“When Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade?”: New Insights from Asymmetric Information when Supply Chains Compete

We study a model of competing manufacturer/retailer pairs where adverse selection and moral hazard are coupled with promotional externalities at the downstream level. In contrast to earlier models mainly focusing on a bilateral monopoly setting, we show that with competing brands a ‘laissez‐faire’ approach towards vertical price control might not always promote productive efficiency. Giving manufacturers freedom to control retail prices is more likely to harm consumers when retailers impose positive promotional externalities on each other, and the converse is true otherwise. Our simple model also suggests that, with competing supply chains, consumers and manufacturers might prefer different contractual modes if promotional externalities have substantial effects on demands.     

On the relationship between energy-related plants and oncological cases in Basilicata (Italy) using soft computing methods

Quality & Quantity - In Basilicata (Southern Italy), in areas around energy-related plants, including oil extraction sites, oil refineries, and underground gas storage plants, we consider a set...     

What drives the growth of academic spin-offs? Matching academics,universities, and non-research organizations

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This paper aims to contribute to the on-going debate on the factors that affect the growth of academic spin-off firms (ASOs) in the...     

Unawareness and bankruptcy: A general equilibrium model

Summary. We present a consistent pure-exchange general equilibrium model where agents may not be able to foresee all possible future contingencies. In this context, even with nominal assets and complete asset markets, an equilibrium may not exist without appropriate assumptions. Specific examples are provided. An existence result is proved under the main assumption that there are sufficiently many states that all the agents foresee. An intrinsic feature of the model is bankruptcy, which agents may involuntarily experience in the unforeseen states. Received: April 23, 1997; revised version: May 19, 1997     

Fiscal Residuum and Localization of Foreign Direct Investments among Chinese Provinces

This paper examines the impact of fiscal residuum--the excess of expenditure benefits over tax burdens--on the location choice of foreign direct investments among China＇s provinces. Using data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics of China we propose two fiscal residuum indexes for China＇s provinces over the period 1998-2004. According to Buchanan＇s original definition of fiscal residuum a first index is given by the difference between government expenditure and revenue. A second index measures enterprises＇ net fiscal benefit and is calculated as the difference between public expenditure that affect business activities and taxes paid by enterprises. We found that the first index does not significantly affect the FDI localization choice while the second one positively affects it. When looking at different subsets of provinces we found that for eastern provinces the first index has a positive and significant effect. These results confirm the role of the net fiscal benefit as a determinant of FDI inflows at the provincial level.