Input substitutability and vertical integration

Input substitutability in final production is a well-known motive for noncompetitive input producers to integrate with their customers. In models that characterize the noncompetitive input industry as a pure monopoly, whether such integration would increase or decrease final production is ambiguous. The analysis here breaks the total output effect into factor substitution and market power components and discovers that the output ambiguity is sensitive to the specific model of noncompetitive equilibrium assumed. For the empirically most important cases of industrial organization, the sole effect of input substitutability on output is likely to be an unambiguous output increase.For their helpful comments, I am indebted to Stephen Karlson, Li Way Lee, W. G. Shepherd, Stephen Spurr, Hal Varian, and the referee. Any errors in the paper persist in spite of them.     

Resale price maintenance in a model of consumer search

A retail search model of Salop and Stiglitz (1977) is adapted to analyze manufacturer incentives for resale price maintenance. For some retailer cost functions and distributions of consumer search costs, imposition of a minimum price for retailers causes a price distribution to collapse to an intermediate price. Manufacturers may benefit from price floors when sales to high-search-cost consumers that have obtained lower prices increase sufficiently so as to offset decreased sales to other consumers facing higher prices. In contrast to previous work, no free-riding problem with respect to dealer services is necessary for manufacturers to prefer banning discounting of their products.     

A new approach to estimation of the effects of non-tariff barriers to trade: An application to the Swedish textile and clothing industry

Zusammenfassung Ein neuer Ansatz zur Sch?tzung der Wirkungen von nichttarif?ren Handelsschranken: Eine Anwendung auf die schwedische Textil-und Bekleidungsindustrie. — Der Aufsatz hat das Ziel, die Wirkungen abzusch?tzen, die sich aus den Ver?nderungen der nichttarif?ren Handelsschranken für Preise, Besch?ftigung und Einfuhrvolumen ergeben. Um diese Wirkungen zu untersuchen, wurde ein Ansatz benutzt, der mindestens drei Vorzüge gegenüber denjenigen hat, mit denen in anderen Studien die Folgen der verst?rkten Entwicklungsl?nder-exporte für die Industriel?nder analysiert wurden. Erstens bringt er ausdrücklich die Preise ins Spiel, wodurch die M?glichkeit er?ffnet wird, den Gewinn abzusch?tzen, den die Konsumenten infolge erh?hter Importe und die Entwicklungsl?nder infolge erh?hter Exporte haben. Zweitens wird in dieser Untersuchung die potentielle Arbeitslosigkeit in den Grenzbetrieben der einzelnen Branchen ermittelt, woraus sich eine Nachfragekurve für Arbeit ableiten l?\t, die dem jeweiligen Industriezweig und dem jeweiligen Jahr zugeordnet werden kann. In anderen Studien wurde h?ufig der durchschnittliche Arbeits-Output-Koeffizient benutzt. Da sich die Grenzbetriebe feststellen lassen, kann drittens genau angegeben werden, wie die potentielle Arbeitslosigkeit des Industriezweiges regional verteilt sein wird.

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Résumé Une nouvelle approche pour l’estimation des effets des barrières non-tarifaires au commerce extérieur: Une application à l’industrie suédoise de textile et de vêtement. — Cet article envisage d’estimer les effets des changements dans les barrières non-tarifaires au commerce extérieur sur les prix, l’emploi et le volume d’importation. Pour analyser ces effets nous avons appliqué une approche qui a au moins trois avantages comparé à celles qui sont appliquées dans d’autres études qui analysent l’effet des exportations augmentées des PVD sur les économies des pays developpés. Premièrement, elle expressément introduit les prix dans l’analyse et ainsi offre la possibilité d’estimer les gains consommatrices des importations augmentées aussi bien que les gains pour les PVD en conséquence des exportations élevées. Deuxièmement, nous identifions dans notre étude le ch?mage potentiel dans les usines industrielles marginales et dérivons une courbe de demande de travail qui est spécifique pour l’industrie et l’année correspondante. Dans d’autres recherches on a souvent utilisé des rapports moyens de travail/produit. Troisèmement, comme nous pouvons identifier les usines marginales nous pouvons aussi précisément dépein-dre la distribution régionale du ch?mage potentiel de l’industrie.

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Resumen Un nuevo enfoque para la estimación de los efectos de barreras comerciales que no sean tarifas: Una aplicación para el caso de la industria textil y de confectión sueca. — El estudio intenta estimar el impacto sobre precios, empleo y volumen de las importaciones, de cambios en las barreras comerciales con ex-clusión de tarifas. Para analizar estos efectos se utiliza un enfoque que tiene por lo menos tres ventajas con respecto a los normalmente empleados en estudios que analizan el impacto de un aumento de las exportaciones de países en desarrollo sobre las economfas desarrolladas. Primeramente, los precios son considerados explícita-mente en el análisis, permitiendo así la posibilidad de estimar la ganancia del con-sumidor a través de un incremento en las importaciones y el beneficio para los países en desarrollo proveniente de un aumento en las exportaciones. En segundo lugar, en el análisis se identifica el desempleo potencial en las empresas marginales de la industria y se deriva una curva de demanda laboral relativa a la industria y ano considerados. En otros estudios se ha utilizado generalmente un promedio de la relatión empleo-producto. Finalmente, como las empresas marginales pueden ser identificadas, es posible ilustrar de forma precisa, la distribución regional del des-empleo potencial en la industria.

