SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Brennan, Timothy J..

Allegations of market power in wholesale electricity sales are typically tested using price-cost margins. Such tests are inherently suspect in markets-such as electricity-that are subject to capacity constraints. In such markets, prices can vary with demand while quantity, and thus cost measure, remain fixed. Erroneous conclusions are more likely when the proxy for marginal cost is the average operating cost of the marginal plant. Measured this way, high Lerner indexes are consistent with competitive behavior. Using this proxy to cap wholesale prices, as the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has proposed, would discourage entry by making it impossible for peak power suppliers to recover capital costs. The wholesale electricity sector may be...

Collusion and seasonality of market price - A case of fixed market shares

Palavras-chave: Market power; Electricity; Peak load pricing; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; D42; L11; L51; L94.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10804

DER SLOWAKISCHE MARKT FUR MILCH UND MILCHPRODUKTE -- VOM BEGINN DER TRANSFORMATION BIS ZUM EU-BEITRITT

Bejger, Sylwester.

The paper develops a simple supergame model of collusion that focuses on the role of fixed (exogenous to game played) system of quantity market shares. Conclusions implied by the model could be used to motivate data - saving markers of collusion based on market price behavior. Following conclusions of the theoretical model we propose marker of collusion based on detecting changes in seasonal parameters of prices in periods of possible collusion. An empirical application of method has been done on well known data of Lysine cartel case.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Collusion; Repeated games; Fixed market shares; Seasonality of market price; Financial Economics; L11; L13; L41.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/95962

Glitsch, Kristina; Eerits, Alena.

Like in other CEEC, transition in the beginning of the 1990s had significant consequences for the agricultural and food sectors in Slovakia. For example, Slovakian consumers reacted to the abolition of consumer subsidies by drastically reducing their consumption of milk and milk products. Concurrently, milk production declined and now stands at fifty percent of its 1989 level. Dairies were closed down while those remaining carried on producing under constantly increasing overcapacities. In the years prior to EU accession, activities in the milk sector were primarily aimed at the adoption of EU standards. Meanwhile, the Slovakian milk processing industry is predominantly in the possession of foreign investors. Present per capita consumption of milk and milk...

The Biotechnology Sector: "Bounds" to Market Structure

Palavras-chave: Slovakia; Dairy industry; Milk consumption; Milk production; Milk processing; Structural change; Livestock Production/Industries; L11; L66; Q13.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/14873

Sheldon, Ian M..

This paper examines whether it makes sense to consider Sutton's "bounds" approach as a candidate theory for explaining the recent evolution of market structure in the biotechnology sector, and to speculate whether market structure will change if the industry begins to introduce second-generation GM products that are of more direct benefit to consumers. A key result is that the market structure is bounded in the presence of endogenous sunk costs, implying care should be taken when inferring any correlation between R&D expenditure and seller concentration in the biotechnology sector.

Marketing via Friends: Strategic Diffusion of Information in Social Networks with Homophily

Palavras-chave: Biotechnology; Market structure; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; L1; L11.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6078

Chuhay, Roman.

The paper studies the impact of homophily on the optimal strategies of a monopolist, whose marketing campaign of new product relies on a word of mouth communication. Homophily is a tendency of people to interact more with those who are similar to them. In the model there are two types of consumers embedded into a social network, which differ in friendship preferences and desirable design of product. Consumers can learn about the product directly from an advertisement or from their neighbors. The monopolist chooses the product design and price to influence a pattern of communication among consumers. We find a number of results: (i) for low levels of homophily the product attractive to both types of consumers is preferred to specialized products; (ii) the...

Agricultural Prices, Selection, and the Evolution of Food Industry

Palavras-chave: Networks; Word of Mouth; Viral Marketing; Homophily; Diffusion; Social Networks; Random Graphs; Monopoly; Pricing Strategy; Product Design; Marketing; Advertisement; Environmental Economics and Policy; D21; D42; D60; D83; L11; L12.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/96667

Gaigne, Carl; Le Mener, Leo.

In this paper, we set up a simple model that explains the relation between low input price, high exit rates and industrial oncentration. More precisely, we argue that falling input prices force firms with low productivity to exit and induce expansion of more efficient incumbents at the expense of less productive producers. Our model helps reconcile some well‐established empirical results regarding the food processing industry. Indeed, agricultural prices have been declining between the early 1900s until 2006 while, over the same period, concentration and firm productivity have been increasing in the agri‐food industry.

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Input price; Downstream industry; Entry/exit; Industrial concentration; Firm heterogeneity; Agricultural and Food Policy; Industrial Organization; International Relations/Trade; D24; L11; L25; L66.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/125221

Acquisitions and Integration in the Beef Industry

Anderson, John D.; Hudson, Darren.

