Vertical integration in a monopolistically competitive industry

This paper considers forward vertical integration by a monopolist producer of an intermediate good when the downstream industry is monopolistically competitive. Alternative methods of vertical control are considered in addition to the usual input mark-up; these include franchise fees, royalties, and resale price maintenance. It is found that these methods in combination achieve perfect or near-perfect replication of the outcome under full vertical integration. The case where downstream products are differentiated by location in a circular space is studied in detail, and alternative outcomes are ranked according to their social desirability.     

Bayesian approach to prediction in the presence of outliers for Weibull distribution

The predictive distribution of ther-th order statistics is obtained for the future sample based on the original sample from Weibull distribution in the presence ofk outliers. Next, in the presence ofk outliers two sample case is considered where prediction can be on ther ₂-th order statistics in the second sample based on ther ₁-th order statistics in the first sample. Finally, extension top-sample case is made for a particular case of predicting minimum in thep-th sample based on minimum in earlier samples. An illustration is provided with simulated samples where minimum is actually predicted in one and two sample cases.     

Agrarian Poverty,Nutrition and Economic Class – A Study of Gujarat,India

This paper analyses poverty and calorific undernourishment in the Indian state of Gujarat, where high and market‐led industrial growth has resulted in rapid economic improvement. The study is carried out through a combination of secondary and survey‐based data. We conclude that the neoliberal agenda of uncontrolled, outward‐looking growth has not resulted in significant reduction of poverty or malnourishment in rural areas. Furthermore, while land ownership is officially used as a proxy for wealth distribution, class position appears a better predictor of poverty status in the rural areas than landownership per se. At the policy level, there is a need to revive the agrarian economy and create new non‐agricultural assets, and the primary focus in the state must shift to the distribution of created assets rather than a single‐minded focus on growth.     

Unemployment,tariffs and the theory of international trade

In this paper, we introduce diminishing returns to scale in Brecher's model of international trade with unemployment and then investigate some issues embodied in the theory of international trade. Our principal results are that tariffs need not improve a country's terms of trade and that capital accumulation also need not result in a predictable change in the terms of trade.     

Modeling producer responses with dynamic programming: a case for adaptive crop management

Past research found agricultural producers’ conditional responses during the growing season are important adaptations to weather and other stochastic events. Failing to recognize these responses overstates the risks confronting producers and understates their ability to respond to adverse circumstances. Dynamic programming (DP) provides a means for determining optimal long‐term crop management plans. However, most applications in the literature base their analysis on annual time steps with fixed strategies within the year, effectively ignoring conditional responses during the year. We suggest an alternative approach that captures the strategic responses within a cropping season to random weather variables as they unfold, reflecting farmers’ ability to adapt to weather realizations. We illustrate our approach by applying it to a typical cereal farm in Karak, Jordan. The results show that including conditional within‐year responses to weather reduces the frequency of fallowing by 23% and increases expected income by 9%.     

Corporate governance and returns to emerging economy firm acquisitions in tax havens: An empirical test on Indian firms

Cross‐border acquisitions (CBAs) by emerging economy firms are known to yield positive stockholder returns. A nontrivial fraction of CBAs by emerging economy firms are in tax havens. We argue because of weak corporate governance in emerging economies and the secrecy afforded by tax havens, emerging economy firm CBAs in tax havens yield lower stockholder returns than their CBAs in nontax havens. We also argue the negative effect of tax haven destinations is greater for firms with greater business group ownership and for firms with greater foreign insider ownership. Furthermore, we argue the negative effect of tax haven destinations is mitigated for firms whose stock is actively traded in the market. Empirical tests in a sample of nearly 800 CBAs by Indian firms from 2002 to 2011 support our hypotheses. Our study contributes to a better understanding of stockholder returns to CBAs by emerging economy firms and the influence of corporate governance on these returns.     

The multi-country transfer problem

A general formula is derived for the welfare effects of a set of transfers among several countries in a two-good model with production and substitution, and compatible with Walrasian stability. The relation to recent work on transfer paradoxes is sketched.