No description available.

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka förändringar i pris och tillgänglighet på OTC-läkemedel före och efter avregleringen av det svenska apoteksmonopolet ur ett konsumentperspektiv. Metod: Kvantitativ undersökning med abduktiv forskningsansats, där datainsamling sker via telefonkontakt och observation av hemsidor Teori: Marknadsformer, Avregleringar, Marknadsmixen, Prissättningsstrategier, Öppettider Resultat: Uppgång skedde kontinuerligt i pris på OTC-läkemedel före avregleringen av apoteksmonopolet och öppettiderna var då begränsade. Undersökningen visar att pris på OTC-läkemedel marginellt gått upp och en ökning skett i antal timmars öppethållande per vecka bland samtliga återförsäljare. Avregleringen har bidragit till stora variationer i priser och öppettider bland olika återförsäljare. Det finns ett mycket svagt positivt samband mellan pris på OTC-läkemedel och öppettider. Starkast är sambandet för Bensinstationer och Kiosker och närbutiker där undersökningen visar på både ett högt pris och flexibelt öppethållande. / The purpose of this thesis is to examine the changes in price and availability for OTC-pharmaceuticals before and after the deregulation of the Swedish pharmacy monopoly. In order to carry out the examination a quantitative approach is used and data has been collected by phone calls and observations. The framework is theories on the subject of market structure, deregulation, the marketing mix, price strategies and availability. The thesis has concluded that before the deregulation the price continually increased but the opening hours were limited. After the monopoly ceased the price has marginally increased and the number of opening hours per week has extended. Different retailers are after the deregulation able to sell OTC-pharmaceuticals and there is a variety among them regarding price and opening hours, which enables the customers to make choices between them. The study found a weak positive correlation between price and opening hours. The strongest correlation was found among Petrol stations and Convenience stores, which showed high price and flexible opening hours.

No description available.

This thesis comprises three papers examining the impact of competitive pricing or competition on participants in energy markets. The scope of each paper is narrow but focused, dealing with one particular aspect of competition in each market under study. It is hoped that results from these three studies could provide valuable policy lessons to public policy makers in their task to create or maintain competition in different energy markets, so as to improve efficiencies in these markets. The first and second papers examine the load shifting behavior of industrial customers in Ontario under real time pricing (RTP). Using Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) data from 2005 to 2008 and industry-level consumption data from all industrial customers directly connected to the transmission grid, the first paper adopts a Generalized Leontief specification to obtain elasticities of substitution estimates for various industry groups, while the second paper adopts a specification derived from standard consumer theory to obtain price elasticity estimates. The findings of both papers confirm that in some industries, industrial customers who are direct participants of the wholesale market tend to shift consumption from peak to off-peak periods in order to take advantage of lower off-peak prices. Furthermore, in the first paper, a demand model is estimated and there is evidence that the marginal effect of hourly load on hourly price during peak periods is larger than the marginal effect during off-peak periods. An important policy implication from the results of these papers is that while RTP is currently limited to industrial customers, it does have positive spillover effects on all consumers. The third paper uses a unique panel dataset of all retail gasoline stations across five Canadian cities from late-2006 to mid-2007 to examine the effect of local competition on market shares and sales of individual stations. The base empirical specification includes explanatory variables representing the number of same brand stations and the number of different brand stations within a 3km radius to identify brand affiliation effect. It is found that the number of local competitors is negatively correlated with market share and sales. More interestingly, a same brand competitor has a larger marginal impact on market share and sales than a competitor of a different brand. These findings suggest that additional local competition leads to cannibalization of market share among existing stations, rather than create new demand. Another implication is that relying only on the number of different brands operating within a geographic market could understate the competition intensity in the local market.

