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on Microeconomics |
|
Issue of 2006‒04‒29
fifty papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | D. Lanzi |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:405&r=mic |
| By: | Sofia Villas-Boas (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we compare different models of vertical contracting between manufacturers and retailers in the supermarket industry. Demand estimates are used to compute price-cost margins for retailers and manufacturers under different supply models when wholesale prices are not observed. The purpose is to identify which set of margins is compatible with the margins obtained from direct estimates of cost and to select among non-nested competing models the one most consistent with the data. The models considered are: (1) a simple linear pricing model; (2) a vertically integrated model; and (3) a variety of alternative (strategic) supply scenarios that allow for collusion, nonlinear pricing and strategic behavior with respect to private label products. Using data on yogurt sold in several stores in a large urban area of the United States, we find that wholesale prices are close to marginal cost and that retailers have pricing power in the vertical chain. This is consistent with non-linear pricing by the manufacturers or high bargaining power of the retailers. |
| Keywords: | Vertical contracts, multiple manufacturers and retailers, non-nested tests, yogurt local market., |
| Date: | 2005–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:agrebk:943r2&r=mic |
| By: | Ralph Siebert (Purdue University, Department of Economics, Krannert School of Management, 403 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2056. rsiebert@purdue.edu); Georg von Graevenitz (Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich School of Management, INNO-tec, Kaulbachstraße 45, D-80539,Munich. graevenitz@bwl.uni-muenchen.de) |
| Abstract: | In a patent thicket licensing provides a mechanism to either avoid or resolve hold-up. Firms’ R&D incentives will differ depending on how licensing is used. In this paper we study the choice between ex ante licensing to avoid hold-up and ex post licensing to resolve it. Building on a theoretical model of a patent portfolio race, firms’ choices of licensing contracts are modelled. We derive several hypotheses from the model and find support for these using data from the semiconductor industry. The empirical results show that firms’ relationships in product markets and technology space jointly determine the type of licensing contract chosen. Implications for the regulation of licensing are discussed. We estimate a dynamic panel data model with unobserved heterogeneity and a lagged dependent variable. A method suggested by Wooldridge (2005) is employed to estimate a random effects probit model using conditional maximum likelihood. |
| Keywords: | Hold-Up Problem, Licensing, Innovation, Patent Race, Patent Thicket |
| JEL: | L13 L49 L63 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:105&r=mic |
| By: | Isabel Mota (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); António Brandão (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at explaining if firms's decision about location revises when firms cooperate or compete in R&D. For that purpose, it is proposed a three-stage game amongst three firms where each firm decides about location, R&D and output. Firms' decision about location determines a R&D spillover, which is inversely related to the distance between firms. R&D output is assumed to be cost-reducing and exhibit diminishing returns. Cooperation is only allowed in the R&D stage. Our results allow us to conclude that there is a positive relationship between R&D output equilibrium and the distance between firms when firms acts independently. When firms cooperate in R&D, the R&D output for a cooperating firm increases with the degree of information sharing between them, as well as with a reduction of the distance between cooperating firms. Firms' decision about location is also affected by R&D activities: if R&D activities run independently, the clustering of firms only occurs for a convex spillover function; if R&D activities run cooperatively, clustering is always observed if there is an increased information sharing between firms. |
| Keywords: | Location, R&D cooperation, R&D spillovers |
| JEL: | R30 O31 L13 |
| Date: | 2004–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:0404&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:391&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:440&r=mic |
| By: | Paula Sarmento (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); António Brandão (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we compare two instruments of access price regulation, cost-based and retail-minus, with the full deregulation hypothesis. We consider an upstream monopolist firm that sells a vital input to an independent firm and to a subsidiary firm in the downstream market. We conclude that the retail-minus regulation avoids foreclosure and leads to better results than cost-based regulation in terms of investment level and consumer surplus. Moreover, retail-minus regulation allows a higher consumer surplus than deregulation of access price as long as the regulator carefully defines the retail-minus instrument. We also compare retail-minus regulation with the Efficient Component Pricing Rule and we conclude that the two mechanisms can lead to different results. |
| Keywords: | access regulation, vertical integration, retail-minus, Efficient Component Pricing Rule |
| JEL: | L12 L51 L96 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:0603&r=mic |
| By: | Paula Sarmento (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); António Brandão (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the way a multiproduct firm, regulated through a dynamic price cap, can develop a price strategy that uses the regulatory policy to deter entry. We consider a firm that initially operates as a monopolist in two markets but faces potential entry in one of the markets. We conclude that the regulated firm can have the incentive to block the entry. This strategy leads to the reduction of the price in both markets. However, the final effect of the entry deterrence strategy on total consumer surplus is not always positive. |
| Keywords: | price cap regulation, entry |
| JEL: | L11 L51 |
| Date: | 2005–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:0502&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:430&r=mic |
