RAND Journal of Economics

最新文章

• Sequential innovation, patent policy, and the dynamics of the replacement effect AI翻译
  作者：Parra, Alvaro
  作者单位：University of British Columbia
  摘要：I study how patent policy-characterized by patent length and forward protection-affects Research and Development (R&D) dynamics, leadership persistence, and market structure. Firms' R&D investments increase as the patent's expiration date approaches. Through forward protection, followers internalize the leader's replacement effect. In protective systems, this internalization is substantial, reversing Arrow's traditional result: followers invest less than leaders at every moment of the patent's...
• Sticking points: common-agency problems and contracting in the US healthcare system AI翻译
  作者：Frandsen, Brigham; Powell, Michael; Rebitzer, James B.
  作者单位：Brigham Young University; Northwestern University; Boston University; National Bureau of Economic Research
  摘要：We propose a common-agency model for explaining inefficient contracting in the US healthcare system. Common-agency problems arise when multiple payers seek to motivate a provider to invest in improved care coordination. We highlight the possibility of sticking points, that is, Pareto-dominated equilibria in which payers coordinate around contracts which give weak incentives to the provider. Sticking points rationalize three hard-to-explain features of the US healthcare system: widespread fee-f...
• Disclosure policy choices under regulatory threat AI翻译
  作者：Suijs, Jeroen; Wielhouwer, Jacco L.
  作者单位：Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  摘要：This article shows that firms voluntarily increase their disclosures in response to the threat of more stringent disclosure regulations. These disclosures are mostly just sufficient to deter regulation. However, when investment risk is low, both managers and investors might strictly prefer the regulation deterring equilibrium. We further find that in many cases, regulation can only be deterred by asymmetric disclosure behavior of the firms. This suggests that coordination issues and free-ridin...
• The benefit of collective reputation AI翻译
  作者：Neeman, Zvika; Ory, Aniko; Yu, Jungju
  作者单位：Tel Aviv University; Yale University; City University of Hong Kong
  摘要：We study a model of reputation with two long-lived firms who operate under a collective brand or as two individual brands. Firms' investments in quality are unobserved and can only be sustained through reputational concerns. In a collective brand, consumers cannot distinguish between the two firms. In the long run, this generates incentives to free-ride on the other firm's investment, but in the short run, it mitigates the temptation to milk a good reputation. The signal structure and consumer...
• When is upstream collusion profitable? AI翻译
  作者：Gu, Dingwei; Yao, Zhiyong; Zhou, Wen; Bai, Rangrang
  作者单位：Fudan University; University of Hong Kong
  摘要：Motivated by the recent antitrust cases in which Japanese auto parts suppliers colluded to raise supply prices against their long-term collaborators, the Japanese carmakers, we study the conditions under which an upstream collusion is profitable even after compensating downstream direct purchasers. Oligopoly competition in successive industries is shown to give rise to a vertical externality and a horizontal externality. If a collusive price of intermediate goods better balances the two extern...
• All-units discounts as a partial foreclosure device AI翻译
  作者：Chao, Yong; Tan, Guofu; Wong, Adam Chi Leung
  作者单位：University of Louisville; University of Southern California; Lingnan University
  摘要：We investigate the strategic effects of all-units discounts (AUDs) used by a dominant firm in the presence of a capacity-constrained rival. Due to the limited capacity of the rival, the dominant firm has a captive portion of the buyer's demand for the single product. As compared to linear pricing, the dominant firm can use AUDs to go beyond its captive portion by tying its captive demand with part of the competitive demand and partially foreclose its small rival. When the rival's capacity leve...
• Extracting information or resource? The Hotelling rule revisited under asymmetric information AI翻译
  作者：Martimort, David; Pouyet, Jerome; Ricci, Francesco
  作者单位：Paris School of Economics; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CY Cergy Paris Universite; ESSEC Business School; Universite de Montpellier
  摘要：A concessionaire has private information on the initial stock of resource. A virtual Hotelling rule describes how the resource price evolves over time and how extraction costs are compounded with information costs along the optimal extraction path. Fields which are heterogeneous in terms of their initial stocks follow different extraction paths. Resource might be left unexploited in the long run as a way to foster incentives. The optimal contract may sometimes be implemented through royalties ...
• Bundling and quality assurance AI翻译
  作者：Dana, James D., Jr.; Spier, Kathryn E.
  作者单位：Northeastern University; Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
  摘要：With imperfect private monitoring, a firm selling two experience goods can increase both producer and consumer surplus by bundling. Bundling constrains consumers to buy two products, making consumers better informed and ensuring that they use tougher punishment strategies. Both increased monitoring and increased punishment benefit other consumers, so bundling overcomes a free-rider problem. The social value of bundling is even larger if consumers cannot attribute a negative signal to the speci...
• Consumer search with observational learning AI翻译
  作者：Garcia, Daniel; Shelegia, Sandro
  作者单位：University of Vienna; Pompeu Fabra University
  摘要：This article studies observational learning in a consumer search environment. Consumers observe the purchasing decision of a predecessor with similar preferences. Consumers rationally emulate by initiating their search at the firm from which their predecessor purchased, free-riding on search effort, and reacting less to price changes. Prices are nonmonotone in search costs and may be as low as marginal costs. We discuss several extensions and show that the effect of emulation on prices is stro...
• Gaming and strategic opacity in incentive provision AI翻译
  作者：Ederer, Florian; Holden, Richard; Meyer, Margaret
  作者单位：Yale University; University of New South Wales Sydney; University of Oxford; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
  摘要：We study the benefits and costs of opacity (deliberate lack of transparency) of incentive schemes as a strategy to combat gaming by better informed agents. In a two-task moral hazard model in which only the agent knows which task is less costly, the agent has an incentive to focus his effort on the less costly task. Opaque schemes, which make a risk-averse agent uncertain about which task will be more highly rewarded, mitigate such gaming but impose more risk. We identify environments in which...