Standardization in electronic money

Abstract

Electronic money services are provided by the combination of Integrated Circuit (IC) cards and terminals. The compatibility of different brands of electronic money can be enabled by firms' joint adoption of standard terminals. In this paper, we analyse the effect of achieving compatibility among different brands of electronic money. We show that, if the unit production cost of a standard terminal is not so much different from that of a non-standard one, firms' joint adoption of standard terminals will increase the total sales of IC cards and the network size of terminals, thus raising consumers' surplus and firms' profits. On the other hand, if the unit cost of a standard terminal is so high that firms are discouraged from voluntarily adopting standard ones, the government may employ subsides to enhance efficiency. However, if the duty of implementing standardization is placed solely on the firms without subsidies, all the agents, including consumers and retailers, will be left worse off.     

A Pre-purchase Product Trial of a Monopolist with Multiple Products

For the heterogeneous consumers who do not know their individual utilities from a new product, a pre-purchase product trial would be helpful. We found out that a monopoly firm with two similar products would have a strong incentive not to allow a pre-purchase product trial, even though it is socially optimal to allow it. Furthermore, it is more likely for a monopoly firm with a pre-purchase product trial policy to introduce a new product to the market when introducing a new product is socially optimal.     

Nonlinear Mean Reversion across National Stock Markets: Evidence from Emerging Asian Markets

This paper seeks empirical evidence of nonlinear mean-reversion in relative national stock price indices for Emerging Asian countries. It is well known that conventional linear unit root tests suffer from low power against the stationary nonlinear alternative. Implementing the nonlinear unit root tests proposed by Kapetanios et al. (2003 Kapetanios, G., Shin, Y. and Snell, A. 2003. Testing for a unit root in the nonlinear STAR framework. Journal of Econometrics, 112: 359–379. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Cerrato et al. (2009 Cerrato, M., de Peretti, C., Larsson, R. and Sarantis, N. 2009. “A nonlinear panel unit root test under cross section dependence”. Working Papers 28, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow [Google Scholar]) for the relative stock prices of Emerging Asian markets, we find strong evidence of nonlinear mean reversion, whereas linear tests fail to reject the unit root null for most cases. We also report some evidence that stock markets in China and Taiwan are highly localized.     

The Effects of Tariffs and Export Subsidies on Entry Barriers and Investment

This paper explains the effects of unilateral tariffs and export subsidies on entry decisions in an imperfectly competitive industry, and suggests that carefully targeted trade policies play a strategic role in shifting the industry structure and the terms of subsequent competition. The model provides a new justification for tariffs which is different from the traditional infant industry argument; the tariff affects foreign firms' reactions as well as those of the domestic firms. [410]     

The Permanent Export Hypothesis and Foreign Trade of a Centrally Planned Economy: A Case Study of North Korea

Huge outstanding debts of Third World Centrally Planned Economies(CPEs) notwithstanding, their trades with industrialized countries have been continuing briskly. In order to safeguard against an aggravation of current debts of the CPE, however, an industrialized country determines annually the maximum amount of imports permitted for a CPE on the basis of the CPE's permanent exports. This paper attempts to develop a permanent export model and apply it to the foreign trade of North Korea. [F 14]     

Economics of scale and scope in multiproduct firms: evidence from US railroads

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in analysing scale economies in US railroad firms. The analysis of scale economies in existing studies is, however, limited in view of recent advances in the theory of the multiproduct firm. In this paper, the previous work is extended to address the issue of scale and scope economies in multiproduct firms. The findings show that US railroads experience mild overall economies of scale, but rather marked product-specific economies of scale with respect to both freight and passenger services. However, there appear to be diseconomies of scope associated with the joint production of the two services. Based on these results, this study indicates that US railroad firms would have no tendency to behave as a natural monopoly in the absence of regulation.     

Is property crime caused by drug use or by drug enforcement policy?

The relationships among drug offenses, prorperty crime, and the allocation of police resources are investigated in a structural model using data from Florida countries. Law enforcement resources are scarce, and as efforts to combat drug crime increase the amount of these resources allocated to property crime is reduced. This reallocation of police resources results in reduced deterrence for property crime and, as a result, an increase in these crimes. The evidence presented suggests that rising property crimes in Florida are at least partially the result of drug enforcement policy.     

An alternative semiparametric estimate of the base-independence equivalence scale: an application to US consumer expenditure survey data

The deficit debate is a recurring theme in academic and political circles. The controversy is over the effect of deficits on inflation and interest rates. The existing body of empirical evidence does not resolve the controversy. This paper focuses on the inflationary impact of deficits. The model used is derived from a comprehensive IS-LM analysis which incorporates a foreign trade sector and a general price (adoptive expectation) adjustment mechanism. We test the model using time series data for the United states. From our results we conclude that NIA deficits have no significant bearing on the rate of inflation.     

Estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks: does lag structure matter?

This paper examines the implications of lag structure for estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks in a VAR. A symmetric lag structure in which all variables have the same lag length and an asymmetric lag structure in which the lag length differs across variables but is the same for a particular variable in each equation of the model are examined. This is important in light of the fact that the true lag structure is generally not known. Four commonly used identification schemes are employed to identify monetary policy shocks. Monte Carlo simulations strongly indicate that the lag structure of a VAR model does matter when assessing the quantitative effects of monetary policy shocks. Given the inherent uncertainty about the true lag structure in practice, it is thus important that one compare the impulse response functions from both symmetric lag and asymmetric lag VARs in assessing the effects of monetary policy shocks.