Manchester School最新文献

This paper provides an analysis of the external effect of entry for both differentiated and homogenous products which takes account of the integer constraint, allows for cost-based or quality-based differences in firm size and for variation in firm conduct. The analysis shows that the external effect of entry is positive if the entrant is sufficiently large compared to the average incumbent, but not necessarily larger than the average incumbent, market conduct is competitive, there are few incumbents, marginal cost is steep relative to demand or products are sufficiently differentiated. These results contribute to the literature by expanding the set of market settings for which the external effect of entry is positive and thus for which profitable entry raises welfare.

In the last few decades, central bankers and economists have paid little attention to monetary aggregates, in contrast with the experience of the 1970s and the 1980s. Our evidence shows that monetary aggregates lose relevance when central banks maintain low and stable inflation, as has occurred in recent decades. However, to move from unstable to stable inflation, our findings also show that attention to monetary aggregates is needed. Our findings help resolve the long-standing controversy about the importance of monetary aggregates for the conduct of monetary policy: monetary aggregates are vital to move from unstable to stable inflation but lose relevance once a central bank has consistently reached price stability.

Several researchers have reported estimates of the fraction of money placed on sports betting by “insiders” with superior information to bookmakers. We show the method for estimating the fraction of insiders used in this research is only accurate under highly unrealistic conditions and that these estimates will tend to be positive in realistic cases where there are no insiders. We also argue that variations in these estimates are unlikely to be related to variations in the amount of inside information but rather are more likely due to other factors such as variations in bookmakers' costs or the extent of competition in betting markets.

This study examines unfair competition among consumers according to wealth groups. The study hypothesizes that consumer groups with high income and wealth levels have a competitive advantage over consumer groups with low income and wealth levels, and therefore wealth inequality may create upward pressure on prices. Data from 37 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries covering 2000–2022 were used in the analysis. According to the results of the analysis, increases in the wealth of high-wealth groups increase the inflation rate more severely.

The backdrop to this inquiry into the relationship between worker job satisfaction and workplace representation in European nations is twofold. The first is that the bulk of research has focused on union membership and job satisfaction in Anglophone nations with their very different industrial relations systems and bargaining arrangements. The second and more immediate context is the dramatic shift from negative to positive in the association between union membership and job satisfaction (inter al.) observed in the most recent literature. Using data on 28 European nations from the last two waves of the European Working Conditions Survey, however, we report that workers in establishments with formal workplace representation record lower job satisfaction than their counterparts in plants without such representation. These findings of conditional correlation are then upgraded by constructing a pseudo-panel with cohort fixed effects to take account of unobserved worker heterogeneity. First-difference estimates suggest that the negative relationship between worker representation and job satisfaction found in cross section continues to hold. Next, an endogenous treatment effects model is deployed to address the possible endogeneity of worker representation. The results are supportive of a causal negative relationship between job satisfaction and worker representation. One interpretation of our findings is that in the matter of the association between unions and job satisfaction the jury is still out.

We consider a vertically related market, in which each downstream firm produces a differentiated product by assembling a key input produced by a common supplier and another input produced by a dedicated upstream firm. On the one hand, vertical integration has the advantage of inducing the common supplier to set a lower input price, but the disadvantage of reducing downstream firms' competitiveness in the downstream market. On the other hand, vertical separation has the advantage of increasing downstream firms' competitiveness in the downstream market but the disadvantage of inducing the common supplier to set a higher input price. Contrary to results of previous studies, we find that the existence of a common supplier can lead to vertical integration under Cournot competition, which emerges as a unique equilibrium when a common supplier adopts input discrimination. Although vertical integration is better for the individual firms, it reduces the total welfare. Even when the common supplier uses uniform input pricing, vertical integration also emerges in equilibrium.