markets and the curvature of the demand function. In contrast, non-tradable service FDI is always efficient for the host country and the overall economy. This implies that any policy that affects firm location between two symmetric markets will not be beneficial from a welfare viewpoint.     

Working and Training: A Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Human Capital Development

We tend to think of workers completing their education and then entering the workforce, where they will gradually develop their skills. In fact, however, a worker's career may be characterized not only by this gradual buildup of job-related skills but also by recurrent education, i.e. the phenomenon whereby a worker alternates between earning-intensive periods and training-intensive periods along his career path. In this study, we build a dynamic optimization model of earning/training decisions of a worker in which these patterns of his career path can be explained in an integrated manner.     

Does advertising mislead consumers to buy low-quality products?

This paper investigates the interaction between consumer learning and advertising using a simulation model. Consumers use advertising to estimate the quality change, but learn advertising's trustworthiness through their consumption experience. Firms spend on not only advertising but also R&D to improve its product quality, following satisficing principles. We found that, if consumer learning is slow, an advertising-intensive firm captures most of the market in the long run despite its low product quality; in this sense, advertising misleads consumers. When learning is fast or when consumers do not rely on advertising at all, advertising is unlikely to mislead them. Easy imitation of rival products also prevents advertising from being misleading. These results are consistent with existing empirical findings on advertising-quality relationships.     

Equilibrium number of firms and economic welfare in a spatial price discrimination model

We examine welfare implications of the equilibrium number of entering firms in a spatial price discrimination model. In contrast to Salop [Salop, S., 1979. Monopolistic competition with outside goods. Bell Journal of Economics 10, 141–156.], the equilibrium number of firms can be either excessive or insufficient from the normative viewpoint.     

Threshold behavior and aggregate fluctuation

This paper concerns a propagation mechanism in an economy where many individuals follow a threshold rule and interact with a positive feedback. We derive an asymptotic distribution of the propagation size when the number of the agents tends to infinity. The propagation distribution exhibits a slower convergence to a deterministic value than it would if the agents followed a smooth adjustment policy. This gives rise to significant aggregate fluctuations in a finite lumpy-adjusting economy even when the agents are hit by small independent shocks.     

Implementing partial tax harmonization in an asymmetric tax competition game with repeated interaction

This paper investigates the conditions under which partial harmonization for capital taxation is sustained in a repeated interactions model of tax competition when there are three countries with heterogenous capital endowments. We show that regardless of the structure of the coalition (i.e., full or partial tax coordination), whether partial tax harmonization is sustainable or not crucially depends on the extent to which the capital endowment of the medium‐sized country is similar to that of the large or small country. The most noteworthy finding is that the closer the capital endowment of the median country is to the average one, the less likely the tax harmonization including the median country is to prevail and the more likely the partial tax harmonization excluding the median country is to prevail. We also show that partial tax harmonization makes the member countries of the tax union better off and non‐member countries worse off, which stands in sharpe contrast with previous studies, such as Konrad and Schjelderup (1999) and Bucovetsky (2009).