     

Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries

Augmented measures of savings and wealth in the national accountsare critical to conceptualizing and achieving sustainable development.After developing the theory of genuine savings—traditionalnet savings less the value of resource depletion and environmentaldegradation plus the value of investment in human capital—thisarticle presents empirical estimates for developing countries.These calculations account for resource depletion and carbondioxide emissions, using consistent time series data for 1970–93.The empirical evidence shows that levels of genuine savingsare negative in a wide range of countries, particularly in Sub-SaharanAfrica, and that these countries are being progressively impoverished.Increasing the coverage of natural resources and pollutantsin our calculations would reduce the estimated levels of genuinesavings overall. The use of genuine savings measures suggestsa series of policy questions that are key to sustaining development.These are also explored, specifically the extent to which monetaryand fiscal policies, exports of exhaustible resources, strongerresource policies, and pollution abatement measures boost genuinesavings rates. For policymakers, linking sustainable developmentto genuine savings rates means that there are many possibleinterventions to increase sustainability, from the macroeconomicto the purely environmental.     

Strategic Environmental Policy and International Trade in Asymmetric Oligopoly Markets

This paper examines optimal cooperative and non-cooperative environmental taxes for the case in which a polluting input is used to produce an internationally-traded finished product. The model allows for terms-of-trade effects under oligopoly and employs a general specification of the environmental damage function that encompasses special cases of local, global, and transboundary externalities. The model has several implications for public finance. For example, inefficiently high environmental taxes may be optimal for a net exporting country in non-cooperative circumstances, as the motive to shift rent by selecting an inefficiently low tax rate is countervailed by the incentive to shift the burden of the tax to foreign consumers. The findings identify the important role of asymmetric trade flows (denominated in both goods and pollution exchange) in determining optimal cooperative and non-cooperative tax policy under oligopoly.     

Experiences of high-growth technology firms in Malaysia and New Zealand

How do technology firms experience high growth and the support available from governments? This qualitative study explores the experiences of high-growth technology-based firms in Malaysia and New Zealand. Case studies were developed for eight high-growth companies in the information and communication technology sectors of each country. The countries differ in national cultures and the forms of government support. There were no marked country differences in growth drivers. Growth was driven by innovation and flexibility within business-to-business sales relationships. These firms faced four obstacles: intense competition; liabilities of smallness; limited human capital; and funding ability. Malaysia offers broader mainstream support with favourable tax treatment of R&;D related expenditure. In contrast, New Zealand’s has been criticised for a highly targeted approach, although this is now broadening. Both countries appear to be converging on a hybrid approach combining mainstream and targeted support for growth businesses.     

Progress along the path: evolving issues in the measurement of genuine saving

More than 10 years since a practical linkage between sustainable development and a measure of national wealth—expanded to include natural and environmental resources—was first posited, the empirical estimation of adjusted net savings, dubbed ‘genuine’ saving, has evolved considerably. In this paper we take stock of both progress achieved and the challenges that remain. We begin by recalling the key points made in Pearce and Atkinson (1993, Ecol Econ 8, 103), which presented the first cross-country estimates of savings rates adjusted to reflect depletion and degradation of the environment. We then briefly summarise the evolution of the theoretical argument linking savings and sustainability. However, the main focus of this paper is an aspect that concerned David Pearce greatly, namely the evolution of the measurement of genuine savings. We identify and consider the empirical evidence with regard to two particular measurement issues: the valuation of exhaustible resources and environmental degradation. Common to the both issues are concerns about measuring changes in national wealth in real world economies.      

Contributions to Canadian economic history: The last 30 years

The cliometric revolution that transformed economic history in the US in the 1960s was soon embraced by Canadian economic historians. Many of the important issues surrounding Canadian development remained the same: the role of resources, the place of international trade, immigration, capital accumulation and interactions with Native Americans, among others. But beginning in the 1960s, and certainly over the last 30 years, economic historians of Canada have addressed them with the tools of modern economics, both theoretical and empirical. We highlight the recent work emphasizing not just the methods but also the fundamental ways our understanding of Canadian history has been changed.     

SO2 policy and input substitution under spatial monopoly

Following the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, electric utilities dramatically increased their utilization of low-sulfur coal from the Powder River Basin (PRB). Recent studies indicate that railroads hauling PRB coal exercise a substantial degree of market power and that relative price changes in the mining and transportation sectors were contributing factors to the observed pattern of input substitution. This paper asks the related question: To what extent does more stringent SO₂ policy stimulate input substitution from high-sulfur coal to low-sulfur coal when railroads hauling low-sulfur coal exercise spatial monopoly power? The question underpins the effectiveness of incentive-based environmental policies given the essential role of market performance in input, output, and abatement markets in determining the social cost of regulation. Our analysis indicates that environmental regulation leads to negligible input substitution effects when clean and dirty inputs are highly substitutable and the clean input market is mediated by a spatial monopolist.