"... it will be the purpose of this paper to search the writings of Classicism as exemplified by Smith, Say, Ricardo, Senior, Mill and Marshall, and the works of Veblen for their theories of monopoly. By a contrast and comparison of these theories, it is hoped that the information developed may become the basis for checking any hidden holdovers from these two schools and, by showing their origin, to develop some understanding of a singularly complex problem of the modern world."--leaf 2

No description available.

<p>The purpose of this investigation is to further the current discussion of how the Swedish market for district heating can be made more competitive and effective. This is done by investigating how price, costs of production and profitability of district heating varies with ownership, a variable frequently held accountable for financial performance variations in natural monopoly markets. The investigation is based on financial and technical performance data from 203 firms from 2007 and 2008, compiled by the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate. The results strongly indicate that private firms are more profitable than firms owned, fully or partly, by local government. Furthermore, the results find that higher profitability tends to be positively correlated with prices, rather than negatively with costs of production. The results speak in favor of private ownership under regulation, rather than the current mixture of public and unregulated private ownership.</p>

The purpose of this investigation is to further the current discussion of how the Swedish market for district heating can be made more competitive and effective. This is done by investigating how price, costs of production and profitability of district heating varies with ownership, a variable frequently held accountable for financial performance variations in natural monopoly markets. The investigation is based on financial and technical performance data from 203 firms from 2007 and 2008, compiled by the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate. The results strongly indicate that private firms are more profitable than firms owned, fully or partly, by local government. Furthermore, the results find that higher profitability tends to be positively correlated with prices, rather than negatively with costs of production. The results speak in favor of private ownership under regulation, rather than the current mixture of public and unregulated private ownership.

Thesis advisor: Peter N. Ireland / This dissertation consists of two chapters. The first chapter: Does going to prison increase the chance that one eventually applies for U.S. disability insurance (DI)? Since the 1980's, there have been substantial increases in both the number of people who have been incarcerated and the number of people applying for DI. Both increases have caused higher costs to taxpayers. While several studies have explored the causes of the increased DI applications and several others have looked at the labor outcomes of ex-inmates, no study has yet asked whether prison itself has any effect on the DI application process. Prison, with its harsh conditions, could cause physical and mental disabilities that increase the chance of a DI application. Properly measuring this, however, requires considering any endogeneity that predisposes ex-inmates to a DI application prior to incarceration. To do this, I use the instruments of states' minimum wages and legal high school drop-out ages to explore the effect of increasing incarceration numbers on state-level DI applications. I find that prison does have a significant effect on DI applications; a 1.0% increase in incarceration causes approximately a 0.5% increase in DI applications six years after the initial increase in incarceration numbers. I find that prison's effect is especially strong for a means-tested group who also concurrently applies to Supplemental Security Income (SSI); here a 1.0% increase in prison leads to a 0.9% increase in people who apply for both DI and SSI after a six year lag. This suggests lower income groups are more sensitive to incarceration. Also, the cost of imprisonment should take into account the cost of subsequent DI applications and awards. The second chapter: This paper assesses the specific case of when a monopolist manufacturer producing two types of goods is allowed to bundle the goods when selling to retailers who are allowed to re-sell the goods individually, have territorial market power and have heterogeneity in the resale demand functions. While the literature covers bundling in a variety of forms, no paper has considered the effect that the presence of multiple retailers may have on an upstream manufacturer who bundles and how benefits to bundling may accrue to consumers, retailers, and manufacturer in the presence of retailer heterogeneity. It is shown that under plausible circumstances, the ability of a retailer to retain profit in the face of bundling may prevent consumers in other markets from realizing greater welfare-enhancing effects although bundling in these cases at least weakly improves consumer welfare and never diminishes it. It is also shown by example, that in the case of three retailers, some retailers may actually profit more when the upstream manufacturer bundles while other retailers may profit less. This suggests that in certain cases some retailers may even favor upstream bundling as their interests align with that of the manufacturer. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Purpose The objective of this study is to investigate how the reregulation affected the decision making process of buyers of OTC drugs, and to identify determinants for how a buyer chooses to obtain OTC drugs in the reregulated Swedish pharmacy market. Furthermore this study aims to map out buyers’ purchases of OTC drugs as well as their impressions about the reregulation of the Swedish pharmacy market   Background The Swedish pharmacy market was opened up for competition the 1 July 2009. On 1 November 2009, private pharmacies are allowed in the market, as well non-pharmacy retailers can commercialize OTC drugs. Thus due to the reregulation of the pharmacy market, consumers and retailers face a different market situation, since the amount of retailer selling OTC drugs has increased. This study investigates how buyers’ purchase behavior of OTC was affected by the end of the pharmacy monopoly.   Method  The purpose of this thesis was achieved by using a mixed-method approach. The qualitative method in the form of interviews and the quantitative method by conducting a survey. The mixed-method was used in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of consumer decision-making process as well as attitude and impression about the reregulation of the Swedish pharmacy market.   Conclusion Buyers are in general satisfied with the reregulation of the Swedish pharmacy market. However, the positive attitude towards the reregulation does not necessarily mean a change in purchase behavior for OTC drugs. The decision making process is found to be dependent on the level of experience the buyer possesses with the needed OTC drug, as well as the type of need the buyer experiences, thus three determinants for the decision making process of OTC drugs were found. The frequency of purchase is connected to the gender and age group of the buyer. Also the majority of the researched buyers already had experienced the purchase of OTC drugs in store other than pharmacies. The buyers that never purchase OTC drugs in other retailers are in general open to the possibility of taking advantage of those stores.