| By: | A. Mantovani |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:416&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:427&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:369&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; C. Iori |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:385&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; R. Orsini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:367&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; G. Rossini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:468&r=mic |
| By: | Carolyn Pitchik |
| Abstract: | I study a budget-constrained, private-valuation, sealed-bid sequential auction with two incompletely-informed, risk-neutral bidders in which the valuations and income may be non-monotonic functions of a bidder\\\'s type. Parameters permit the existence of multiple equilibrium symmetric bidding functions that differ in allocation, efficiency and revenue. The sequence of sale affects the competition for a good and therefore also affects revenue and the prices of each good in a systematic way that depends on the relationship among the valuations and incomes of bidders. The sequence of sale may affect prices and revenue even when the number of bidders is large relative to the number of goods. If a particular good, say α, is allocated to a strong bidder independent of the sequence of sale, then auction revenue and the price of good α is higher when good α is sold first. |
| Keywords: | sequential auctions, budget constraints, efficiency, revenue, price, sequence. |
| JEL: | C7 C72 L1 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-230&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; C. Schultz |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:379&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; G. Primavera |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:377&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:399&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; A. Mantovani; G. Rossini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:401&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:402&r=mic |
| By: | Selim, Sheikh Tareq (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the equivalence of the two key results that dominate the discussion on Ramsey tax policy with imperfect competition. With imperfectly competitive intermediate goods market, the long run Ramsey policy is consistent with capital tax or subsidy, and this result is generally dominant if the government is permitted or not permitted to use any other subsidy, or if the government has access to consumption tax. This is an important extension of the two effect result due primarily to Guo & Lansing (1999). Access to consumption tax but no access to labor subsidy enables the government to reduce labor tax in monopoly sector to zero, but the two effect result for capital taxation remains unaltered. Qualifying Judd’s (1997) principle of optimal capital subsidy requires full confiscation of profits, or subsidizing capital income at a rate that may be larger than the first best subsidy rate. The strong motivation to tax capital assists in explaining the repeal of the Investment Tax Credit scheme in the US. |
| Keywords: | Optimal taxation; Monopoly power; Ramsey policy |
| JEL: | D42 E62 H21 H30 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2006/20&r=mic |
| By: | Birgitte Sloth (Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark); Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | We define an evolutionary process of “economic Darwinism” for playing-the-field, symmetric games. The process captures two forces. One is “economic selection”: if current behavior leads to payoff differences, behavior yielding lowest payoff has strictly positive probability of being replaced by an arbitrary behavior. The other is “mutation”: any behavior has at any point in time a strictly positive, very small probability of shifting to an arbitrary behavior. We show that behavior observed frequently is in accordance with “evolutionary equilibrium”, a static equilibrium concept suggested in the literature. Using this result, we demonstrate that generally under positive (negative) externalities, economic Darwinism implies even more under- (over-) activity than does Nash equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | evolutionary game theory; Darwinian evolution; economic selection; mutation; evolutionary equilibrium; stochastic stability |
| JEL: | C72 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieci:2006-01&r=mic |
| By: | Iván Major (Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Credit bureaus administering information sharing among lenders about customers reduce information asymmetry and should be key to modern credit markets. In contrast to former studies, we show that willingness to share information depends more on institutions and market concentration than on demand or other market characteristics such as, regional diversity or local monopolies. We show using infinite period models with strategic behavior that lenders' interest to share information depends on market concentration and the type of information sharing arrangement. Sharing bad information only is the dominant strategy if banks think long-term. If banks are myopic no information sharing may occur. |
| Keywords: | Organisational Behaviour, Transaction Costs, Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty, Asymmetric and Private Information, Intertemporal Firm Choice and Growth, Investment, or Financing, Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Mortgages |
| JEL: | D23 D81 D82 D92 G21 |
| Date: | 2006–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:0603&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; F. Lotti; E. Santarelli |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:371&r=mic |
| By: | Hanming Fang (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Peter Norman (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the optimal provision mechanism for multiple excludable public goods when agents' valuations are private information. For a parametric class of problems with binary valuations, we characterize the optimal mechanism, and show that it involves bundling. Bundling alleviates the free riding problem in large economies in two ways: first, it can increase the asymptotic provision probability of socially efficient public goods from zero to one; second, it decreases the extent of use exclusions. |
| Keywords: | Public Goods Provision, Bundling, Exclusion |
