We consider demand function competition with a finite number of agents and private information. We show that any degree of market power can arise in the unique equilibrium under an information structure that is arbitrarily close to complete information. Regardless of the number of agents and the correlation of payo¤ shocks, market power may be arbitrarily close to zero (the competitive outcome) or arbitrarily large (so there is no trade). By contrast, price volatility is always lower than the variance of the aggregate shock across all information structures. Alternative trading mechanisms lead to very distinct bounds as a comparison with Cournot competition establishes.
{"title":"Information, Market Power and Price Volatility","authors":"D. Bergemann, T. Heumann, S. Morris","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3454310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3454310","url":null,"abstract":"We consider demand function competition with a finite number of agents and private information. We show that any degree of market power can arise in the unique equilibrium under an information structure that is arbitrarily close to complete information. Regardless of the number of agents and the correlation of payo¤ shocks, market power may be arbitrarily close to zero (the competitive outcome) or arbitrarily large (so there is no trade). By contrast, price volatility is always lower than the variance of the aggregate shock across all information structures. Alternative trading mechanisms lead to very distinct bounds as a comparison with Cournot competition establishes.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"147 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121897562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Geoffroy de Clippel, K. Eliaz, Daniel Fershtman, Kareen Rozen
Each period, a principal must assign one of two agents to a new task. Each agent privately learns whether he is qualified for the task. An agent wishes to be chosen independently of qualification and chooses whether to apply for the task. The principal wishes to appoint the most qualified agent and chooses which agent to assign as a function of the public history of profits. We fully characterize when the principal's first‐best payoff is attainable in equilibrium and identify a simple strategy profile achieving this first‐best whenever feasible. Additionally, we provide a partial characterization of the case with many agents and discuss how our analysis extends to other variations of the game.
{"title":"On Selecting the Right Agent","authors":"Geoffroy de Clippel, K. Eliaz, Daniel Fershtman, Kareen Rozen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3527088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3527088","url":null,"abstract":"Each period, a principal must assign one of two agents to a new task. Each agent privately learns whether he is qualified for the task. An agent wishes to be chosen independently of qualification and chooses whether to apply for the task. The principal wishes to appoint the most qualified agent and chooses which agent to assign as a function of the public history of profits. We fully characterize when the principal's first‐best payoff is attainable in equilibrium and identify a simple strategy profile achieving this first‐best whenever feasible. Additionally, we provide a partial characterization of the case with many agents and discuss how our analysis extends to other variations of the game.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"6 15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116869678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The channel-coordination literature typically focuses on how a supplier canovercome channel inefficiencies stemming from misaligned pricing incentives. In contrast, we show that when an incumbent supplier faces competition from other suppliers to supply the downstream firms, it may want to create inefficiencies. Our analysis offers useful prescriptions for how incumbent suppliers should react to competitive threats by smaller competitors, how manufacturers should react to powerful retailers who can produce their own private-label brands, and how upstream firms should optimally treat downstream firms who may have different marginal costs of distribution. Our analysis also explains why wholesale prices and thus final-goods prices would be expected to decrease when there is an increase in upstream or downstream competition.
{"title":"Managing Channel Profits When Retailers Have Profitable Outside Options","authors":"R. Inderst, G. Shaffer","doi":"10.1287/mnsc.2017.2953","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2953","url":null,"abstract":"The channel-coordination literature typically focuses on how a supplier canovercome channel inefficiencies stemming from misaligned pricing incentives. In contrast, we show that when an incumbent supplier faces competition from other suppliers to supply the downstream firms, it may want to create inefficiencies. Our analysis offers useful prescriptions for how incumbent suppliers should react to competitive threats by smaller competitors, how manufacturers should react to powerful retailers who can produce their own private-label brands, and how upstream firms should optimally treat downstream firms who may have different marginal costs of distribution. Our analysis also explains why wholesale prices and thus final-goods prices would be expected to decrease when there is an increase in upstream or downstream competition.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124375379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We formalize the argument that political disagreements can be traced to a “clash of narratives.” Drawing on the “Bayesian Networks” literature, we represent a narrative by a causal model that maps actions into consequences, weaving a selection of other random variables into the story. Narratives generate beliefs by interpreting long-run correlations between these variables. An equilibrium is defined as a probability distribution over narrative-policy pairs that maximize a representative agent's anticipatory utility, capturing the idea that people are drawn to hopeful narratives. Our equilibrium analysis sheds light on the structure of prevailing narratives, the variables they involve, the policies they sustain, and their contribution to political polarization. (JEL D72, D83, D85, F52)