This study represent an application of the techniques of economic analysis to the Australian newspaper industry. The questions may be summarised as follows: How does a newspaper viewed as a rational economic entity? maximise its profits? What is the present degree of monopoly in the Australian press? how has this degree of monopoly developed and what are its causes? Finally what are the economic prospects of the industry?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of an increased wine quality on the price of a wine and how this may differ between a country with a monopolized alcohol market and one that has not. The main reason for this comparison is to analyse whether the politics of the Swedish alcohol monopoly have succeeded in premiering quality over quantity drinking and if that has created possibilities for arbitrage trading of wine. Data regarding the price of wines was gathered from the Swedish alcohol monopoly’s website and VildMedVin, the largest e-commerce for wine in Denmark. One of the largest wine reviewers in the world, Wine Spectator, utilises a 1-100 scale when rating wines; this is used as a proxy for quality. By creating four different regression models it was found  that when it comes to wines that are more expensive than 99 SEK, there is no  statistically significant difference in the effect of quality on the price of a wine between Sweden and Denmark. Indicating that the law of one price might be what denies the possibility of arbitrage between a monopolised and a non-monopolised market is non- existent. There is, however, a general effect in both countries, an increase in quality by 1 unit is associated with an increase in the wine’s price by approximately 8%.

Emerging technological trends have opened the possibilities for information manipulation across multiple platforms resulting in a power shift from the state to its citizens. This study takes on three cases as exemplars which will demonstrate how technology fabricates power in liberal states, causing a power dynamics shift. Each of the case studies will illustrate how technological vigilantism in one form or another allows for the citizen emancipation. The erosion of the relationship between the perpetrator and victim will also be discussed as private and public tracking devices becomes widespread. The initial findings suggest that the introduction of private software tracking has amplified the rate at which the state's monopoly over security and surveillance is eroding. Representing three key sections of a society - public, private, and civil - the cases analyzed show that each section is moving towards micromanagement meaning that citizens are taking the law into their own hands, despite high police competency. Find My iPhone, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, as well as other social networks and tracking software help support the rise of technology vigilantes. The state's monopoly over security and surveillance is in turmoil. Thus, this multi-case study will take on a discussion between two potential...

The commercial banking industry is oft en criticized on the grounds that there is a high concentration of market power in the hands of a few firms. However, the appropriate measure of market power is Lerner's index of monopoly power, the elasticity of demand, not concentration ratios. The theoretical model developed in the paper is designed to permit the estimation of demand and supply elasticities in the banking industry. Specifically, two assets (loans and state and local funds) and one liability (time deposits) are investigated. The empirical model focuses its attention on the demand and supply conditions. If the bank is a profit maximizer , then the banker adjusts the portfolio of assets and issues of liabilities in accordance with the Euler first order maximization conditions of the expected profits function. In this function administrative costs are expressed as a proportion of total assets. Default risks are ignored. At the optimal solution of the Euler first order conditions transaction costs generated by deposit-liability fluctuations are treated as scalers. These simplifying assumptions permit the estimation of the slope of the loan demand, of the demand for state and local funds, and of time deposit supply, which can be used to estimate the elasticities of the respective functions. The empirical results are based on cross-sectional data for 7.89 standard economic areas in those states where there is an absence of extensive branch banking. The observations are categorized into eight bank classes by per capita income level, by hank density per capita in the standard economic area, and by economic base (agricultural or nonagricultural) in the area. It is assumed that the demand and supply functions are identical for all banks within a bank class. Using, the first order maximization conditions as behavioral equations the slopes of the supply and demand functions are estimated. These estimates are used to calculate elasticities of loan demand, state and local funds demand, and time deposit supply. In general, it is concluded that those banks from low income areas have a lower elasticity of demand for loans than banks in high income areas. These banks have more monopoly power in the loan account. The elasticity of deposit supply is low for all classes of banks. This could be due to monopsony power, but it is more likely due to the legal ceiling on interest rates paid on time deposits. The analysis does not lead to any conclusions for the structural preconditions for the existence of monopoly power, but it does indicate that banks in certain markets may have some degree of monopoly power.