Manchester School最新文献

This paper examines leadership in internationalization strategies for an asymmetric cost duopoly where firms choose between exports and foreign direct investment (FDI) in a sequential setting. The incentive to lead and to engage in FDI is stronger for the more efficient firm. With sequential choices and the efficient firm playing in advance, it is less likely that firms pick identical internationalization strategies in equilibrium, as compared with simultaneous choices; this is more so for greater cost asymmetry. It also happens for large enough oligopoly profitability when the inefficient firm plays in advance. Follow-the-leader behaviour in FDI arises for low values of the setup cost. Although entry in FDI by both firms is best for consumers, total welfare can be higher with opposite internationalization strategies. Were firms given the opportunity to lead or wait and enter later, the efficient firm would emerge as the leader in exports/FDI depending on the well-known proximity-concentration trade-off. Interestingly, the less efficient firm might prefer to wait for strategic reasons.

In this study, the US daily economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index is employed to examine how EPU changes because of the implementation of and exit from the unconventional monetary policy adopted by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The analysis suggests that forward guidance lowers the volatility of EPU. Moreover, the EPU level decreases during the tapering period of quantitative easing. This may be attributable to the unequivocal expected lifting of the zero interest rate policy. In contrast to these findings favoring the FOMC’s successful communication, it is found that time-contingent forward guidance increases EPU.

A classic R&D rivalry is compared to R&D cooperation while embedded in a model of endogenous network compatibility. We show that complete incompatibility is more likely to occur with cooperative R&D. Complete incompatibility increases the advantage in R&D and profitability of the incumbent over the entrant. In our initial illustration, cooperation in network industries with endogenous compatibility generates no higher (and often lower) welfare than in non-network industries. In our generalization, cooperation in network industries generates welfare loss for a wider range of R&D spillovers. This suggests that R&D cooperation should receive stricter policy scrutiny in network industries with endogenous compatibility.

Using the right-to-manage model of union-firm bargaining, we show that a higher union power increases product innovation if the bargaining is decentralised, the market expansion effect is weak, and the cost of innovation is relatively low. Otherwise, the relationship between union power and innovation is negative. Hence, we contribute to the literature in two ways. Unlike the extant theoretical literature, we consider the effects on product innovation, which is empirically relevant but has been ignored in the theoretical literature and explain a positive relationship between union power and innovation.

We revisit the determinants of house prices in China’s megacities. Previous work on similar topics fails to account for the widespread cross-sectional heterogeneity and interdependencies, despite the importance of them. Using a PVAR estimated by the Bayesian method allowing for these features, we find each city is rather unique, especially on the extent to which local house prices are disturbed by external house price shocks. The spillovers may be partly related to the demand side before 2010, but seems more related to supply factors thereafter, due to the imposition of property purchase restrictions. The new evidence we establish therefore suggests that city-level stabilisation of house prices should fully respect local features, including how local markets respond to external disturbances.

We investigate the impact of ECB conventional (CMP) on national banking indices of 10 Eurozone countries and a Eurozone-wide banking index using the event study technique. We find that announcements of unexpected increases in interest rates benefit French, German, Greek and Italian banks when interest rates are low, while in other periods, the effect is muted. A plausible explanation is that bank profits are squeezed when interest rates are low because banks are reluctant to push deposit rates to zero. Our results are robust to potentially confounding events related to unconventional monetary policy announcements, volatility clustering and volatility expectations.

The objective of this paper is to conduct a reappraisal of Katona's (1968) adaptive theory of consumer behaviour, which maintains that discretionary consumption is partly determined by attitudes and expectations of households. Initially, using UK data, we follow Katona by empirically examining whether changes in personal expenditure on durable goods are connected to earlier movements in consumer confidence. Evidence of a lack of a stable relationship between these two variables encourages us to perform a disaggregated analysis involving 111 components of four different forms of consumption, which enables construction of an aggregate measure of discretionary spending. We find that sufficient criteria are satisfied for the sentiment index to be accepted as a reliable predictor of the growth of gratuitous expenditure. In conclusion, then, it would seem that the validity of Katona's theory can be revived if we are prepared to discard the assumption that durable goods’ consumption is synonymous with discretionary spending.

We develop a theoretical model to examine the implication of a monopolist’s environmental consciousness, which induces it to adopt cleaner technology or to internalize negative environmental externalities of production or both, for the environment. Results show that greater environmental concern of the monopolist may damage the environment more, despite leading to lower emission intensity. This is true regardless of whether consumers value green production or not. This paper also draws implications of technology standard and emission tax as instruments for environmental regulation. This paper provides a theoretical underpinning of the rebound effect in production by showing that the voluntary pro-environmental compliance behavior may not always mitigate the rebound effect. This suggests that a regulator should be cautious while designing regulatory mechanisms.

This paper investigates the distributive and welfare effects of corporate governance with firm competition. In the short run, where the number of manufacturing firms is given, a better corporate governance can raise both of the skilled and unskilled wage rates, but the skilled-unskilled wage gap will be widened in the economy. Nonetheless, in the long run, a better corporate governance causes manufacturing firms to exit, which in turn reallocates some capital to the agricultural sector. This benefits unskilled workers and raises their wages, while reducing the skilled wage rate via the firm-exit effect. The exit of manufacturing firms mitigates the issue of excessive entry of firms, which can improve social efficiency in the long run. As a result, the optimal level of corporate governance is higher in the long run.

This survey provides a selective review of the literature on patent policy, innovation and economic growth. The patent system is a useful policy tool for stimulating innovation given its importance on technological progress and economic growth. However, the patent system is a multidimensional system, which features multiple patent policy instruments. In this survey, we review some of the commonly discussed patent policy instruments, such as patent length, patent breadth and blocking patents, and also use a canonical Schumpeterian growth model to demonstrate their different effects on innovation and the macroeconomy.