ARE CONSUMERS MORE LOYAL TO NATIONAL BRANDS THAN TO PRIVATE LABELS?

The evolution of private labels (PLs) can be understood in terms of a strategy adopted by the retail industry with the aim of competing with national brands (NBs). In the 1990s, this strategy led to the development of ‘me too’ products, which currently represent the largest share of store brand products. Since the early 2000s, retailers have widened the range of their store brands by introducing high‐quality products. The aim of this study was to estimate consumers’ attachment to ‘me‐too’ and niche PLs respectively, as compared to NBs. We captured the degree of maturity of these PLs through their price‐elasticities, computed for three staple goods offered by three mass retail companies. It was found that price sensitivity does not differ much between the ‘me‐too’ PLs and the corresponding NBs. This result confirms that ‘me‐too’ products are now considered reliable quality brands. However, in the high quality segment, consumers remain more sensitive to the price of PLs than to that of NBs, a characteristic which may relate to their recent introduction on the market.     

Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context

Product pricing has been one of the central issues in the field of marketing and consumer services for managers and researchers alike. However, pricing of information goods has not been paid much attention in literature. For information goods the marginal costs of production and transportation of information goods (online movies, video games, etc.) is almost zero. Hence, the pricing decisions need to be thought of purely in competitive profit maximizing terms. This paper proposes mechanisms for managers to evaluate and base their pricing decisions on rational frameworks that takes into account various situations when they enter a new market and when they are incumbent in a new market. This paper addresses the research gap of spatially differentiated pricing strategy for information goods that has not been studied in literature so far. We create stylized theoretical models under both, sequential and simultaneous decision-making conditions. We determine the equilibrium price and the equilibrium profit for the two firms for each of the four possible scenarios based on their pricing strategies. Our analysis reveals that the dominance of one pricing strategy over the other depends on product differentiation factor capturing joint effect of the product substitutability and consumer's price sensitivity under sequential decision making and the market size along with consumer's price sensitivity for simultaneous decision making. As an extension, we propose a generalized model demonstrating the uniform and spatially differentiated pricing strategies of the firms under simultaneous and sequential selection for multiple domestic and international markets.     

大股东合作与竞争关系的一个博弈分析

公司治理文献对所有者与经营者和大股东与中小股东之间的利益冲突进行了广泛分析 ,但缺乏对大股东之间合作与竞争关系的研究。利用博弈理论 ,本文对大股东合作与竞争的可能性进行了理论分析。分析表明 :对于最大化自己收益的大股东而言 ,对长期收益和控制权潜在收益考虑得越多 ,则他们之间进行合作的可能性也越大 ,而相互竞争或不合作的可能性越小。所以 ,对于上市公司和宏观管理机构而言 ,鼓励大股东进行真诚合作并防止他们通过合谋而损害中小股东利益是十分必要的。     

网络经济下的企业竞合关系的演变

随着信息技术的快速发展，社会经济转型加速，网络经济已经形成并迅速发展。企业的经济运行环境随之发生了巨大的变化，传统的企业间竞合关系认识以及相关战略已经很难适应网络经济下企业的发展需要。本文在回顾西方经济理论关于合作的理论的基础上，从网络经济的诸多特征出发，依据交易成本理论和博弈论方法分析了网络经济下企业广泛开展合作的动因，并介绍了企业合作的实现形式。     

基于生态位的奥运赞助企业品牌竞争研究

在当今社会,竞争涉及社会的各个领域,尤其是经济领域。而在经济领域,最重要,最突出的竞争就是品牌竞争。所谓企业品牌生态位就是企业在其品牌生态系统中所确定的"生态位",依据企业品牌生态位的形成探讨奥运赞助企业品牌的优势生态位,以此制定出奥运赞助企业品牌国际化的"生态"策略。     

涉农供应链时间竞争的基本障碍分析

在传统的农业技术条件和涉农供应链管理模式下,典型的涉农链在时间竞争的强化与柔性机制的建立上面临诸多局限和障碍：（1）横亘于涉农供应链两类制造业之间的“速度陷区”.（2）“刚性点阵”.（3）“弱刹车机制”.（4）异构性问题.（5）时间竞争工具的有限性.（6）涉农供应链特殊的物流路径特征模式.上述诸因素综合作用形成了现实中两种常见的涉农链时间反应模式：弱反应模式和高成本反应模式.而现代供应链管理理念指导下涉农供应链时间竞争追求的却是-种有效反应模式.建立涉农供应链时间竞争的有效反应模式是一个复杂艰巨的过程.     

