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Essays on capacity-constrained pricing / Marchés caractérisés des contraintes de capacitéSomogyi, Robert 01 June 2016 (has links)
Cette thèse est composée de trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre, "Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition with Substantial Product Differentiation", étudie le comportement d'un duopole lorsque les deux entreprises sont caractérisées par des contraintes de capacité et produisent un bien différencié à la Hotelling. En limitant l'analyse au cas d'un degré élevé de différentiation du produit, je démontre l'existence d'au moins un équilibre en stratégie pure pour tous les niveaux de capacités. Le deuxième chapitre, "Monopoly Pricing with Dual Capacity Constraints" analyse un monopole qui est contraint par deux types de contraintes de capacité: un sur la quantité produite, l'autre sur le nombre des consommateurs. Je démontre que les prix optimaux choisis par les entreprises en court terme ne sont pas monotones dans le niveau des contraintes de capacité. En outre, le bien-être agrégé des consommateurs peut décroître si une des contraintes de capacité est augmentée. Le troisième chapitre, "Competition with Dual Capacity Constraints", étend l'analyse du deuxième chapitre au cas du duopole symétrique dans lequel les deux entreprises font face aux mêmes niveaux de capacité. Je démontre l'existence de conditions sous lesquelles la non-monotonicité des prix et du bien-être des consommateurs observée dans le 2ème chapitre est également présente dans le cas du duopole. Certains équilibres donnent naissance à des prix de duopole égaux au prix de monopole. En outre, les entreprises peuvent choisir des prix d'équilibre identiques sur les deux marchés malgré leur pouvoir de discrimination des prix. / This Ph.D. thesis is composed of three chapters. Since Kreps and Scheinkman's seminal article (1983) a large number of papers have analyzed capacity constraints' potential to relax price competition. However, the majority of the ensuing literature has assumed that products are either perfect or very close substitutes. Therefore very little is known about the interaction between capacity constraints and local monopoly power. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on this question using a standard Hotelling setup. The high level of product dierentiation results in a variety of equilibrium firm behavior and it generates at least one pure-strategy equilibrium for any capacity level. The second chapter, "Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition with Substantial Product Differentiation", studies the price-setting behavior of a monopoly facing two capacity constraints: one on the number of consumers it can serve, the other on the total amount of products it can sell. Facing two consumer groups that difer in their demands and the distribution of their willingness-to-pay, the monopoly's optimal non-linear pricing strategy consists of offering one or two price-quantity bundles. The characterization of the firm's optimal pricing as a function of its two capacities reveals a rich structure that also gives rise to some surprising results. In particular, I show that prices are non-monotonic in capacity levels. Moreover, there always exists a range of parameters in which weakening one of the capacity constraints decreases consumer surplus. In the long run, when the firms can choose how much capacity to build, prices and consumer surplus are monotonic in capacity costs. The third chapter, "Competition with Dual Capacity Constraints", studies duopoly pricing under dual capacity constraints, limiting both the total quantity and the number of consumers served. It extends both the analysis of monopoly pricing with dual capacity constraints and the symmetric models of Bertrand-Edgeworth competition with a singular capacity. By isolating parameter regions where a symmetric pure-strategy equilibrium exists, I nd that several types of equilibria are possible, depending on the model's specications. For some of them, duopoly prices are identical to monopoly prices. Equilibrium prices are non-monotonic in capacity levels if consumers' valuations are suciently heterogeneous. Moreover, I show that despite their ability to price discriminate, competition may lead firms to charge identical prices across markets.
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Utforskning av instrumentval vid låtskrivandeSjöwall, Elias January 2020 (has links)
Vilket instrument använder sig låtskrivare av - när de skriver musik? På vilka sätt reflekterar det resultatet? Kan man se en flagrant likhet mellan instrument och låt? Jag har i detta arbete fördjupat mig i om man kan höra skillnad på hur låtskrivandet ter sig beroende på vilket instrument man väljer att skriva på. Jag har aldrig sett mig som en musiker med allenast ett instrument. Jag har således alltid skrivit musik på olika instrument på olika sätt och har därför forskat om man kan höra några skiljaktigheter. Jag har använt mig av piano, gitarr och synthesizer. Jag tyckte att det var lättast att skriva på gitarr eftersom det har jag gjort mest av. Det är lätt att komma på ackordsföljder som man har spelat innan. På piano och synthesizer kommer man på ett ackompanjemang och spelar in i Logic. Därefter loopar man och sedan är det svårt att hitta på något nytt.
