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This dissertation addresses the question of whether a monopolistic banking system can lead to a higher steady state level of capital stock. Specifically, this research analyzes the comparative advantage of a monopoly banking system. By doing that, it examines factors that contribute to the promotion of economic growth that come from a concentrated banking system. There is substantial evidence of a positive relationship between financial markets development and long term output growth. Little is known, however, about the role played by the market structure of the banking sector on growth. Moreover, little work, if any, has attempted to analyze how the degree of information externality affects the relative performance of a monopoly and competitive banks. I find that a monopoly banking system might perform better in accumulating capital under both low information externality and high information externality under certain conditions. In addition, this paper shows that developing countries as well as industrial countries may benefit from a concentrated banking system. This result is not found in the existing literature, which has only shown that developing countries may benefit from a monopoly banking system. This result can be interpreted as follows: (i) for the developing countries, as the proportion of high quality firms is relatively low, the loss in output associated with lending capital to lower quality firms is relatively high. In this case, the screening technology has enough value-added to compensate for the loss in output associated with the typical rent extraction activity of the monopolist. (ii) for the industrial countries, a monopoly banking system can overcome inefficiency from free riding problem associated with the information externality. This analysis provides an alternative explanation of the recent deregulation and resulting trends in mergers and acquisitions. This supports governments' policy changes from restricting merger and acquisition activity to allowing or even promoting merger and acquisition activity.

This dissertation addresses the question of whether a monopolistic banking system can lead to a higher steady state level of capital stock. Specifically, this research analyzes the comparative advantage of a monopoly banking system. By doing that, it examines factors that contribute to the promotion of economic growth that come from a concentrated banking system. There is substantial evidence of a positive relationship between financial markets development and long term output growth. Little is known, however, about the role played by the market structure of the banking sector on growth. Moreover, little work, if any, has attempted to analyze how the degree of information externality affects the relative performance of a monopoly and competitive banks. I find that a monopoly banking system might perform better in accumulating capital under both low information externality and high information externality under certain conditions. In addition, this paper shows that developing countries as well as industrial countries may benefit from a concentrated banking system. This result is not found in the existing literature, which has only shown that developing countries may benefit from a monopoly banking system. This result can be interpreted as follows: (i) for the developing countries, as the proportion of high quality firms is relatively low, the loss in output associated with lending capital to lower quality firms is relatively high. In this case, the screening technology has enough value-added to compensate for the loss in output associated with the typical rent extraction activity of the monopolist. (ii) for the industrial countries, a monopoly banking system can overcome inefficiency from free riding problem associated with the information externality. This analysis provides an alternative explanation of the recent deregulation and resulting trends in mergers and acquisitions. This supports governments' policy changes from restricting merger and acquisition activity to allowing or even promoting merger and acquisition activity.