Tipo: Report

Palavras-chave: Industrial Organization; Livestock Production/Industries; L11; L41; L42; Q13.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/93678

Human Capital, Complex Technologies, Firm Size and Wages: A Test of the O-Ring Production Hypotheses

Yu, Li; Orazem, Peter F..

Kremer’s O-Ring production theory (QJE, 1993) describes a process in which a single mistake in any one of several tasks in firm’s production process can lead to catastrophic failure of the product’s value. This paper tests the predictions of the O-Ring theory in the context of a single market for a relatively homogeneous product: hog production. Consistent with the theory, the most skilled workers concentrate in the largest and most technologically advanced farms and are paid more. As with observed skills, workers with the greatest endowments of unobserved skills also sort themselves into the largest and most technology intensive farms.

Data Aggregation and Vertical Price Transmission: An Experiment with German Food Prices

Palavras-chave: Labor and Human Capital; Production Economics; Farm Management; L11; O33; J43.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/44873

von Cramon-Taubadel, Stephan; Loy, Jens-Peter; Meyer, Jochen.

The impact of cross sectional aggregation over individual retail stores on the estimation and testing of vertical price transmission between the wholesale and retail levels is investigated using a unique data set of individual retail prices in Germany. Systematic differences between the results of estimations using aggregated data on the one hand, and disaggregated data on the other, are discussed theoretically and confirmed empirically. The results suggest that estimation with aggregated data generates misleading conclusions about price transmission behavior at the level of the individual units (i.e. retail stores) that underlie these aggregates.

ADJUSTMENT OF THE PRICING MECHANISM AND TENDENCIES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT IN UZBEKISTAN

Palavras-chave: Aggregation; Vertical Price Transmission; Food Prices; Germany; Demand and Price Analysis; Marketing; L11; D40.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25291

Price Transmission, Market Power and Returns to Scale

Voronin, Sergey.

The paper argues in favor of pricing adjustment to support competitiveness of national economy in Uzbekistan. The special attention was given to the factors of decreasing production costs in condition of global financial crisis environment. Measures in tax legislation unification, optimizing tax rates and structure are considered important to support competitiveness of national production.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Profitability; Taxing; Competitiveness of production; Price strategy; Public Economics; H21; L11; P22.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/94576

Wang, Xiuqing; Weldegebriel, Habtu T.; Rayner, Anthony J..

In this paper, we aim to model the vertical relation between retailers and suppliers in the food industry whereby retailers exercise seller power in their relation with consumers and buyer power in their relation with producers. We then evaluate the degree of price transmission, relative to the perfectly competitive benchmark, from the farm to the retail sector assuming a supply shock. With the view to evaluating the impact of market power's interaction with industry technology on the degree of price transmission, we assume industry technology to be characterised by variable input proportions and non-constant returns to scale. Our model predicts that, relative to that which obtains when markets are perfectly competitive and industry technology is...

MILK AND MILK PROCESSING INDUSTRY IN LITHUANIA: AN ANALYSIS OF HORIZONZAL AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION

Palavras-chave: Price transmission; Returns to scale; Market power; Demand and Price Analysis; Marketing; L11; Q13.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/46004

Kedaitiene, Angele; Hockmann, Heinrich.

Despite significant progress in recent years, horizontal and vertical integration of the Lithuanian milk sector is not very much advanced. The primary sector is characterised by small-scale farming, the fragmentation of farmland and a low number of livestock per farms. These features cause severe problems regarding the restructuring and modernisation of agricultural production since only a few farmers possess the capital resources to conduct necessary investments. However, despite the unfavourable conditions Lithuanian milk producers have made significant improvements concerning milk quality. In the last decade, the processing sector was due to drastic concentration processes. These were induced by the strong competition processes on the milk market and...

Combined Effects of Load Factors and Booking Time on Fares: Insights from the Yield Management of a Low-Cost Airline

Palavras-chave: Horizontal and vertical integration; Lithuanian milk sector; Foreign trade; Consumption; Industrial Organization; Livestock Production/Industries; L11; L66; Q13.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/14930

Alderighi, Marco; Nicolini, Marcella; Piga, Claudio A..

Based on two strands of theoretical research, this paper provides new evidence on how fares are jointly affected by in-flight seat availability and purchasing date. As capacity-driven theories predict, it emerges that fares monotonically and substantially increase with the flights occupancy rate. Moreover, as suggested in the literature on intertemporal price discrimination, the adoption of advance purchase discounts is widespread as the departure date nears, but it may be part of a U-shaped temporal profile, where discounts are preceded by periods of relatively higher fares. Finally, the intervention of yield management analysts appears to play a substantial role.