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Transgenic Rice in Asia: A General Equilibrium Assessment of Potential Welfare Effects and Regional DistributionHareau, Guy Gaston 06 September 2006 (has links)
The unequal distribution of gains from technology between favorable and unfavorable rice environments in Asia can widen if future transgenic rice varieties cannot be adopted in less favored regions. This study investigates the potential economic impacts of three transgenic rice technologies: stemborer resistance, for favorable irrigated environments; drought resistance, for unfavorable non-irrigated environments; and herbicide resistance, which can potentially benefit any of the environments but can only be adopted in areas under direct seeding. Specifying individual technologies contributes to a better comparative assessment of impacts from transgenic rice. The simulation uses a modified version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model with several innovative features: the database and code represent the distinct rice environments for both paddy and seed sectors; monopoly power is included in the model as a markup tax instrument when private firms sell herbicide resistant rice seed; and private rents can be transferred between regions and change income computation in the model.
Equivalent variation measures obtained from simulations are similar at 2.3 billion, 2.5 billion and 2.2 billion dollars for stemborer, drought and herbicide resistance respectively. All technologies increase global rice output and reduce rice prices, while keeping labor wages at stable levels. Private provision of herbicide resistance rice generates benefits of 2.05 billion dollars while creating 122 million dollars in private profits. Although profits increase with higher markups, there are still large social benefits to realize from herbicide resistance technology. However, producers' response to reduced profitability is not accounted for and adoption is an exogenous variable in the model.
The results suggest that the large expected impact from drought resistant rice supports public research investment on this technology. Joint efforts between public and private research sectors can increase the probability of success, and mechanisms to promote private research for unfavorable environments should be developed. Public policies should also remove obstacles that prevent firms from undertaking joint research with the public sector. Outcomes from public research, such as improved germplasm and spread of direct seeding techniques, also benefit the private sector and should act as an incentive for firms to build strategic alliances. / Ph. D.
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Regional bias when benchmarking services using customer satisfaction scoresBrint, A., Fry, John 05 January 2020 (has links)
Yes / Regional monopoly service organisations such as electricity, gas and water distributors, health trusts, public transport, and local government are subject to regulatory oversight. A common element in this is benchmarking an organisation against similar organisations based in different regions. Customer satisfaction is often an important part of this competitive benchmarking. However, if people from different regions give a different average satisfaction score for the same experience, then this disadvantages some companies. Therefore, regional satisfaction was investigated in an environment where differences in customer service levels are controlled for. The average online satisfaction ratings people from different regions of the UK gave to the same overseas holiday hotels were investigated. The 24,154 ratings were analysed using linear mixed effects and ordinal models. The average ratings given by people from the London region were significantly lower than those from elsewhere. Regional correction factors are developed and applied to published satisfaction ratings for electricity distributors. The adjustment was sufficient to move the London distributor from the penalty category to a borderline position. Hence, customer satisfaction ratings should be used cautiously when benchmarking regional organisations. This investigation of the potential for regional bias contributes to the large literature on customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions.
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The Workability of Monopoly in the Oil IndustryPerkins, John Emmit 08 1900 (has links)
In this thesis, the author examines the theory that competition in the oil industry is "unworkable" and looks at the development and current status of monopoly in the oil industry to determine whether or not monopoly is workable.
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The inadequacy of consumer protection in the UAE : the need for reformAlGhafri, Abdulla M. A. January 2013 (has links)
This thesis addresses the consumer protection regime in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against damages posed by defective industrial products, unfair business practices and misleading advertising. Nowadays, unfair and deceptive practices such as the selling of defective or sub-standard goods, the charging of exorbitant prices, misrepresentation of the efficacy or usefulness of goods, and negligence as to safety standards have become rampant. Accordingly, it has become necessary to promote the development and refinement of statutory measures, even in developed countries, to make producers/traders more accountable to consumers. This thesis examines the legal grounds on which consumer protection stands within the newly enacted legal framework for consumer protection in the UAE. In addition, this thesis elaborates upon relevant regulations provided by UAE legislators as well as related laws in selected Arab countries. It further investigates the adequacy of administrative authorities’ measures in the UAE, and explains whether respective administrative rules are capable of compensating consumers for material and physical damages incurred. It also explores the inadequacies of the administration’s measures and rules, and highlights the importance of integration between administrative bodies in achieving a sufficient level of protection for consumers. The findings of this thesis are based on a detailed review of specific issues in consumer protection models in the Shari’a law and the United Kingdom (UK) model. Thus, it will refer to solutions devised by Islamic Shari’a law and the UK legal system to provide more comprehensive protection to consumers and strengthen their position in relation to that of traders. The study suggests that there is a need to amend the consumer protection in the UAE. It indicates a need for the unified, effective and meaningful implementation of consumer protection legal and administrative procedures in the UAE, and emphasizes that the non-governmental consumer protection association must be given a wider and legal role in supporting the governmental bodies. These findings may help in improving the current consumer protection regime in the UAE as well as reducing infringements committed by traders. This thesis concludes by making recommendations for drafting a comprehensive set of rules in the UAE in the hopes that such recommendations will contribute effectively toward the development of a consumer protection regime in the UAE.