{"title":"A Model of Competing Narratives","authors":"K. Eliaz, R. Spiegler","doi":"10.1257/AER.20191099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/AER.20191099","url":null,"abstract":"We formalize the argument that political disagreements can be traced to a “clash of narratives.” Drawing on the “Bayesian Networks” literature, we represent a narrative by a causal model that maps actions into consequences, weaving a selection of other random variables into the story. Narratives generate beliefs by interpreting long-run correlations between these variables. An equilibrium is defined as a probability distribution over narrative-policy pairs that maximize a representative agent's anticipatory utility, capturing the idea that people are drawn to hopeful narratives. Our equilibrium analysis sheds light on the structure of prevailing narratives, the variables they involve, the policies they sustain, and their contribution to political polarization. (JEL D72, D83, D85, F52)","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131518577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Empirical research often cites observed choice responses to variation that shifts expected discounted future utilities, but not current utilities, as an intuitive source of information on time preferences. We study the identification of dynamic discrete choice models under such economically motivated exclusion restrictions on primitive utilities. We show that each exclusion restriction leads to an easily interpretable moment condition with the discount factor as the only unknown parameter. The identified set of discount factors that solves this condition is finite, but not necessarily a singleton. Consequently, in contrast to common intuition, an exclusion restriction does not in general give point identification. Finally, we show that exclusion restrictions have nontrivial empirical content: The implied moment conditions impose restrictions on choices that are absent from the unconstrained model.
{"title":"Identifying the Discount Factor in Dynamic Discrete Choice Models","authors":"J. Abbring, Øystein Daljord","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3051326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3051326","url":null,"abstract":"Empirical research often cites observed choice responses to variation that shifts expected discounted future utilities, but not current utilities, as an intuitive source of information on time preferences. We study the identification of dynamic discrete choice models under such economically motivated exclusion restrictions on primitive utilities. We show that each exclusion restriction leads to an easily interpretable moment condition with the discount factor as the only unknown parameter. The identified set of discount factors that solves this condition is finite, but not necessarily a singleton. Consequently, in contrast to common intuition, an exclusion restriction does not in general give point identification. Finally, we show that exclusion restrictions have nontrivial empirical content: The implied moment conditions impose restrictions on choices that are absent from the unconstrained model.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116544459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-05-01DOI: 10.1016/J.JOEP.2011.07.007
F. van Winden, M. Krawczyk, Astrid Hopfensitz
{"title":"Investment, Resolution of Risk, and the Role of Affect","authors":"F. van Winden, M. Krawczyk, Astrid Hopfensitz","doi":"10.1016/J.JOEP.2011.07.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JOEP.2011.07.007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128644194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper studies generic properties of Markov perfect equilibria in dynamic stochastic games. We show that almost all dynamic stochastic games have a finite number of locally isolated Markov perfect equilibria. These equilibria are essential and strongly stable. Moreover, they all admit purification. To establish these results, we introduce a notion of regularity for dynamic stochastic games and exploit a simple connection between normal form and dynamic stochastic games.
{"title":"A Theory of Regular Markov Perfect Equilibria in Dynamic Stochastic Games: Genericity, Stability, and Purification","authors":"U. Doraszelski, Juan F. Escobar","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1120819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1120819","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies generic properties of Markov perfect equilibria in dynamic stochastic games. We show that almost all dynamic stochastic games have a finite number of locally isolated Markov perfect equilibria. These equilibria are essential and strongly stable. Moreover, they all admit purification. To establish these results, we introduce a notion of regularity for dynamic stochastic games and exploit a simple connection between normal form and dynamic stochastic games.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121398020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines Norwegian gasoline pump prices using daily station-specific observations from March 2003 to March 2006. Whereas studies that have analyzed similar price cycles in other countries find support for the Edgeworth cycle theory (Maskin and Tirole, 1988), we demonstrate that Norwegian gasoline price cycles involve a form of coordinated behavior. We also show that gasoline prices follow a fixed weekly pattern, with prices increasing significantly every Monday at noon, and that gasoline companies appear to use the recommended price as a coordination device with a fixed link between the retail and recommended prices. Moreover, the weekly pattern changed in April 2004; whereas Thursday had been the high-price day, Monday now became the high-price day. The price–cost margin also increased significantly after the weekly pattern changed in April 2004.