| JEL: | H41 |
| Date: | 2003–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1441r&r=mic |
| By: | Moschini, GianCarlo; Yerokhin, Oleg |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic duopoly model of R&D competition to improve the quality of a final good. The innovation process is sequential and cumulative, and takes place alongside production in an infinite-horizon setting. In this context we study the R&D incentive impacts resulting from a “research exemption” or “experimental use” provision. We specify and solve the innovation and production model under two distinct IPR regimes, essentially a patent system with and without a research exemption. The model applies closely to the question of the optimal mode of intellectual property right (IPR) protection for plants, where traditional plant breeder’s rights allow for a well-defined research exemption, whereas standard utility patents do not. We characterize the properties of the relevant Markov perfect equilibria and investigate the profit and welfare effects of the research exemption. We find that firms, ex ante, always prefer full patent protection. The welfare ranking of the two IPR regimes, on the other hand, depends on the relative magnitudes of the costs of initial innovation and improvements. In particular, a research exemption is most likely to provide inadequate R&D incentives when there is a large cost to establish the initial research program. |
| Keywords: | Cumulative innovation; Experimental use exemption; Intellectual property rights; Markov perfect equilibrium; Patents; Stochastic games. |
| JEL: | O3 C72 L0 |
| Date: | 2006–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12598&r=mic |
| By: | G. Chiesa |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:397&r=mic |
| By: | G. Bertuzzi; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:400&r=mic |
| By: | M. Alvisi |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:437&r=mic |
| By: | Griffith, Rachel Susan; Harrison, Rupert; Macartney, Gareth |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of product market competition on unemployment and wages, and how this depends on labour market institutions. We use differential changes in regulations across OECD countries over the 1980s and 1990s to identify the effects of competition. We find that increased product market competition reduces unemployment, and that it does so more in countries with labour market institutions that increase worker bargaining power. The theoretical intuition is that both firms with market power and unions with bargaining power are constrained in their behaviour by the elasticity of demand in the product market. We also find that the effect of increased competition on real wages is beneficial to workers, but less so when they have high bargaining power. Intuitively, real wages increase through a drop in the general price level, but workers with bargaining power lose out somewhat from a reduction in the rents that they had previously captured. |
| Keywords: | competition; product market regulation; unemployment; wage bargaining |
| JEL: | E24 J50 L50 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5599&r=mic |
| By: | Aurora Garcia-Gallego; Nikolaos Georgantzis; Praveen Kujal |
| Abstract: | We test how a monopoly, a duopoly and a public monopoly manage and allocate water resources. Stock depletion for the public monopoly is fastest. However, it reaches the optimal stock level towards the end of the experimental sessions. The private monopoly and duopoly maintain inefficiently high levels of stock throughout the sessions. The average quality to price ratio offered by the public monopoly is substantially higher than that offered by the private monopoly or duopoly. A clear result from the experiments is that a public monopoly offers the highest (average) quality to price ratio and has the fastest rate of stock depletion compared to a private monopoly or duopoly. |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we062207&r=mic |
| By: | Hanming Fang (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Peter Norman |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that linking a sufficiently large number of independent but unrelated social decisions can achieve approximate efficiency. We provide regularity conditions under which a Groves mechanism amended with a veto game implements an efficient outcome with probability arbitrarily close to one, and satisfies interim participation, incentive and resource constraints. |
| Keywords: | Linking, Participation Constraints, Groves Mechanisms, Veto Power |
| JEL: | D61 D82 H41 |
| Date: | 2005–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1511r&r=mic |
| By: | F. Barigozzi; P. Garella; M. Peitz |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:441&r=mic |
| By: | Schøler, Finn (Department of Business Studies) |
| Abstract: | This study focuses on earnings quality by investigating the quality of accruals using the approach <p> introduced by Dechow & Dichev (2002). One essential element is the role of accrual estimation errors, <p> and another is whether the equity market impounds information about the quality of earnings. The basic <p> assumption is that the quality of accruals and earnings is decreasing as the magnitude of estimation <p> errors in the accruals is increasing. The paper contributes to the literature on accrual (and earnings) <p> quality by investigating not only the quality of aggregated accruals but also the quality of some more <p> specific company key accruals, where especially the two balance sheet accounts, inventory and accounts <p> receivable, are of interest. This is documented and discussed by relating empirical measures of the <p> quality of the different specific key-accruals as well as aggregated accruals quality vs. observable firm <p> characteristics (e.g. volatility of accruals and earnings, etc.). Further, since an analysis of this type in <p> general can be said to be somewhat mechanical, it is also investigated whether and how, the equity <p> market (e.g. observable earnings-price-ratios) impounds information about the quality of the different <p> accruals and earnings. |
| Keywords: | No; keywords |
| Date: | 2006–04–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:aaracc:91-001&r=mic |
| By: | L. Colombo; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:456&r=mic |
| By: | M. Alvisi; E. Argentesi; E. Carbonara |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:436&r=mic |
