Political pressures and the credibility of regulation: can profit sharing mitigate regulatory risk?

When price-cap rules determine the structure of prices for a long period, they suffer a credibility problem and introduce an element of risk especially if a firm’s profits are “too large”. Profit sharing may be seen as a device to pre-determine price adjustments and thus to decrease regulatory risk. We analyse the effects of profit sharing on the incentives to invest, using a real option approach. Absent credibility issues, a well designed profit sharing system may be neutral relative to a pure price cap. With regulatory risk, profit sharing is preferable to a pure price-cap one, if it intervenes for high enough profit levels.

Entry may increase network providers’ profit

In this paper the incentives for platform sponsors to open up their networks for independent rivals is analyzed. It is shown that open access may increase the platform sponsors’ profit levels and enhance quality improving investments. In addition, it is shown that a commitment to allow entry reduces the difference between ex ante and ex post compatibility incentives.     

Do Court Decisions Drive the Federal Trade Commission’s Enforcement Policy on Merger Settlements?

Mergers are generally conglomerate in nature with only minor (if any) horizontal overlaps. Under U.S. law, an enforcement agency may challenge any anticompetitive aspect of the merger and the consequent delay associated with litigation would impose costs on the firm. These costs may give the enforcement agency “leverage” to extract a settlement even when the firm would prevail in court. This paper explores whether the FTC’s decisions to challenge transactions approximate the case law. We find that the representative enforcement regimes of the FTC and the courts are remarkably similar, although the FTC credits efficiencies, while courts consider buyer sophistication as a mitigating factor.     

Does trade integration alter monetary policy transmission?

This paper explores the role of trade integration—or openness—for monetary policy transmission in a medium-scale new Keynesian model. Allowing for strategic complementarities in price setting, we highlight a new dimension of the exchange rate channel by which monetary policy directly impacts domestic inflation: a monetary contraction which appreciates the exchange rate lowers the local currency price of imported goods; this, in turn, induces domestic producers to lower their prices too. We pin down key parameters of the model by matching impulse responses obtained from a vector autoregression on time series for the US relative to the euro area. Our estimation procedure yields plausible parameter values and suggests a strong role for strategic complementarities. Counterfactual simulations show that openness alters monetary transmission significantly. While the contractionary effect of a monetary policy shock on inflation and output tends to increase in openness, we find that monetary policy's control over inflation increases, as the output decline which is necessary to bring about a given reduction of inflation is smaller in more open economies.     

省际贸易对中国经济增长的贡献研究

研究目标：考察省际贸易对经济增长的贡献。研究方法：区分结构影响与部门影响的因素分解模型。研究发现：第一,消费对中国经济增长的贡献比重在下降;省际调出因素和出口因素的贡献比重在上升。第二,1987年,省际调出仅在3个省份是经济增长的第一贡献因素;2007年,省际调出则在11个省份成为经济增长的第一贡献因素。第三,从省份视角看,尽管出口对经济增长的贡献比重在上升,但在2007年,省际调出贡献比重仍然是出口贡献比重的3.5倍;从部门视角看,省际调出的贡献比重也依然大于出口的贡献比重。第四,在将因素贡献比重变化的来源区分为结构影响与部门影响之后,不管是消费贡献比重的下降,还是省际调出和出口贡献比重的上升,部门影响均发挥着主导作用。研究创新：将省际贸易引入关于经济增长的因素分解模型。研究价值：对于目前步入“新常态”的中国经济,省际贸易可以成为未来中国经济新的增长点。     

Measuring China’s domestic production networks through Trade in Value-added perspectives

Evaluating the role and performance of China's participation in Global value chains (GVCs) has been a hot policy and research issue in recent years. However, most GVCs-related literature about China focuses on country-to-country relations; less attention has been paid to China's domestic value chains (DVCs). GVCs should have their domestic foundations since strong linkages across domestic firms and regions can improve productivity through gains from specialization, which make domestic industries more competitive in GVCs in turn. This paper applies the so-called Trade in Value-added (TiVA) concept and the decomposition of domestic-regional trade in TiVA terms to re-measure the inter-industrial and interregional linkages in China's DVCs. We show that TiVA-based measures can significantly enrich our understanding on both the structure change of China's regional economy and the position and participation degree of Chinese regions in DVCs.     

基于环境成本的比较优势理论及政策启示

在李嘉图模型中,将环境成本用追加的劳动投入来衡量,发现环保技术及环境成本对比较优势格局的修正.在H-O模型中,假定环境作为一种生产要素,则所形成的比较优势建立在包含环境资源真实价格的基础之上.社会环境成本与企业环境成本的差额,使"显示的比较优势"有可能偏离真实的比较优势,从而损害效率与公平.因此,要鼓励清洁技术创新,并通过制度变革来推进环境成本内部化.     

跨国公司研发投资的前向关联模式

经济全球化背景下,跨国公司为保持市场竞争优势和技术领先地位在全球范围内进行R&D投资,这为东道国通过产业关联获取跨国公司技术资源以提高本国产业技术水平创造了机会。从前向关联模式角度入手,研究了跨国公司与东道国本土企业通过R&D投资建立产业关联的动因、关联溢出效应及技术溢出路径,揭示了跨国公司R&D投资与东道国企业建立前向关联的内在机理,可为我国政府有效利用跨国公司R&D投资提升本土企业技术水平提供相应的管理启示和政策建议。     

中国对外贸易质量评价体系研究

在构建对外贸易质量评价指标体系的基础上,本文从外贸发展和外贸效益两方面衡量了中国的对外贸易质量。研究显示,对外贸易促进了中国的经济增长、加速了技术进步、优化了产业结构,但也存在着一些问题,如贸易促进整体经济增长的同时显著地扩大了地区间经济增长差距,就业推动作用有限且处于下降趋势,技术溢出效应存在地区差异等,为此,本文提出了改善中国对外贸易质量的政策建议。     

中国企业研发经费投入现状及国际比较

企业是开展创新活动的重要主体,加强企业研发经费投入对提升企业技术创新能力至关重要。本文基于《欧盟产业研发投资记分牌(2019)》和调研数据,从研发经费投入及结构视角分析了我国企业创新活动现状,并与世界主要创新型国家进行了国际比较分析。研究发现:我国企业研发经费投入规模不断扩大,企业已经是研发经费投入主体和执行主体;相比国有企业,民营企业更具研发投资动力,是企业研发经费投入主体;我国企业研发经费投入增速较高,但研发经费投资规模和强度低于世界主要创新型国家;我国企业科学研究经费布局明显低于世界主要创新型国家,严重制约企业自主创新能力提升;我国企业基础研究占比偏低与创新特性、企业使命、发展阶段、企业能力、体制机制等因素有关,新时代应重点引导和激励更多企业向"爱迪生象限"和"巴斯德象限"跃升。