Strategic policy for product R&D with symmetric costs

Abstract.  In this paper I examine strategic policy for product R&D in an international duopoly where domestic and foreign firms are identical. It is shown that strategic R&D policy is described by a subsidy schedule contingent on firms' quality choices. Unilateral policy enables its domestic firm to produce a high‐quality product, making equilibrium outcome unique. With two active governments, in equilibrium they implement different subsidy schedules. Two equilibrium outcomes exist, which are identical except for the identity of the countries. Thus, both countries have an equal chance to become the high‐quality exporter. Both Bertrand and Cournot cases are examined. JEL classification: F12, F13
Politique stratégique pour le R&D dans le développement de nouveaux produits quand les coûts sont symétriques.  Ce mémoire examine la politique stratégique pour le R&D dans le développement de produits nouveaux dans un duopole international où les entreprises domestique et étrangère sont identiques. On montre que cette politique est décrite par cédules de subventions qui dépendent des choix du niveau de qualité des entreprises. Une politique unilatérale permet à l'entreprise domestique de manufacturer un produit de haute qualité– ce qui engendre des résultats d'équilibre uniques. Si deux gouvernements sont actifs, en équilibre, ils mettent en place des cédules de subventions différentes. Deux résultats d'équilibre existent qui sont identiques sauf pour l'identité des pays. Donc les deux pays ont une chance égale de devenir l'exportateur du produit de haute qualité. On examine les cas de figure à la Bertrand et à la Cournot.     

Target Costing Performance Based on Alternative Participation and Evaluation Methods: A Laboratory Experiment

This paper deals with the motivational impacts of alternative participation and performance-evaluation methods on the cost- reduction performance of product designers in the product development process. Alternative participation methods for establishing the target cost consist of the participative and the nonparticipative approaches. Also, the alternative performance-evaluation methods include evaluations based on only the controllable item measure and on both controllable and uncontrollable items measures. To test the hypothesis which are proposed with respect to the above impacts, a laboratory experiment was conducted on 120 subjects. When participation and performance evaluation factors are considered separately, the cost-reduction performance of product designers is improved if they can participate in the target-setting process and are evaluated by their controllable item information. In investigating their joint influence, it is found that the combination of the participative method and controllable item and nonparticipative and uncontrollable item information have improved cost-reduction performance. Among all the independent variables, controllable item information is the most dominant variable as it has the strongest influence on cost reduction. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ON THE INFORMATIONAL EFFECT OF SHORT‐SALES CONSTRAINTS: EVIDENCE FROM THE TOKYO STOCK EXCHANGE

Using a database of stock lending fees for Japanese centralized margin transactions, I show that short‐sales constraints reduce the adjustment speed of stock prices to negative information before the announcements of revised earnings forecasts disclosed by firms in the Tokyo Stock Exchange from July 1998 to December 2001. I find that the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of the stocks with high short‐sales costs are insensitive to negative information on pre‐announcement days, but the CARs of these stocks become significantly lower than the CARs of the stocks with low short‐sales costs when the announcements reveal negative information to the public.     

Pricing Options With Curved Boundaries1

This paper provides a general valuation method for the European options whose payoff is restricted by curved boundaries contractually set on the underlying asset price process when it follows the geometric Brownian motion. Our result is based on the generalization of the Levy formula on the Brownian motion by T. W. Anderson in sequential analysis. We give the explicit probability formula that the geometric Brownian motion reaches in an interval at the maturity date without hitting either the lower or the upper curved boundaries. Although the general pricing formulae for options with boundaries are expressed as infinite series in the general case, our numerical study suggests that the convergence of the series is rapid. Our results include the formulae for options with a lower boundary by Merton (1973), for path-dependent options by Goldman, Sossin, and Gatto (1979), and for some corporate securities as special cases.     

Some properties of the LIML estimator in a dynamic panel structural equation

We investigate the finite sample and asymptotic properties of the within-groups (WG), the random-effects quasi-maximum likelihood (RQML), the generalized method of moment (GMM) and the limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) estimators for a panel autoregressive structural equation model with random effects when both T (time-dimension) and N (cross-section dimension) are large. When we use the forward-filtering due to Alvarez and Arellano (2003), the WG, the RQML and GMM estimators are significantly biased when both T and N are large while T/N is different from zero. The LIML estimator gives desirable asymptotic properties when T/N converges to a constant.