跨国公司环境责任研究——对传统观点经济学分析的修正

在寡头垄断市场条件下,只要总收入的价格弹性大于总成本的价格弹性,公司就能从承担环境责任中获利,获利的多寡取决于需求曲线的价格弹性。进一步将修正扩展到多国模型,结论显示:只要满足上述条件,跨国公司承担环境责任,以无污染的方式生产产品,全球市场价格上升,需求量下降;但总收入随价格上升而增加,利润率水平随价格上升而上升。     

风险厌恶与国有寡占市场的资源配置效率——以我国成品油市场为例

作为传统寡占理论与我国国情相结合的产物,国有寡占市场受到越来越多的关注。本文以风险厌恶倾向为切入点,从缺少职业经理人市场、优越的生存环境和目标多重性三方面分析了国有寡占企业风险厌恶倾向的成因,并构建理论模型分析这种风险厌恶倾向对国有寡占市场资源配置效率的影响。结果表明,风险厌恶倾向使国有寡占企业面对成本风险时,价格和产量相对利润最大化值分别升高和降低,面对需求风险时,价格和产量同时低于利润最大化值,两种情况都使国有寡占市场资源配置效率降低,而固定成本的升高会进一步加大资源配置效率的损失。本文最后以我国石化行业成品油市场为案例,验证理论模型的结论,并提出了政策建议。     

Technology ladders and R&D in dynamic Cournot markets

Motivated by dramatic and unpredictable technological advances in energy production (for instance drilling and extraction of shale oil), we extend Cournot models of competition to incorporate research and development (R&D) that can lead to (stochastic) drops in production costs. Our model combines features of patent racing with dynamic market structure, capturing the interplay between the immediate competition in terms of production rates and the long-term competition in R&D. The resulting Markov Nash equilibrium is found from a sequence of one-step static games arising between R&D successes, and several numerical examples and extensive analysis of the emerging comparative statics are presented. Analyzing the relationship between current market dominance and the level of R&D investments, we find that market leaders tend to invest more, which in some sense makes oligopoly dynamically unstable. We show that anticipated market transitions have long-term impact; for example the potential of future monopoly can spur R&D investment now, even if the firm is presently uncompetitive and not actively producing. We also show that, surprisingly, random innovations have an ambiguous effect on R&D. This feature, which is driven by the Cournot framework, contrasts with the common situation whereby uncertainty lowers innovation and delays R&D investments. Finally, we demonstrate that increased competition may actually increase efforts to innovate through higher desire to achieve dominance. This would match the anecdotal evidence that the threat of market entrants forces incumbents to maintain high R&D.     

R&D,free entry,and social inefficiency

We employ a three-stage game model with cost-reducing research and development (R&D) that is subject to spillovers to consider the problem of excess entry under free-entry equilibrium relative to the social optimum. Firms choose to enter or exit a market in the first stage, choose R&D in the second stage and output in the final stage. Results show that there is socially inefficient or excessive entry in equilibrium. However, we uniquely demonstrate that research spillovers hold the key to whether established results regarding socially inefficient entry hold. Specifically, excessive entry occurs as long as research spillovers are relatively small, but this is not necessarily the case with large spillovers. Some policy implications are discussed.     

An oligopoly model of ocean liner shipping

In this paper I develop a simultaneous equations oligopoly model of the regulated international ocean liner shipping industry. The firms act as a cartel to determine price jointly and then set their own quality levels to maximize individual profits. The cartel does not attain monopoly profits, because each conference member myopically determines quality without regard for overall cartel profits. The results indicate that an increase in the number of firms in the cartel will increase both cartel price and quality level. An increase in price will also lead to an increase in quality level.I would like to thank Professors Alamarin Phillips, Robert Summers, and Bruce Allen for their helpful comments on earlier research for my dissertation in the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania on which this work is based. I am especially grateful to Professor Lawrence J. White for his encouragement and valuable suggestions at various stages of my work.     

The U.S. Motion Pictures Industry: An Empirical Approach

We hypothesize that the U.S. motion pictures industry is structured so that star presence increases box office receipts and (less so) admissions, but places Ricardian limits on the output of blockbusters. The few dominant studios (majors) rely on a modified star system to generate supra-normal box office by stimulating admissions at exhibitors. Rising costs (from stars and their promotion) are required for rising revenues; that is, the majors gain revenue only at higher costs. Although the industry has unique features, the empirical results are surprisingly relevant to other industries.     

Transportation rates and plant location in oligopolistic competition with sequential entry

This paper examines the impact of quantity-discounted transportation rates on location patterns of oligopolistic competition with sequential entry. When transportation rates are constant, Hwang and Mai (1990) show that the entrant locates at the same point as the existing firms if the production function exhibits constant returns to scale. The entrant will locate farther away from (closer to) the market than the existing firms do if the production function exhibits increasing (decreasing) returns to scale. This paper shows that Hwang and Mai's results need not hold when transportation rates are a function of quantity shipped and distance traveled.     

Cost information sharing with uncertainty averse firms

Summary. A homogeneous Cournot duopoly with asymmetric information is analyzed. Every firm learns its own marginal cost parameter, but not the marginal cost parameter of the opponent. Every firm can commit to revealing its private information to the other firm, i.e. to share information. The influence of uncertainty aversion on the readiness of the duopolists to share cost information is analyzed. Uncertainty aversion is modeled according to the Choquet utility theory. It is shown that low uncertainty aversion leads the firms to share information, while high uncertainty aversion leads the firms not to share. A simple economic explanation for this result is given.Received: 5 January 2001, Revised: 7 May 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D43, D81, D82.I wish to thank Jürgen Eichberger, Volker Krätschmer, Willy Spanjers, seminar participants at Universität des Saarlandes, seminar participants at University College London, participants in the conference of the Verein für Socialpolitik in Mainz 1999 and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Central Bank.     

Competitive Effects of Disclosure in a Strategic Entry Model

We investigate the welfare consequences of incumbent firms' mutual disclosure of cost information when there is a threat of entry from a firm not required to disclose its private cost information. New effects of disclosure are observed relative to no-entry models, with the result that incumbents' expected output is a decreasing function of the disclosure level. However, further analysis shows that increased disclosure usually increases incumbent expected profits and decreases expected consumer surplus, despite the additional entry effect of disclosure. Such analytical derivations provide objective input to the FASB as they attempt to predict the competitive effects of changing mandated disclosure requirements.     

WELFARE ENHANCING COORDINATION IN CONSUMER COOPERATIVES UNDER MIXED OLIGOPOLY

The recent globalization of world economies has led the retail markets of developed countries towards increasing levels of integration and strategic interdependence. A non negligible share of retail and food markets is currently served by co‐operative societies. Consistently with this trend, the consumer cooperatives have recently experienced increasing levels of integration. The main aim of this paper is to study the welfare effects of coordination among consumer cooperatives competing in quantities in a mixed oligopoly against profit‐maximizing firms. We show that, in absence of agency problems, under increasing or constant returns to scale a higher output coordination of the consumer cooperatives does not affect the total welfare as long as a nonnegative profit constraint holds in these firms. On the other hand, under decreasing returns to scale, the consumer cooperatives contribute more to social welfare when acting on behalf of all consumers. This is because, by coordinating consumers’ preferences, these firms can reduce their market output, thus helping the market to come closer to the first best. All together these results seem to provide an argument in favour of the recent process of integration involving consumer cooperatives in many developed countries.