This thesis examines the size-growth relationship for banking and manufacturing firms. In particular it tests the Law of Proportionate Effect (LPE) which suggests that there is no relationship between firm size and growth. Tests of the LPE are carried out for eight European banking markets (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) and for three bank types (commercial, co-operative and savings) over the period 1990 to 1994. Employing three measures of size (total assets, equity and off balance sheet business) models are estimated that test for size effects on growth, and the influences of previous growth, bank type and country membership. In the majority of cases, bank growth is independent of bank size, so the LPE holds. However, small banks grew faster than their larger counterparts (in terms of assets and equity) in France, Italy and Spain. The LPE is also investigated for a sample of European manufacturing firms drawn from five countries and eleven industry groups. In contrast to the banking industry there is less evidence that the LPE holds. In most cases small firms grew proportionately faster than their larger counterparts. Using stochastic simulation techniques, the effects of firm growth, entry, exit and merger activity on the evolution of bank sizes and market concentration is examined. Using a simulated industry in which the LPE holds as the benchmark, the implications of various alternative assumptions regarding bank growth were examined. Superimposition of entry leads to a lower mean bank size and lower levels of concentration. Exit leads to higher mean bank size and increased concentration. Mergers lead to increases in mean bank size and concentration in all simulated industries. Using the simulations methodology, hypothetical projections as to the future structure of the banking markets in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are carried out. Overall, the simulations suggest that bank numbers are likely to decrease in all countries. The market shares of the largest banks are also projected to decline in all countries with the exception of the UK.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Angela Powers / Technological revolutions of the past century have fueled dynamic paradigm shifts across a broad spectrum of mass media industries. This study examines an innovative new market segment in the music recording industry: digital music aggregation. Digital music aggregators are music distributors that directly connect artists, any creator of musical content, to digital music vendors, online music stores such as iTunes or digital music streaming services such as Spotify. Digital music aggregator companies offer services similar to major record labels, such as mass distribution, royalty collection, and intellectual property protection. Digital music aggregators provide services to artists at all levels of prestige and experience. Essentially any artist interested in publishing music can do so using digital music aggregators. Despite their growing influence in the music recording industry, digital music aggregators have been afforded little scholarly attention. This study responds to Galuszka's (2015) call for further research on aggregator market structure and competition, proposing the following research questions: 1) how is the digital music aggregator market structured? 2) What competitive strategies do digital music aggregators employ? This study is framed by the industrial organizational model of market structure (Bain, 1968) and Porter’s (1980) theories of competitive strategy. Six in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted for this study. Results illuminate market structure and competitive strategies in the digital music aggregation industry and lay foundation for future study and industrial application within this nascent branch of the music recording industry.

This dissertation collects essays that focuses on two branches of the economic literature on imperfect competition: the one of IO on the decision of firms' location and the one of economic growth on market structure and technological progress. Chapter 2 deals with the issue of firms' location and proposes a model that sheds light on how the geographic distribution of firms is affected by strategic interaction in presence of vertically differentiated products. The remaining Chapters, instead, have a common root; they, in fact, deal with the link existing between market structure and growth. More precisely, Chapter 3 studies how knowledge spillovers across firms influence this link and introduces the basic framework which is further extended in Chapters 4 and 5 to allow for strategic interaction and multi-product firms respectively. In all these models technological progress takes the form of cost reductions. The model-setting considered in these Chapters belongs to the class of creative accumulation models, whose introduction in the economic literature is relatively recent and can be attributed to Smulders and van de Klundert and Peretto. Finally, Chapter 6 follows the creative destruction tradition initiated by Grossman and Helpman and Aghion and Howitt and develops a growth model with product quality innovations of random size. In all the Chapters of this dissertation, we adopt a normative perspective by comparing the market equilibrium solution to the optimal one.

Abstract Governments have regarded the electricity industry as a leading industrial sector throughout the history. Because of its strategic importance to industrial development, its impacts on the social and environmental issues and its natural monopoly characteristics, it has been seen necessary to regulate electricity industry effectively. However, in the mid 1980s it was realised that even though transmission and distribution networks are natural monopolies, the scale economies in electricity production at the generating unit level had exhausted at a unit size of about 500 MW. This meant that supply and generation had become potentially competitive activities. In Finland the new Electricity Market Act (EMA) came into force in 1.11.1995. According to it the production and supply of electricity became deregulated and competition was introduced to the industry. The main aim of the law was to improve efficiency. This dissertation analyses, both theoretically and empirically, the impacts of deregulation to the Finnish electricity markets. In chapter two we discuss on the grounds and incentives of the deregulation processes that have been carried out in different countries. We also determine the crucial factors in order succeed in the deregulation process. According to our view the success depend on the number of active players in the wholesale market, the rules of the bidding procedure, the organisation of the demand side operation, the neutrality of transmission grid, the structure of production technologies and the ownership structure of the industry. In chapter three we theoretically model the profit maximising behaviour of the Finnish electricity companies based on different stages of vertical integration and on different stage of competition. According to our results the profit maximising pricing rules of distribution units is dependent on the stage of integration and on the stage of competition. The separated distribution company maximises profits by setting the distribution price equal to the long-run marginal costs plus mark-up determined by price elasticity of demand. The integrated distribution unit has to take also the impacts on the supply unit into account when setting the distribution price. Chapter four considers the consequences of deregulation to the wholesale price of electricity and the market structure of the industry. It is interesting to question whether deregulation in some circumstances may lead to higher prices instead of lower ones. The relationship between the Cournot equilibrium on the one hand and Bertrand equilibrium on the other will be quantitatively explored. The results indicate that deregulation can result in a significant price increase and output decrease in Finland if there occurs Cournot type of competition. In chapter five we consider alternative pricing policies for a regulated distribution company and empirically analyse is it possible to achieve welfare improvements by changing the prevalent price structure to the more efficient one. We use four different pricing methods which are marginal cost pricing, fully distributed cost pricing (FDC), Ramsey pricing and optimal two-part tariffs. The results indicate that it is possible to improve welfare quite markedly by switching from the existing pricing principles to more efficient ones. The resulting welfare is highest if we use the first best prices based on marginal costs or optimal two-part tariffs.