Can Federal Grants Mitigate Social Competition?

The European economic integration leads to increasing mobilityof factors, thereby threatening the stability of social transferprograms. This article investigates the possibility to achieveby means of voluntary matching grants both the optimal allocationof factors and the optimal level of redistribution in the presenceof factor mobility. We use a fiscal competition model a la Wildasin(1991) in which states differ in their technologies and preferencesfor redistribution. We first investigate a simple process inwhich the federal authority progressively raises the matchinggrants to the district choosing the lowest transfer and alldistricts respond optimally to the resulting change in transfersall around. This process is shown to increase efficiency ofboth production and redistribution. However, it does not guaranteethat all districts gain, nor that an efficient level of redistributionis attained. Assuming complete information among districts,we derive the willingness of each district to match the contributionof other districts and we show that the aggregate willingnessto pay for matching rates converges to zero when both the efficientlevel of redistribution and the efficient allocation of factorsare achieved. We then describe an adjustment process for thematching rates that will lead districts to the efficient outcomeand guarantee that everyone will gain. (JEL Classification:H23, H70)     

Reforming the Taxation of Multijurisdictional Enterprises in Europe

In 2001, the European Commission proposed replacing the currentsystem of taxation of multinational companies by the taxationof a consolidated base, computed at the level of all the Europeanentities of a multinational enterprise, and then distributedfor taxation purposes among the various jurisdictions in whichthese entities operate, according to pre-established criteria.In this article, we propose a discussion, especially focusingon two related issues, the choice of the formula and the compositionof the consolidating area—either the entire European Union(EU) or some Member States within an Enhanced Cooperation Agreement—,as well as on their impact on the size and distribution of taxrevenue and economic activity, and on the intensity of tax competition.Our tentative policy conclusion is that the reform deservessupport provided that (i) the formula puts emphasis on criteriathat the firm may not too easily manipulate, (ii) the activitiesof the multijurisdictional enterprise are enough mobile, (iii)the consolidation is made compulsory within the consolidatingarea and (iv) the consolidating area protects its capacity toactually levy tax by adopting a crediting system vis-à-visthe rest of the world. (JEL code: H32, H73, H87)     

高管连锁、同业监督与公司违规

本文选取2011—2018年度A股上市公司为研究样本,以具有竞争关系的同业公司间的高管连锁作为同业监督的渠道,检验了同业监督对目标公司违规的影响。研究发现:(1)同业监督能有效抑制目标公司违规倾向,且这一影响当且仅当连锁公司是同业公司时存在;(2)同业竞争是同业监督的基础,在行业集中度低和行业增长率低的行业中,同业监督对目标公司违规的抑制作用更强;(3)目标公司的政治关联会瓦解同业监督对公司违规的抑制作用;(4)区分违规行为类型后发现,同业监督对经营违规的抑制作用最强,对信息披露违规次之,对领导人违规几乎没有效果。本研究丰富了公司违规监督机制的内容,也提供了辩证看待高管同业兼任的新视角。     

Viewing Tax Policy Through Party‐Colored Glasses: What German Politicians Believe

Abstract. The process of globalization has an important impact on national tax policies. Most of the literature does not focus directly on the political decision‐making process and assumes that the desired tax policy is responding to objective underlying tradeoffs. Based on an original survey of members of the German national parliament (Bundestag) in 2006/07, we document a strong ideological bias among policy‐makers with respect to the perceived mobility of international tax bases (real capital and paper profits). Ideology also influences, directly and indirectly, the perceived national autonomy in tax setting and preferences for a European Union minimum tax for companies. There seems little consensus as to what the efficiency costs of capital taxation in open economies are, even though our survey falls in a period of extensive debate about, and actual adoption of, a company tax reform bill in Germany.