Search results for "jel:L1"
showing 10 items of 37 documents
The Stackelberg equilibrium as a consistent conjectural equilibrium
2011
International audience; We consider a static game with conjectural variations where some firms make conjectures while others do not. Two propositions are proved. We first show that there exists a continuum of conjectural variations such that the conjectural equilibrium locally coincides with the Stackelberg equilibrium (Proposition 1). Second, we define the conditions under which a conjectural equilibrium is a locally consistent equilibrium (i.e. such that conjectures are fulfilled). The conceptof (local) consistency is restricted to firms making conjectures. Two conditions on consistency are featured: consistency within a cohort and consistency among cohorts. The Stackelberg equilibrium fu…
The Classical Notion of Competition Revisited
2013
This article seeks to fill a lacuna within classical economics concerning the process of market price determination in situations of market disequilibrium. To this aim, first we distinguish the classical notion of free competition from the Walrasian notion of perfect competition and we argue that the latter is beset with some theoretical difficulties alien to the former. Second, we reconstruct in some detail Smith’s and Marx’s views concerning market price determination and show that Marx’s extensive use of metaphors and numerical examples foreshadows the modern taxonomy of buyers’ market, sellers’ market, and mixed strategy equilibrium in the capacity space of a standard Bertrand duopoly m…
The determinants of net interest income in the Mexican banking system: An integrated model
2009
This paper analyzes net interest income in the Mexican banking system over the period 1993-2005. Taking as reference the seminal work by Ho and Saunders (1981) and subsequent extensions by other authors, our study models the net interest margin simultaneously including operating costs and diversification and specialization as determinants of the margin. The results referring to the Mexican case show that its high margins can be explained mainly by average operating costs and by market power. Although non-interest income has increased in recent years, its economic impact is low. El trabajo analiza el margen de intermediación de la banca Mexicana en el periodo 1996-2005. Tomando como referenc…
Multiproduct trading with a common agent under complete information: Existence and characterization of Nash equilibrium
2014
This paper focuses on oligopolistic markets in which indivisible goods are sold by multiproduct firms to a continuum of homogeneous buyers, with measure normalized to one, who have preferences over bundles of products. Our analysis contributes to the literature on private, delegated agency games with complete information, extending the insights by Chiesa and Denicolò (2009) to multiproduct markets with indivisibilities and where the agent's preferences need not be monotone. By analyzing a kind of extended contract schedules -mixed bundling prices- that discriminate on exclusivity, the paper shows that efficient equilibria always exist in such settings. There may also exist inefficient equil…
Multi-product firms and product variety
2008
The goal of this paper is to study the role of multi-product firms in the market provision of product variety. The analysis is conducted using the spokes model of non-localized competition proposed by Chen and Riordan (2007). Firstly, we show that multi-product firms are at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis single-product firms and can only emerge if economies of scope are sufficiently strong. Secondly, under duopoly product variety may be higher or lower with respect to both the first best and the monopolistically competitive equilibrium. However, within a relevant range of parameter values duopolists drastically restrict their product range in order to relax price competition, and as a…
Quality pricing-to-market
2014
We examine firm's pricing-to-market decisions in vertically differentiated industries featuring a large number of firms that compete monopolistically in the quality space. Firms sell goods of heterogeneous quality to consumers with non-homothetic preferences that differ in their income and thus their marginal willingness to pay for quality increments. We derive closed-form solutions for the pricing game under costly international trade, thus establishing existence and uniqueness. We then examine how the interaction of good quality and market demand for quality affects firms' pricing-to-market decisions. The relative price of high quality goods compared to that of low quality goods is an inc…
Product and Labour Market Regulations, Production Prices, Wages and Productivity
2016
ACLN; International audience; This study is an attempt to evaluate the effects of product and labour market regulations on industry productivity through their various impacts on changes in production prices and wages. In a first stage, the estimation of a regression equation on an industry*country panel, with controls for country*industry and country*year fixed effects, show that multi-factor productivity is negatively and significantly influenced by both indicators of industrial prices from same industry and weighted average of industrial prices from other industries, and by indicators of country wages weighted by industry labour shares for low and high skilled workers. In a second stage, …
ENDOGENOUS TIMING WITH FREE ENTRY
2006
A free entry model with linear costs is considered where firms first choose their entry time and then compete in the market according to the resulting timing decisions. Multiple equilibria arise allowing for infinitely many industry output configurations encompassing one limit-output dominant firm and the Cournot equilibrium with free entry as extreme cases. Sequential entry is never observed. Both Stackelberg and Cournot-like outcomes are sustainable as equilibria however. When the number of incumbents is given, entry is always prevented, and industry output is sometimes larger than the entry preventing level.
Monitoring and Market Power in Loan Markets
2000
Whether or not banks are engaged in ex ante monitoring of customers may have important consequences for the whole economy. We approach this question via a model in which banks can invest in either information acquisition or market power (product differentiation). The two alternatives generate different predictions, which are tested using panel data on Finnish local banks. We find evidence that banks’ investments in branch networks and human capital (personnel) contribute to information acquisition but not to market power. We also find that managing customers’ money transactions enhances banks ability to control their lending risks.
Cross-country comparisons of competition and pricing power in European banking
2009
Abstract Studies of banking competition and competitive behavior both within and across countries typically utilise only one of the few measures that are available. In trying to assess the relative competitive position of banking markets in 14 European countries, existing indicators of competition are found to give conflicting predictions across countries, within countries, and over time. This is because indicators of competition tend to measure different things and are additionally influenced by cross-country differences in cost efficiency, fee income levels, real economic growth and inflation. We attempt to separate bank pricing power from these embodied influences and derive more consist…