This thesis discusses the background, contents and airpolitical consequences of the so-called 'Horizontal Agreements ("HA"),' concluded by the European Union ("EU") with third countries to give effect to the European Court of Justice's ("Court"/"ECJ") decision of November 2002 in the 'Open Skies' cases brought by the European Commission ("EC"/"Commission") against certain EU Member States. / The Court's decision outlaws the nationality or 'ownership and control' clause in the bilateral ('Open Skies') agreements concluded with the United States by those Member States. As this clause is a standard provision in all bilateral air services agreements, the Court's decision actually obliges the Member States to amend those agreements and replace the said clauses by provisions which do not discriminate on the basis of nationality. / The Member States have in the meantime mandated the Commission to engage in such negotiations on their behalf on the basis of a jointly developed Model Horizontal Agreement ("MHA"), containing a non-discriminatory so-called Community clause and some other provisions on matters within the exclusive competence of the Community. / This research thus examines the legal and airpolitical implications of these Horizontal Agreements, which the Commission has concluded in the meantime and continues to propose to third countries. In this connection, attention is given to the scenario of the anticipated Horizontal Agreement negotiations between the EU and the Republic of Korea.

我國在2002年正式成為WTO 之成員，為開放保險市場與國際金融保險市場接軌，同年我國開始實施三階段的產險市場費率自由化。 然而，費率自由化實施，市場競爭更甚以往，時有所聞產險業者的惡性價格競爭與保險經紀人影響商業保險市場價格。 而本文以「台灣產險市場費率自由化下之市場競爭研究」為題，試圖瞭解我國產險公司在市場激烈競爭下卻未如國外市場(例如日本)大規模進行同業合併以降低營運成本，壯大經營規模以增加競爭力的原因，並分析保險經紀人如何影響市場價格造成市場競爭加劇的原因與實務上保險經紀人對商業保險安排承保能量架構的費率操作說明；最後就現行相關監理法條之可行改進方案做一建議與結論，希望對國內產險業有所助益。 / In 2002, Taiwan became a member of the World Trade Organization. In keeping with the spirit of this organization the government has devoted itself to building an open financial and insurance market which implemented deregulation of non-life insurance rates by three phases in the same year. Under deregulation, the rates reduction of Non-life insurance creates more competition within the industry; we often hear that non-life insurers do destructive competition and non-life insurance brokers influence commercial insurance market price deeply. The title of this paper “A study of under deregulation, market competition of Taiwan non-life insurance” is aimed to understand the reason why under deregulation, there is no series of mergers or alliances among Taiwan non-life insurance industry for reducing cost, enlarging scale to enhance competitiveness like those taking place overseas such as Japan. This thesis also analyzed how non-life insurance brokers use influence on market premium rates which caused market competition even severely and illustrated non-life insurance brokers using capacities to control commercial property insurance rates by practice experiences. Lastly, conclusive remarks and recommendations are made to the related regulation. Hopefully these suggestions would be helpful to the industry.

