Income based price subsidies and parallel imports

We present a policy game where a Rich country has a higher ability than a Poor country to commit to certain elements of health policy such as providing income related price subsidies and allowing parallel imports (PI). When allowing PI is not a choice for the Poor country, the Rich country allows PI and both countries provide a subsidy to their poorer buyers as the subgame perfect equilibrium policies. However, when the Poor is able to PI a different equilibrium may arise. We show that the ability of the Poor to allow PI might increase welfare in this country even if it is never implemented. We also prove that as the Poor country gets richer, it will not be in their best interest to sign an agreement with the Rich to commit to not allowing PI.     

Do remedies affect the efficiency defense? An optimal merger-control analysis

This paper examines the optimal use of remedies and the efficiency defense for merger control. We develop a framework in which merger efficiency gains are endogenously determined and are not observed by the Competition Authority. The possibility of an efficiency defense can push firms to design the merger better, leading to greater efficiency gains. Firms can also submit remedies to the Competition Authority: they interact with the efficiency defense, by reducing the firm's incentive to enhance efficiency. At the same time remedies improve the assessment of the merger, in particular by signaling the true level of efficiency gains. We ask to what extent it may be optimal to make use of both instruments simultaneously, and thus discuss the possibility that the Competition Agency refrain from using one of the instruments to try to improve overall merger-control performance.     

最高院《信用证规定》中有关信用证欺诈条款的述评

《最高人民法院关于审理信用证纠纷案件若干问题的规定》中有关信用证欺诈的条款,主要有欺诈的类型、欺诈的救济方式、救济条件和救济程序几方面。通过对《规定》中相关条款的分析,得出了四个方面的结论。     

Savings from public procurement centralization in the healthcare system

We show that the introduction of the procurement centralization within the regional healthcare systems in Italy reduced per capita health expenditure approximatelyt by 2–8%, without affecting the level of health-related public services. Our results also indicate that the effect is persistent after six years, and is not influenced by the coexistence of other organizational models, such as amalgamation and hybrid systems. Finally, we document that the reduction in public expenditure is effective only in areas characterized by poor quality of institutions, indicating that procurement centralization might be an effective tool to reduce corruption-related inefficiencies in the health sector.     

Escapism FDI from developed economies: The role of regulatory context and corporate taxation

In this paper, we extend the conceptualisation of escapism Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) holding for emerging economies to developed economies that face specific institutional failures, such as weak or incomplete regulations, along with high taxation. We combine this literature with the recent development of Dunning’s eclectic paradigm, which includes institutional aspects regarding location factors. We argue that in developed economies with problematic regulations and high taxation, sound institutions and lower tax rates abroad are extremely significant for domestic firms’ internationalisation. A central result regards the moderating effect of host regulatory quality on taxation, which highlights the crucial role of institutions for firms originating in developed economies that lack sound institutions. Additionally, the results challenge the available theorising and evidence on the moderating role of institutions in the prior experience of a firm at a location. We instead provide evidence that once firms establish a subsidiary abroad, they acquire substantial knowledge about the host institutional environment, which translates into an Ot advantage, providing an additional motive for further expansion. This work uses a unique database of the total population of Greek MNEs – released for the first time – for an extended time period, 2001–2010. The results could be generalised to similar developed economies facing analogous regulatory failures and high taxation, such as the southern European Union countries, as well as even for northern European Union countries, such as Germany, according to Bundesbank’s report.     

Local Government Debt and Firm Leverage: Evidence from China

China's local government debt financing has been expanded aggressively to support infrastructure investment, especially since the enactment of four‐trillion‐yuan stimulus plan to stimulate the economy post global financial crisis. At the same time, the rapid increase of firm‐level leverage ratio of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and the decline of leverage ratio of non‐SOEs jointly deteriorated China's credit misallocation problem. In this study, we empirically test the effect of local government debton firm leverage in China. We find that an expansion of local government debt significantly crowded out the leverage of non‐SOEs, while crowded in that of SOEs. Moreover, the effect differed across industries and sectors.     

Cartel Organization,Price Discrimination,and Selection of Transatlantic Migrants: 1899–1911

We study the effects of trans‐Atlantic passenger shipping cartels on tourist/business and migrant traffic. Collusion had a smaller effect on first and second class service relative to third class service. Its effects were proportionately stronger eastbound, but less important in absolute numbers given smaller eastbound traffic. Collusion‐driven consumer substitution across classes was small but non‐negligible. Thus, collusion affected migrant traffic far more than tourist/business traffic. We also confirm that collusion led to higher fares across all cabin classes, especially for steerage. We construct and calibrate an analytical model and show that the pattern of observed prices and volumes are consistent with a profit‐maximizing cartel, thus buttressing the hypothesis that the collusion effects were causal. Finally, we document that collusion led to positive selection of migrants, as measured by literacy rates and financial resources.     

Good Girl,Bad Boy? Evidence Consistent with Collusion in Professional Tennis

We identify professional tennis matches where one player competes for extraordinarily high payoffs while their opposition does not. Players “on the bubble” of direct qualification to upcoming Grand Slam events face substantially higher stakes than opponents, which presents an opportunity for collusion. Our findings produce evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis of unethical behavior taking place on the men's tour, as bubble players are 5.1 percentage points more likely to beat better ranked opponents than in comparable nonbubble matches. However, no such evidence emerges when analyzing women's tennis. We find additional support for the hypothesis of match‐fixing activities on the men's tour from analyzing the occurrence of tie‐breaks and the fact that our results become stronger once monetary incentives were increased after the 2013 season. Finally, the betting market does not predict this phenomenon, further confirming our suspicion of irregular activities.     

Exporting behavior of foreign affiliates: Theory and evidence

Firms have increasingly conducted different stages of production in different countries. In particular, they may set up operations in low-cost countries (those operations are referred to as foreign affiliates in those countries) either as platforms for export or serving the growing markets there. What is the exporting behavior of foreign affiliates? In this paper, using data from China, we find that among foreign affiliates exporters are less productive than non-exporters. We then offer a theoretical explanation by incorporating into the standard firm heterogeneity model the possibility that firms could have different stages of production in different countries.     

Imitation and the evolution of Walrasian behavior: Theoretically fragile but behaviorally robust

A well-known result by Vega-Redondo (1997) [18] implies that in symmetric Cournot oligopolies, imitation leads to the Walrasian outcome. We show that this result is not robust to the slightest asymmetry in costs, since every outcome where agents choose identical actions will be played some fraction of the time in the long run. We then conduct experiments to check this fragility. We obtain that, contrary to the theoretical prediction, the Walrasian outcome is a good predictor of market outcomes. Finally, we suggest a new theory based on a mix of imitation and other learning processes that explains subjects' behavior fairly well.