The purpose of this study is to collect, analyze, and interpret physical and pricing data pertaining to the elemental market structure for grain sorghums in Texas. For comparative purposes, a criterion is established in Chapter IV to evaluate the data obtained. The objective is to deter mine whether the physical and pricing aspects of the Texas grain sorghum market structure conforms to theoretical structural patterns. If there are deviations from the theoretical pattern, explanations will be sought. No attempt will be made in Chapter II, "Physical Structure", and Chapter III, "Pricing Structure", to evaluate the data given, but only to report the functioning characteristics of these aspects.

The primary objective of this study was to explore the relationship among various market structure constructs (consisting of barriers to entry, competition, growth, and market share) and their potential impact on financial performance. By applying theoretical underpinnings from the disciplines of marketing, strategy and industrial organization economics, and adapting them to the unique characteristics of the U.S. lodging industry, the above constructs were linked to produce the Lodging Market Structure (LMS) Model. The study consisted of a cross-sectional analysis using a sample of 67 well-recognized hotel brands operating in the U.S. (representing 63 percent of the national guestroom inventory), covering a four-year period between 1996 and 1999. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to examine the hypothesized relationships within the LMS model. This study represented the first comprehensive investigation of the competitive market structure of the U.S. lodging industry. The key findings of the study indicate that the financial performance of hotel brands in the United States is strongly impacted by competitive market structure. Among the various market structure constructs studied, barriers to entry played the most dominant role in determining the level of financial performance of hotel brands. Based on a strong negative relationship, barriers to entry are very effective in reducing competition in the U.S. lodging industry. Also, of the constructs studied, barriers to entry had the greatest influence on enhancing the market share of incumbent hotel brands. The growth rate of those incumbent brands has a positive relationship with barriers to entry. As competition intensifies, the growth rate of hotel brands slows down. Increases in competition are negatively correlated with a brand's market share. Competition has a strong negative relationship with the financial performance of hotel brands. Market share improves as the growth rate of hotel brands increases. As the growth rate of brands increases, profitability also improves. Likewise, improvements in a hotel brand's market share are positively related to increases in profitability. Lastly, the U.S. lodging market is becoming more competitive, and the industry has reached the mature stage of its lifecycle. / Ph. D.