為了加入世界貿易組織，台灣早已自80年代逐步進行金融自由化的工作：早在1983年政府就擴大存放款利差，1984年允許銀行根據其個別情況制定基本放款利率並放寬本國銀行設立分行的家數與條件。然而金融自由化最重大的里程碑則是在1989年7月財政部修訂銀行法，開放新銀行設立並解除利率管制，自此之後台灣才真正成為金融自由化的國家。 本研究針對1986年到2002年的本國銀行，採用資料包絡分析法計算效率值，旨在探討台灣銀行業在開放新銀行設立前後的效率與生產力變動情形。不同於其他研究僅以年度為基礎來計算相對效率值，本研究使用「大邊界」的觀念建構出單一效率邊界，更能顯示出在一致的比較基礎上效率變動的趨勢。本研究的主要結果如下： 1.銀行業全體與開放前既存之舊銀行，在開放前的效率值均顯著大於開放後。至於開放後新舊銀行效率的比較，新銀行的整體技術效率與規模效率較高，舊銀行則在純技術效率上領先新銀行，但檢定結果僅有規模效率一項為顯著。 2.金控子銀行的效率值較非金控子銀行為高，顯示金控公司會挑選表現好的銀行作為合作夥伴。 3.在生產力分析部分，舊銀行開放後的總生產力仍小於開放前，儘管舊銀行在開放後的各項經營效率變動較開放前高，但因技術的大幅衰退以致整體生產力仍呈現衰退現象。顯示舊銀行雖然在效率上有所改善，但對於營運上的創新仍太過保守。 4.在Tobit迴歸分析的部分，股東權益報酬率、資產規模、流動準備率和效率值的關係為正向；分行家數、可控制費用、催收款比率和效率值的關係則為負向。 關鍵詞：銀行業、效率分析、資料包絡分析法、解除管制 / In order to join World Trade Organization, Taiwan has been gradually liberating its banking industry since 1980s. In 1983 Taiwan augmented the interest difference between loans and savings in banking industry. In 1984 Taiwan allowed a bank to set its own basic interest rate of loans base on business difference and reduced the restriction of setting up the new branches. The biggest leap was in 1989, Taiwan passed the new banking law which deregulated the banking industry. The new law opened the market for the new entrants and abandoned the interest regulation. The purpose of this research is to examine the efficiency and productivity changes before and after deregulation of Taiwan’s banking industry. This research applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to measure efficiency scores. The data include most of the domestic banks in Taiwan from 1986 to 2002. Unlike other research use yearly basis to measure relative efficiency difference, this research constructs a single efficiency frontier, grand frontier, to measure the trends of efficiency changes. The major findings of this research as follows. 1. The statistical results of the full sample exhibit that the efficiency measures before deregulation are statistically significant greater than that of after deregulation. Although the new entrants exhibit higher efficiency scores in total technical efficiency and scale efficiency than incumbents after deregulation, however, only scale efficiency indicates statistically significant level. Incumbents exhibit a higher pure technical efficiency than the new entrants after deregulation. 2. Banks that joined the financial holding company exhibit higher efficient scores than those of do not join the financial holding company. 3. The total factor productivity denotes a regress after deregulation. The major factor of productivity regress is due to technology decrease. However, the efficiency change of incumbent banks exhibits a significant increase after deregulation. The finding suggests that although the incumbent banks have significant improvements in efficiency, they are still too conservative in innovations. 4. The Tobit regression suggests that return on equity (ROE), total assets, and current-reserve ratio have a positive effect on efficiency measures; however, the number of branches, controllable expenses, and bad debt ratio have a negative effect on efficiency measures. Keywords: Bank industry, Efficiency analysis, Data envelopment analysis, Deregulation

The Swedish bus and railway sectors have been recognised as important early cases of regulatory reforms that led to both vertical and horizontal disintegration as well as market-opening. This thesis investigates the origin and evolution of these reforms from 1979 to 2009, focussing on the markets for passenger services. The aim is to improve our understanding of the background, resulting nature, and consequences of these regulatory reforms. A combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses has been applied; e.g. the thesis makes use of a unique database of longitudinal industry statistics. This thesis shows that the origins of the Swedish reform process were internal and largely unrelated to any objectives of deregulated market-opening. However, a combination of the nature of the initial reforms, the behaviour of market actors, and certain key events accidentally sparked a trend towards deregulation, which has had profound effects on market structure and performance. The step-by-step evolution, in particular the introduction and expansion of competitive tendering, is shown to have had path-dependent characteristics. Swedish competitive tendering of bus and railway services has had important effects on costs and subsidies, but has also generated the problematic behaviour of strategic bidding. Included within are detailed articles which make additional contributions to relevant theories and offer normative advice concerning the design and implementation of regulatory reforms in these as well as other sectors.