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Essays on information disclosure in auctions and monopoly pricingLi, Zhiyun January 2011 (has links)
The existing literature on information disclosure commonly assumes full commitment to truthful disclosure and therefore revelations are always credible, which can be quite unrealistic in many circumstances. This thesis mainly contributes to the literature by studying information disclosure in the form of cheap-talk in auctions and monopoly pricing, which allows for mis-reporting and false disclosure. The thesis is composed mainly of three research papers. The first paper (Chapter 2), also the major chapter of this thesis, investigates cheap-talk information disclosure in auctions, where bidders' preferences are horizontally differentiated. The seller may reveal information of product attributes before the auction, and the disclosure policy is characterized by a partition of the attribute space. In a symmetric setting, I first show that informative equilibria reveal the feature that more precise information is provided for less popular product attributes. Second, I prove an equilibrium existence theorem that an informative equilibrium can be supported by an information partition of any degree, as long as the number of bidders is sufficiently large. And finally, the optimal disclosure policy reveals a complementarity relationship between the number of bidders and the optimal degree of equilibrium partitions. In this chapter, optimal information structure is endogenously determined. In the second paper (Chapter 3), I turn to study how a monopoly seller should reveal a product's horizontal attributes, when consumer preferences conform to a mixture distribution. I show that the optimal disclosure policy largely depends on the characteristics of the mixture distribution. Specifically, when consumer preferences are highly heterogenous, it is better for the seller to reveal information and serve different groups of consumers separately. And when the preference distribution becomes more asymmetric, cheap-talk disclosure is more likely to be dominated by no disclosure at all. In this chapter, information structure is taken as given. The third paper (Chapter 4) studies optimal regulation of risk-averse producers, in a setting of complementary production with independent cost realization. The production can be organized in the form of either component, or integrated production. I show in this paper that the relative virtues of these two forms of production depend on the degree of risk aversion of the producers.
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"Building a 'Temple of Temperance': The Repeal of Prohibition in Virginia and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act"Silva, Alexandra T. 01 January 2015 (has links)
"BUILDING A ‘TEMPLE OF TEMPERANCE’: THE REPEAL OF PROHIBITION IN VIRGINIA AND THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL ACT”
By Alexandra T. Silva, Bachelor of Arts, 2011
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015
Major Director: Dr. John T. Kneebone, Chair, Virginia Commonwealth University Department of History
This project examines the process by which the Commonwealth of Virginia repealed its statewide prohibition laws and the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933 and created a public monopoly system of alcohol control in 1934. It provides an overview of the enactment of prohibition in Virginia in 1916 by a 1914 statewide referendum, and the problems of enforcement and control over the liquor traffic during the dry years. It carefully details the repeal process in 1933, during which Virginia rapidly reversed its near twenty-year prohibition and restructured its alcohol control policy. It also explains the origins of the state monopoly system which replaced prohibition with the passage of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act of 1934, establishing an ABC Board to control the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of hard liquor, along with licensing of private retailers of light beverages.
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Svensk Bilprovning : Omregleringarna och dess effekterNorén, Pontus January 2017 (has links)
The Swedish motor-vehicle inspection has worked very well and was monopolized in 1965. After the monopolization, the company AB Svensk Bilprovning was formed and had a monopoly until 2010 when the bourgeois government deregulated the monopoly for the motor-vehicle inspection services. It had been discussed earlier around the 1990s but the planned deregulation of the service did not occur. The main reason for the deregulation was for the service to act on a competitive market which would improve it in several aspects. One of the main aspects were the availability. The deregulation in 2010 had positive effects and mainly the availability increased throughout Sweden. In year 2014 the social-democratic party were not satisfied before or after deregulation even though it improved the service. The bourgeois on the other hand were very satisfied of the results.
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A game of wealth inequality : A Monte Carlo simulation of wealth inequality using MonopolyLien Oskarsson, Mathias January 2019 (has links)
The debate of economic inequality is long-lived and have in the recent years come to be reignited. Although there is little research that supports fully eradicating wealth inequality, the subject of appropriate levels of inequality is an extensively discussed matter. This paper uses a model based upon the board game Monopoly to discuss the drivers of wealth inequality, and study the effect of introducing georgistic, income and wealth taxation respectively in the game. Using iterated simulations the results yielded display evidence of wealth and georgistic taxation having a noteworthy impact on wealth inequality at certain stages of the game. Additionally, correctly specified income taxation yields notable results. Despite the model’s simplicity, the results found share interesting similarities with empirical evidence.
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