On strategic complementarity conditions in Bertrand oligopoly

Summary. For Bertrand duopoly with linear costs, we establish via a single (counter-)example that: (i) A new monotone transformation of the firms' profit functions may lead to the supermodularity of transformed profits when the standard log and identity transformations both fail to do so, and (ii) Topkis's notion of critical sufficient condition for monotonicity of a Bertrand firm's best-reply correspondence cannot be extended to rely only on positive unit costs. Received: January 16, 2001; revised version: March 20, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This work was completed while the first author was visiting the Institute for Industrial Economics at the University of Copenhagen during Spring 2000. Their financial support and stimulating research environment are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the European Commission. Correspondence to: R. Amir     

Environmental Policy in Open Economies and Monopolistic Competition

This paper analyses the implications of international trade for non-cooperative environmental policy in the case of local production externalities. A particular focus is on the potential effects of regulations on the variety of goods and the resulting international spillover caused by trade. A tougher domestic standard negatively affects the utility of the households abroad, since such a policy reduces their variety of imports (due to fewer domestic product inventions) or their consumption of each imported brand (due to higher import prices). Ignoring the negative spillover, non-cooperative governments implement inefficiently strict standards in equilibrium. In contrast to this clear-cut inefficiency result, the impact of international trade on the state of the environment is ambiguous.     

Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate

This paper examines competition in the standard one-dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections, but where one candidate (A) enjoys an advantage over the other candidate (D). Voters' preferences are Euclidean, but any voter will vote for candidate A over candidate D unless D is closer to her ideal point by some fixed distance δ. The location of the median voter's ideal point is uncertain, and its distribution is commonly known by both candidates. The candidates simultaneously choose locations to maximize the probability of victory. Pure strategy equilibria often fail to exist in this model, except under special conditions about δ and the distribution of the median ideal point. We solve for the essentially unique symmetric mixed equilibrium with no-gaps, show that candidate A adopts more moderate policies than candidate D, and obtain some comparative statics results about the probability of victory and the expected distance between the two candidates' policies. We find that both players' equilibrium strategies converge to the expected median voter as A's advantage shrinks to 0. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D72.     

旅行社价格战的博弈分析

旅行社是旅游产品设计、组织和销售的渠道商以及消费者之间的桥梁.旅行社对旅游业具有重要影响，旅行社之间的价格竞争日益严重，盈利率低。随着我国加入世贸组织，越来越多的外国旅行社进入我国、针对我国旅行社如何走出困境，本文从博弈角度分析旅行社的价格竞争及其对策。     

Incomplete regulation, market competition and collusion

Regulators often do not regulate all firms competing in a given sector. Due to product substitutability, unregulated competitors have incentives to bribe regulated firms to have them overstate their costs and produce less, thereby softening competition. The best collusion-proof contract entails distortions both for inefficient and efficient regulated firms (distortion ‘at the top’). But a contract inducing active collusion may do better by allowing the regulator to ‘team up’ with the regulated firm to indirectly tax its competitor. The best such contract is characterized. It is such that the unregulated firm pays the regulated one to have it truthfully reveals its inefficiency. We finally compare those contracts.     

Market Structure and Risk Taking in the Banking Industry

We demonstrate that the common view according to which an increase in competition leads banks to increased risk taking fails to hold in an environment where homogeneous loss averse consumers can choose in which bank to make a deposit based on their knowledge of the riskiness incorporated in the banks outstanding loan portfolios. With an exclusive focus on imperfect competition we find that banks incentives for risk taking are invariant to a change in the banking market structure from duopoly to monopoly. Finally, we show that deposit insurance would eliminate the gains from bank competition when banks use asset quality as a strategic instrument.revised version received October 15, 2003     

旅游区(点)核心竞争力的实质及营建实证

旅游区(点)(以下简称旅游区)是旅游业发展的重要支撑,核心竞争力是反映一个旅游区素质和发展潜能的重要标志。文章运用竞争优势理论和核心竞争力理论并结合旅游业的自身特点,以重庆涪陵天台峡谷景区为例,探讨了旅游区核心竞争力的营造方法,并提出了以目标市场为导向,以彰显旅游资源特色、提供差异性体验为内核的旅游区核心竞争力建设思路。     

我国煤炭产业过度竞争原因及对策

目前我国煤炭产业低级低效、高度分散的竞争型市场结构,即理论上称的“原子型”结构,是造成我国煤炭产业过度竞争的原因。煤炭过度竞争使我国煤炭资源浪费、资源价格扭曲、部分国有企业亏损严重和煤炭行业效益持续低下,解决我国煤炭过度竞争必须通过提高产业进入门槛,降低产业退出门槛,提高煤炭产业的集中度,实施大型煤炭企业集团战略并对此给予必要的政策扶持。     

企业生态位与竞争战略

本文提出了企业生态位的概念,并运用生态位理论对企业生态位宽度和企业生态位重叠的内涵、测度作了尝试性的探索.在一个环境资源有限的企业生态系统中,企业之间的竞争程度与其生态位重叠的程度成比例关系.企业不仅要选择恰当的生态位,而且要根据环境的变化对生态位作出及时、适当的调整和优化.企业可以通过生态位分离来实现生态位共生,从而避免由于生态位的严重重叠而引起的过度竞争.     

物流服务市场供求关系研究

从认识物流服务市场的供求现状出发,使用经济学理论、竞争理论、物流业固有特性三个分析方法进行物流服务市场供求关系研究,对揭示我国物流服务市场的运行规律有一定的引导作用。