Esta tese tem como elemento central a estrutura de mercado, cujos resultados são inéditos até onde conhecemos. Na primeira parte, tratamos de inovação e estrutura de mercado, dada a apropriabilidade. Analisamos P&D em particular e inovação em produto e processo para empresa e para o mercado, bem como formas de apropriabilidade além de patentes, tais como copyright e desenho industrial complexo. Entre os resultados empíricos que encontramos vale destacar que: (i) estrutura de mercado tem impacto positivo sobre inovação, via de regra, quando considerado junto com gasto com propaganda ou com um mix de mecanismos de apropriabilidade; (ii) lucratividade defasada, via de regra, tem efeito positivo sobre a decisão de gastar ou não em P&D e de inovar ou não, seja em produto ou processo, para a empresa ou para o mercado; (iii) exceto gastos com propaganda, os outros indicadores de apropriabilidade aqui considerados isoladadamente, via de regra, não têm impacto positivo sobre os indicadores de inovação; e (iv) em geral, o mix de mecanismos de apropriabilidade tem impacto positivo e significativo tanto sobre gastos com P&D quanto sobre a decisão de gastar em P&D e inovar. Na segunda parte tratamos de salários e estrutura de mercado dada a qualificação dos trabalhadores sob uma perspectiva muito recente. Verificamos empiricamente em que medida o poder de mercado das empresas da indústria brasileira de transformação no mercado de produto influenciou os salários dos trabalhadores, dadas suas qualificações, no período 1998 a 2005. Para tal, adotamos um procedimento pouco presente na literatura sobre mercado de trabalho: experimento quase natural (no caso, o overshooting cambial de 2002-2003), como forma de corrigir a potencial simultaneidade entre salários e parcela de mercado. Entre os resultados desta seção vale destacar que: (i) a parcela de mercado tem efeito positivo sobre os salários dos trabalhadores de escolaridade alta, mas negativo sobre os de média, sugerindo que as empresas da indústria brasileira de transformação usam o poder no mercado de produto para pagar melhores salários para os trabalhadores mais qualificados e pagar menores salários para os menos qualificados – algo que tende a ampliar a polarização dos rendimentos no mercado de trabalho brasileiro. Dado que parcela de mercado também é uma forma de medir tamanho de empresa, este resultado sugere também que as firmas maiores da indústria brasileira de transformação pagam os trabalhadores mais qualificados melhor que as firmas menores. E (ii) atividades de P&D tiveram efeito negativo sobre escolariadade alta, mas inovação em geral teve efeito positivo sobre os mais qualificados, sugerindo que a competição no mercado de produto aumenta atividades inovativas em geral, acirrando a disputa por mão de obra qualificada. Porém, esta mesma competição no mercado de produto não aumenta a atividade de P&D e, portanto, a disputa por mão de obra qualificada para esta finalidade. Pelo contrário. A evidência empírica obtida sugere que a competição no mercado de produto diminui esta atividade, bem como a procura por mão de obra qualificada para este fim. / The central point of this dissertation is market structure, whose results are unpublished as we know. In the first section we consider innovation, market structure and appropriability in the Brazilian manufacturing sector in 2003 and 2005. We analyse not only R&D but also process and product innovation to the firm and to the market, as well many appropriability mechanisms further than patents, as copyright and complex industrial design. Among the main empirical results we found are: (i) market structure has positive impact on innovation, especially joint with advertisement expenditure or mix of appropriability mechanisms; (ii) lagged profits has positive effects on R&D expenditure decision and innovation decision, no matter if it is product or process innovation to the firm or to the market; (iii) all apropriability mechanisms except advertisement don`t have positive impact on innovation; and (iv) in general mix of appropriability mechanisms has positive impact on R&D expenditure and R&D expenditure and innovation decision. In the second section we analyse wages and market structure. We check empirically how Brazilian manufacturing firms product market power impact on worker wages, conditional to workers skills, between 1998 and 2005. We use a rare procedure in empirical labour market literature: a quasi-natural experiment (in this case the 2002-2003 Brazilian exchange rate overshooting) as source of exogeneity, which help us correct potential simultaneity between wages and market share. Among the main results we found are: (i) market share has positive effect on high skilled workers wage but negative on the medium skilled, which suggest that Brazilian manufacturing firms use their product market power to pay higher wages to high skilled workers but to pay lower wages to the less skilled – which can increase wages polarization in the Brazilian labour market. As market share also means firm size, this result also suggests that the biggest firms in the Brazilian manufacturing pay better than the smallest. And (ii) R&D activity has negative effect on high skilled workers but innovation as a whole has positive effect on the high skilled, which suggests that competition on product market increase innovative activity as a whole, increasing high skilled labour demand. However, competition in the product market does not increase R&D activity and, as consequence, does not increase high skilled labour demand. In fact, the empirical evidence shows us the opposite: the competition on product market reduce R&D activity and high skilled labour demand as well to this objective.