| By: | Branzei,Rodica; Fragnelli,Vito; Meca,Ana; Tijs,Stef (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We consider a market situation with two corners. One corner consists of a single seller with one object, and the other corner consists of potential buyers who all want the object. We suppose that the valuations of the object for the different buyers is known by all of them. Then two cooperative games, which we call the auction game and the ring game, corresponding to such a market situation are considered. Auction games are related to special total big boss games, while ring games are related to special convex games, the peer group games. It turns out that there exists a duality relation between the auction game and the ring game arising from the same two-corner market situation. For both classes of games relevant solution concepts are studied. |
| Keywords: | 91A12;90B05; market games;ring games;one-object auction situations;big boss games;peer group games |
| JEL: | C71 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200625&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; G. Rossini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:384&r=mic |
| By: | L. Colombo; L. Lambertini; A. Mantovani |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:466&r=mic |
| By: | Dominique Demougin; Anja Schöttner |
| Abstract: | With adverse selection, diseconomies of scale associated with hierarchies may induce the implementation of a second-best technology. This occurs whenever rents to lower tiers of the hierarchy increase faster than total surplus. This is more likely with longer hierarchies. |
| Keywords: | Adverse Selection, Hierarchies, Technology |
| JEL: | D82 L23 O33 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2006-028&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini; A. Mantovani |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:389&r=mic |
| By: | L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:395&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:431&r=mic |
| By: | A. Mantovani; G. Mion |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:455&r=mic |
| By: | Belderbos René; Carree Martin; Lokshin Boris (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the performance effects of simultaneous engagement in R&D cooperation with different partners (competitors, clients, suppliers, and universities and research institutes). We test whether these different types of R&D cooperation are complements in improving productivity. The results suggest that the joint adoption of cooperation strategies could be either beneficial or detrimental to firm performance, depending on firm size and specific strategy combinations. Customer cooperation helps to increase market acceptance and diffusion of product innovations and enhances the impact ofcompetitor and university cooperation. On the other hand, smaller firms also face diseconomies in pursuing multiple R&D cooperation strategies, which may stem from higher costs and complexity of simultaneously managing multiple partnerships with different innovation objectives. |
| Keywords: | management and organization theory ; |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2006013&r=mic |
| By: | Sita Nataraj Slavov (Department of Economics, Occidental College) |
| Abstract: | It is well known that pure public goods are underprovided in static games with private, voluntary contributions. Public provision is usually modeled using a median voter framework, in which the public good is funded by a proportional income tax. This paper compares the private and public provision of public goods in dynamic settings. With private provision, it is possible to sustain cooperation and provide the public good efficiently. With public provision, dynamic majority-rule solutions exist even when taxes are not restricted to be proportional to income; thus, income redistribution can be chosen jointly with the level of the public good. At low discount factors, private provision tends to result in lower levels of the public good relative to public provision. As patience increases, however, public provision results in lower levels of the public good than private provision. This occurs because higher levels of income redistribution are sustainable under public provision. Such redistribution becomes increasingly feasible at higher discount factors, resulting in income subsidies for particular groups instead of higher levels of the public good. In contrast, under private provision, all groups are forced to settle for increases in the level of the public good. In terms of financing the public good, private provision tends to result in benefit taxation, with little variation in individual contribution rates. Public provision allows a wider range of tax rates, although there is a tendency towards benefit taxation when preferences vary and progressive taxation when incomes vary. |
| Keywords: | majority rule, Condorcet winner, public goods, voluntary donations, dynamic games |
| JEL: | H41 D72 C72 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:occ:wpaper:2&r=mic |
| By: | Vives, Xavier (IESE Business School) |
| Abstract: | We provide sufficient conditions in finite-horizon multi-stage games for the value function of each player, associated to extremal Markov perfect equilibria, to display strategic complementarities and for the contemporaneous equilibrium to be increasing in the state variables. |
| Keywords: | Markov game; supermodularity; two-stage game; adjustment costs; learning curve; network effects; |
| Date: | 2006–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0619&r=mic |
| By: | R. Cellini; L. Lambertini |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:449&r=mic |
| By: | Nishaal Gooroochurn (Nottingham University Business School); Aoife Hanley (Nottingham University Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relative importance of property rights (PR) and transactions cost (TC) factors in driving the decision of firms to outsource innovation. The TC literature explains a small part of outsourcing decisions (cost saving motives) while the PR literature deals with revenue maximisation. Using data for over 8,000 firms from the UK Community Innovation Survey, we find that PR variables dominate over TC variables. Our results suggest that the decision to outsource innovation is mostly driven by the ability of firms to control information leakages, less so by cost motives. |
| Keywords: | transaction cost, property rights, innovation |
| JEL: | L2 O3 |
| Date: | 2006–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nub:occpap:17&r=mic |