Low price equilibrium in multi-unit auctions: the GSM spectrum auction in Germany

The second–generation (GSM) spectrum auction in Germany is probably the most clear cut example of a low price outcome in a simultaneous ascending-bid multi-unit auction. The present paper gives an account of the events, describes the auction rules and market conditions, and provides a game theoretic explanation of low price equilibrium in simultaneous, ascending-bid multi-unit auctions. In particular, it is shown that in the unique equilibrium that survives iterated elimination of dominated strategies, the efficient allocation is reached at minimum bids.     

Schools of thought in organizational learning

This article attempts to bring coherence to the diversity that characterizes organizational learning research. It argues that organizational learning is embedded in four schools of thought: an economic school, a managerial school, a developmental school, and a process school. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the schools, describes how they differ from each other, and outlines how each of them can be employed effectively. To demonstrate the benefits of theoretical plurality, the four schools are applied to the key marketing topics of market orientation and new product development. Implications for future research in marketing are provided. Simon J. Bell is a lecturer in marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Gregory J. Whitwell is an associate professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Bryan A. Lukas is an associate professor of marketing and director of the Master of Applied Commerce Program in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne.     

Prizes and lemons: procurement of innovation under imperfect commitment

The literature on research and development contests implicitly assumes that contestants submit their innovation regardless of its value. This ignores a potential adverse selection problem. The present article analyzes the procurement of innovations when the procurer cannot commit himself to never bargain with innovators who bypass the contest. We compare fixed‐prize tournaments with and without entry fees, and optimal scoring auctions with and without minimum score requirement. Our main result is that preventing bypass is more costly in the optimal auction, and the optimal fixed‐prize tournament is more profitable than the optimal auction.     

Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success

Many firms use online brand communities to support the launch of their new products. This study proposes a typology of firm-hosted online brand communities and examines whether such a classification system can improve predictions of new product success. A cross-industry analysis of 81 firm-hosted online brand communities shows that these communities reflect three archetypes. A subsequent survey of 170 community-hosting firms in the consumer durable goods industry reveals that the three types of communities are not equally important for new product success. Moreover, one archetype generally underperforms the other two as a new product support mechanism. Overall, the results demonstrate that firm-hosted online brand communities can be a predictor of new product success.     

Sharp IV Bounds on Average Treatment Effects on the Treated and Other Populations Under Endogeneity and Noncompliance

In the presence of an endogenous binary treatment and a valid binary instrument, causal effects are point identified only for the subpopulation of compliers, given that the treatment is monotone in the instrument. With the exception of the entire population, causal inference for further subpopulations has been widely ignored in econometrics. We invoke treatment monotonicity and/or dominance assumptions to derive sharp bounds on the average treatment effects on the treated, as well as on other groups. Furthermore, we use our methods to assess the educational impact of a school voucher program in Colombia and discuss testable implications of our assumptions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation speed under uncertainty and competition

Innovation speed is widely considered to be a key factor for a firm's ability to maintain competitive advantage. Primarily, empirical evidence has found contradictory interdependencies regarding the role of innovation speed. The prevailing proposition of “the faster the better” has been challenged by results of empirical studies heavily depending on the methodological setup used. In contrast, we propose a model of the complete innovation process to study innovation speed under uncertainty and competition. We find that higher market uncertainty speeds up innovation and encourages firms to innovate incrementally. Strong competition tends to reduce innovation speed and encourages rather radical innovation.     

Whose trades convey information? Evidence from a cross-section of traders

This paper contributes empirically to our understanding of informed traders. It analyzes traders’ characteristics in a foreign exchange electronic limit order market via anonymous trader identities. We use six indicators of informed trading in a cross-sectional multivariate approach to identify traders with high price impact. More information is conveyed by those traders’ trades which—simultaneously—use medium-sized orders (practice stealth trading), have large trading volume, are located in a financial center, trade early in the trading session, at times of wide spreads and when the order book is thin.