Search results for "competition"
showing 10 items of 1409 documents
Survey on the innovation in the Sicilian grapevine nurseries
2012
This paper deals with quality innovation in the grapevine nursery sector. The vegetative propagation of grapevines, scarcely considered by economic research, is the first step in the wine production chain as it influences both the type and the quality of wines as well as the quality and quantity of the performance of farm investments.This paper gives the results of a study carried out through a structural analysis of both national and regional grapevine nurseries and then through a direct survey of the largest Sicilian nurseries. The survey covers the main structural and productive issues as well as the commercial aspects of eight Sicilian grapevine nurseries and their innovative investment…
Cooperation among competitors: A comparison of cost-sharing mechanisms
2016
Abstract In this paper, we investigate the consequences of using outcome-based versus ex ante-based cost-sharing mechanisms in terms of competing firms' profitability and total welfare. We consider two firms making a joint expenditure, which can positively affect firms' demand and/or unit operating costs, while competing in the final market by setting either price or quantity. We compare two outcome-based cost-sharing mechanisms, i.e., Quantity Proportional (QP) and Total Margin proportional (TM), with the more competitive Fixed Share (FS) mechanism where cost-sharing is set up on an ex ante basis. We show that outcome-based mechanisms, and even a fully collusive behavior induced by the opt…
Attuned HRM Systems for Social Enterprises
2021
This paper is motivated by a puzzling observation made when conducting a case study of ProCredit (PC), a well-known social bank. The HR practices that this social enterprise (SE) adopted to cultivate mission identification were unfavorably impacting its retention rate. Building on prior research and our analysis of the case, we argue the need for SEs to embrace HRM systems that are both mission-identification proactive and employee-retention preemptive. It theorizes that these HRM systems should be attuned to the labor market conditions (e.g., market segmentation and competition for employees) that frame how SEs develop and sustain Person-Organization (P-O) fit. Attuned HRM systems are adap…
Local bank competition and small business lending after the onset of the financial crisis
2016
This paper examines whether the effects of the financial crisis on the volumes and prices of small business loans depended on the pre-crisis local competitive environment. To address this question, I employ a unique data set on Finnish cooperative banks. I find that the monthly volumes of new business loans decreased and the average loan margins increased after the onset of the crisis. The decrease in volumes and the increase in margins were greater in local banking markets that were more competitive before the crisis. The results for the loan margins are more robust than those obtained for the volumes. Auxiliary analyses suggest that the greater effects in the more competitive markets are …
Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t: Two Masters
2018
Available online: 05 June 2018 We study common agency problems in which two principals (groups) make costly commitments to incentives that are conditioned on imperfect signals of the agent's action. Our framework allows for incentives to be either rewards or punishments. For our basic model we obtain a unique equilibrium, which typically involves randomization by both principals. Greater similarity between principals leads to more aggressive competition. The principals weakly prefer punishment to rewards, sometimes strictly. With rewards an agent voluntarily joins both groups with punishment it depends on whether severe punishments are feasible and cheap for the principals. We study whether…
Adam Smith on Monopoly Theory. Making good a lacuna
2014
This article analyses Adam Smith's views on monopoly by focusing on Book IV and V of The Wealth of Nations. It argues that the majority of scholars have assessed Smith's analysis of monopoly starting from premises different from those, actually though implicitly, used by Smith. We show that Smith makes use of the word 'monopoly' to refer to a heterogeneous collection of market outcomes, besides that of a single seller market, and that Smith's account of monopolists' behaviour is richer than that provided by later theorists. We also show that Smith was aware of the growth-retarding effect of monopoly and urged State regulation. © 2014 Scottish Economic Society.
Learning competitive pricing strategies by multi-agent reinforcement learning
2003
Abstract In electronic marketplaces automated and dynamic pricing is becoming increasingly popular. Agents that perform this task can improve themselves by learning from past observations, possibly using reinforcement learning techniques. Co-learning of several adaptive agents against each other may lead to unforeseen results and increasingly dynamic behavior of the market. In this article we shed some light on price developments arising from a simple price adaptation strategy. Furthermore, we examine several adaptive pricing strategies and their learning behavior in a co-learning scenario with different levels of competition. Q-learning manages to learn best-reply strategies well, but is e…
Measuring welfare loss of market power: an application to European banks
2004
From a model of imperfect competition among banking firms, this study derives an analytical expression that allows empirical quantification of the welfare loss associated with imperfect competition. Its application to the specific case of the European banking system shows that in spite of the process of deregulation, market power increased during the 1990s in 10 out of the 15 countries of the EU. The welfare loss associated with market power represents close to 2.5% of EU GDP.
How endogenous asymmetries in interregional market access trigger regional divergence
2005
We investigate how asymmetric trade patterns in differentiated products affect the regional distribution of economic activities. The asymmetry in interregional market access is an endogenous result of price competition and industry location and arises for intermediate values of trade costs. We show that the emergence of one-way trade in differentiated products gives rise to strong agglomeration forces and leads to the absorption of the smaller region's industry by the larger region. The number of spatial equilibria increases once the pattern of trade is endogenously accounted for. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Depression of the deprived or eroding enthusiasm of the elites: What has shifted the support for international trade?
2020
Abstract We use the 2003 and 2013 waves of the International Survey Program (ISSP) in order to explore the change in people’s attitudes that may be behind the recent backlash against globalization. We show that the average support for international trade has decreased in many – albeit not all – countries, and we demonstrate that these changes are related to the depth and length of the global financial crisis of 2008/09 as well as the evolution of income inequality. Moreover, our results document a declining support of those individuals who are likely to benefit from international trade: the young, high-skilled and well-off. We show that this “eroding enthusiasm of the elites” is empirically…