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Pricing policy; Panel Data; Ryanair; Yield Management; Demand and Price Analysis; D22; L11; L93.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/122020

Regional asymmetries in farm size

Huettel, Silke; Margarian, Anne; von Schlippenbach, Vanessa.

This paper explores how the initial farm size structure affects the exit decision of farms inducing free land capacities, and the allocation of the newly available land resources to the remaining farms in a particular region. We model an agricultural market where large and small firms first decide whether to leave the market or not; in case of continuing in production the farms compete for getting access to additional land resources in a Vickrey auction. We find that larger farms allocate more additional quantity than small farms; the latter are more likely to leave the market. An empirical illustration gives further support and reveals the relation between farm size structure, farm exits and growth of the large.

China’s Electricity Market Reform and Power Plants Efficiency

Palavras-chave: Asymmetries; Land market; Capacity allocation; Vickrey auction; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Land Economics/Use; L11; L12; Q12.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/62046

Ma, Chunbo; Zhao, Xiaoli; Ma, Qian; Zhao, Yue.

In the past three decades, Chinese electricity industry has experienced a series of regulatory reforms serving different purposes at different stages. In 2002, the former vertically integrated electricity utility - the State Power Corporation (SPC) – was divested and the generation sector was separated from the transmission and distribution networks in an effort to improve production efficiency. In this paper we study the impact of the reform on efficiency of fossil-fired power plants using plant-level data during 2000-2008. Our results from the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and panel regressions show that: 1) the total factor productivity (TFP) growth mainly comes from technological change; 2) the technical efficiency of previously SPC-managed power...

Trade Costs and International Strategy of Firms: the Role of Endogenous Product Differentiation

Palavras-chave: Efficiency; DEA; Malmquist Index; China; Electricity; Industrial Organization; Productivity Analysis; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; D24; L11; L51; L94; L98.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/117811

Blanchard, Pierre; Gaigne, Carl; Mathieu, Claude.

We study the impact of trade liberalization on the international strategy of firms (to export and/or invest abroad as well as the number of varieties to be produced) when product differentiation is endogenous. By considering product differentiation as a strategic variable, our analysis sheds new light on the impact of trade barriers on the decision to produce abroad and on the choice of product range, in accordance with recent empirical evidence. We show, even though technology exhibits the same productivity for each variety, firms drop some of varieties with trade integration. In addition, our results reveal that, contrary to the standard theoretical literature, the relationship between the decision to export and trade costs is non-linear. When trade...

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Foreign direct investment; Exports; Multi-product competition; Endogenuos differentiation product; Trade integration; International Relations/Trade; F12; F23; L11; L25.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/121117

Auction Experiments and Simulations of Milk Quota Exchanges

Brümmer, Bernhard; Loy, Jens-Peter; Requate, Till.

Since 2000 Germany has a fairly unique market mechanism to trade milk quotas between dairy farms. The two major features are: (1) a quasi auctioning system that produces excess demands which are covered by state reserves free of charge and (2) a price band is used to exclude high price bids. For both features an experimental design is developed to study their impact in comparison to a regular seller’s sealed bid double auction. Results show that both treatments lead to significant misallocations. These are due the direct impact of regulations and due to an imperfect adjustment of bidding functions towards them. The major goal of the market design to reduce quota prices is reached, however, at significant trade losses.

A Network Model of Price Dispersion

Palavras-chave: Double Auction; Experiment; Milk Quota; Germany; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; L11; D44; Q13.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61304

Pasini, Giacomo; Pin, Paolo; Weidenholzer, Simon.

We analyze a model of price competition a la Bertrand in a network environment. Firms only have a limited information on the structure of network: they know the number of potential customers they can attract and the degree distribution of customers. This incomplete information framework stimulates the use of Bayesian-Nash equilibrium. We find that, if there are customers only linked to one firm, but not all of them are, then an equilibrium in randomized strategies fails to exist. Instead, we find a symmetric equilibrium in randomized strategies. Finally, we test our results on US gasoline data. We find empirical evidence consistent with firms playing random strategies.

Parallel Imports and Innovation in an Emerging Economy

Palavras-chave: Bertrand Competition; Bayesian- Nash Equilibrium; Mobility Index; Demand and Price Analysis; D43; D85; L11.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6230

Mantovani, Andrea; Naghavi, Alireza.

This paper studies the consequences of parallel import (PI) on process innovation of firms heterogeneous in their production technology. In an international setting where foreign markets differ with respect to their intellectual property rights regime, a move by a technologically inferior firm to exploit a new unregulated market can result in imitation and PI. The impact of PI on innovation is determined by the degree of heterogeneity between firms and trade costs. Increasing trade costs shifts from the market share losses brought by PI from the more to the less productive firm. This induces the former to invest more in R&D. At this point, sales in the foreign market become a determinant of the R&D decision by the technologically inferior firm. For...