This dissertation assesses the evolving structure and performance of the electricity supply industry (ESI) in Queensland following the restructuring and deregulation process undertaken in 1997 and 1998 respectively. This microeconomic reform process essentially replaced a vertically integrated electricity monopoly with an oligopolistic electricity market. In theory at least, restructuring a monopoly generator, and deregulating the product and capacity markets, should lead to lower electricity production costs, more cost-reflective wholesale electricity prices, and a generation plant expansion path that reflects the least-cost, optimal mix of baseload, intermediate and peaking technologies. In economic terms, the deregulated electricity market should deliver improvements in productive, allocative and dynamic efficiency. However, a likely side effect is a deterioration of ESI environmental performance, since the minimization of production costs are of paramount importance in a competitive market. This research has utilized historic data, direct comparisons to southern market outcomes, economic theory and the development and adaptation of a suite of economic cost and generation system simulation models to test the stated hypotheses of expected improvements in productive, allocative and dynamic efficiency, and a deterioration in environmental performance. This research has not had the availability of extensive historical market data upon which to draw. When research first commenced, less than six months of historical market data were available. At the time of completion of this dissertation, only three full financial years of data existed. Consequently, this research necessarily relied upon complex simulation models of economic cost and electricity generation systems, coupled with economic theory, to forecast market outcomes. The short history of market data is examined and tentative conclusions are drawn from this, which are integrated with the outputs of the simulation models. Simulation experiments have been conducted to identify the theoretically optimal market outcome, that is, the least-cost generation plant mix that would best meet the Queensland load curve, subject to a reliability constraint. This forms the 'base case', and represents that which would reasonably be expected to emerge under a centrally planned monopoly regime with a welfare maximization objective, characterised by perfect information and zero political intervention. Such a scenario establishes efficient generation system costs, prices and plant capacity mix. The 'base case' or centrally planned scenario is contrasted with forecast 'market scenarios'. Performance of the generation system is explored under specified scenarios using the economic cost and generation system simulation models, publicly available information about committed and expected future investment in plant capacity, incumbent generator trends and behavioural assumptions consistent with oligopolistic market theories. The analysis indicates that productive efficiency, or cost efficiency, is enhanced as a result of restructuring the monopoly generator into competing entities since competitive pressures force the generators to reduce costs in order to survive. Allocative efficiency, or price efficiency, declined during the first three years of the market, with all generators earning positive economic rents. The presence of these economic rents, coupled with conventional oligopolistic strategies associated with the theory of barriers to entry, resulted in a rush to commission new baseload capacity. Not surprisingly, dynamic efficiency appears to be deteriorating, with the market-induced capacity augmentation proving to be far greater than that considered optimal. Modelling results indicate that the oversupply of baseload capacity is expected to place considerable downward pressure on electricity prices, and thus allocative efficiency is forecast to improve in the intermediate run, much to the benefit of electricity consumers. In the long run, the oversupply of baseload capacity and subsequent low market price can be expected to frustrate the timely entry of new peaking or intermediate plant capacity, which will ultimately be required by the Queensland ESI given the strong electricity demand growth. What does appear to be emerging is a five or seven year electricity generation business cycle. Modelling results from this research also point to alarming environmental implications, with the general levels of greenhouse gas emissions of the electricity system increasing. While system thermal efficiency is declining, the rush of new, low-cost coal-fired capacity represents an inferior outcome to the alternative (i.e. efficient combined cycle gas plant) because the volume of greenhouse emissions is markedly higher. The outlook for Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, in the absence of coincident environmental policies, is that they will more than double between the 1990 emission baseline, and the commencement of the Kyoto commitment period in 2008. Some clear warnings emerge from this research. The structure and performance of an ESI prior to deregulation is important if microeconomic reforms are to be successful. Too little generation capacity or transmission capacity is unlikely to provide a robust foundation for wholesale market implementation. To ensure that adequate competition will prevail, it will be necessary to restructure monopoly generators. The existing ESI needs to be characterised by ‘inefficiency’ if gains from trade are to be capitalized. An efficient centrally planned ESI is unlikely to benefit greatly from deregulation, particularly given that implementing a product market is likely to be a costly process. And finally, competitive markets deliver lowest cost, which is usually inconsistent with the most environmentally responsible outcome. As a result, if the environment is considered a policy imperative, it will be critical that ESI deregulation be complemented by coincident environmental regulations.

Univ., Diss.--Basel, 2000.