本文利用2003年3月至2006年3月的每日加油站具体观测资料考察了挪威汽油泵价格。尽管分析其他国家类似价格周期的研究发现支持Edgeworth周期理论(Maskin and Tirole, 1988)，但我们证明挪威汽油价格周期涉及一种协调行为形式。我们还表明，汽油价格遵循固定的每周模式，价格在每周一中午大幅上涨，并且汽油公司似乎使用推荐价格作为零售和推荐价格之间固定联系的协调装置。此外，2004年4月的周格局发生了变化;虽然周四是高价日，但现在周一成了高价日。在2004年4月每周模式改变后，价格成本利润率也显著上升。
{"title":"Gasoline Prices Jump Up on Mondays: An Outcome of Aggressive Competition?","authors":"Øystein Foros, Frode Steen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1114762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1114762","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines Norwegian gasoline pump prices using daily station-specific observations from March 2003 to March 2006. Whereas studies that have analyzed similar price cycles in other countries find support for the Edgeworth cycle theory (Maskin and Tirole, 1988), we demonstrate that Norwegian gasoline price cycles involve a form of coordinated behavior. We also show that gasoline prices follow a fixed weekly pattern, with prices increasing significantly every Monday at noon, and that gasoline companies appear to use the recommended price as a coordination device with a fixed link between the retail and recommended prices. Moreover, the weekly pattern changed in April 2004; whereas Thursday had been the high-price day, Monday now became the high-price day. The price–cost margin also increased significantly after the weekly pattern changed in April 2004.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"140 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125827367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Mathieu, Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which technological specialization influences the observed R&D intensity of countries, and hence would bias the well-known country rankings that consist in comparing aggregate R&D intensity. The econometric analysis performed on a cross-country cross-industry panel dataset (21 industrial sectors, 10 countries, from 1991 to 2002) suggests that accounting for the technological specialization of countries drastically reduces the differences in relative R&D efforts observed at the country level. The only exception is Sweden (and the USA, but to a lower extent), which has an ‘above-than-average’ R&D intensity in most industries. Countries like Finland, Japan or Germany do not have an R&D intensity that is particularly higher than their industrial structure would predict.
{"title":"A Note on the Drivers of R&D Intensity","authors":"A. Mathieu, Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie","doi":"10.5430/RWE.V1N1P56","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5430/RWE.V1N1P56","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which technological specialization influences the observed R&D intensity of countries, and hence would bias the well-known country rankings that consist in comparing aggregate R&D intensity. The econometric analysis performed on a cross-country cross-industry panel dataset (21 industrial sectors, 10 countries, from 1991 to 2002) suggests that accounting for the technological specialization of countries drastically reduces the differences in relative R&D efforts observed at the country level. The only exception is Sweden (and the USA, but to a lower extent), which has an ‘above-than-average’ R&D intensity in most industries. Countries like Finland, Japan or Germany do not have an R&D intensity that is particularly higher than their industrial structure would predict.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130550876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We develop a simple estimator for production functions in the presence of endogenous productivity change that allows us to retrieve productivity and its relationship with R&D at the flrm level. Our dynamic investment model can be viewed as a generalization of the knowledge capital model (Griliches 1979) that has remained a cornerstone of the productivity literature for more than 25 years. We relax the assumptions on the R&D process and examine the impact of the investment in knowledge on the productivity of flrms. We illustrate our approach on an unbalanced panel of more than 1800 Spanish manufacturing flrms in nine industries during the 1990s. Our flndings indicate that the link between R&D and productivity is subject to a high degree of uncertainty, nonlinearity, and heterogeneity across flrms. Abstracting from uncertainty and nonlinearity, as is done in the knowledge capital model, or assuming an exogenous process for productivity, as is done in the recent literature on structural estimation of production functions, overlooks some of its most interesting features.
{"title":"R&D and Productivity: Estimating Production Functions when Productivity is Endogenous","authors":"U. Doraszelski, J. Jaumandreu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1080306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1080306","url":null,"abstract":"We develop a simple estimator for production functions in the presence of endogenous productivity change that allows us to retrieve productivity and its relationship with R&D at the flrm level. Our dynamic investment model can be viewed as a generalization of the knowledge capital model (Griliches 1979) that has remained a cornerstone of the productivity literature for more than 25 years. We relax the assumptions on the R&D process and examine the impact of the investment in knowledge on the productivity of flrms. We illustrate our approach on an unbalanced panel of more than 1800 Spanish manufacturing flrms in nine industries during the 1990s. Our flndings indicate that the link between R&D and productivity is subject to a high degree of uncertainty, nonlinearity, and heterogeneity across flrms. Abstracting from uncertainty and nonlinearity, as is done in the knowledge capital model, or assuming an exogenous process for productivity, as is done in the recent literature on structural estimation of production functions, overlooks some of its most interesting features.","PeriodicalId":401540,"journal":{"name":"CEPR: Industrial Organization (Topic)","volume":"145 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121640707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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