No description available.

Univ., Diss.--St. Gallen, 2003.

We attempt to analyze why the adoption of the mobile number portability policy incurs no (or very little) effect in encouraging competition in the telecommunication market. The cause is related to network externality. The level of network externality can be characterized by the proportion of any individual’s friends who are also adopting in the same carrier as the individual does. We find that such network externality may prohibit competition in the telecommunication market when termination-based pricing is prevailing. When termination-based pricing is prohibited, carriers cannot take advantage of network externality. We characterize the conditions such that without termination-based pricing, carriers become more competitive and consumers benefit more than with termination-based prices. Our study provides insightful implication on how to effectively impose the mobile number portability policy to improve competition in the telecommunication market.

Univ., Diss.--Mannheim, 2004.

This dissertation contains three essays describing experiments in game theory and economics. Chapter one studies mixed strategies by asking whether game players are willing to pay for randomization. A natural intuition for mixed strategies is randomization for unpredictability, but this is theoretically fragile. A player should only randomize between strategies if indifferent, and then could choose a disequilibrium strategy. Various theories describe mixed strategies not as random play, but heterogeneous pure-strategy play. I conduct experiments in which players can choose to pay a fee to use a randomization device, applied to O’Neill’s zero-sum game. If subjects did so, it would show a strict preference for randomization over any available pure strategy. In fact, very few chose to use the randomization device. Subjects’ descriptions of their decision process were consistent with the notion of purification. Chapter two also studies mixed strategies, asking whether randomization is a property of individual choice or game play. In two experiments, game players are mirrored by guessers who make predictions about game play, distinguishing best-responding from game playing. In a Matching Pennies game, I find that game players are they are both more interested in unpredictability and actually more random. In an Asymmetric Matching Pennies game, I look at whether players are willing to forgo expected payoff in order to be unpredictable, and find little difference between players and guessers, with players being somewhat better at exploiting disequilibrium play. Chapter three experimentally implements markets for competing goods with network effects. Markets with strong network effects often have multiple equilibria, including winner-take-all equilibria in which one firm has a monopoly. Firms may compete dynamically with the aim of locking-in to a favorable equilibrium. In this paper we create an experimental market with differentiated products and network effects. When lock-in is created by simulating naïve buyers, monopoly does arise with sellers setting high prices. With human buyers, markets without switching costs are extremely competitive, with no support for stories of lock-in and monopoly. Markets with switching costs are inefficient, but this is overwhelmingly due to the individual switching costs rather than monopoly.

In the information technology industry which has high network externalities, it is common for a firm to employ new product pre-announcements to promote their future products. However, false product pre-announcements are strategically anti-competitive. Under the two-stage game model, this paper examines the monopolistic firm¡¦s incentive of employing false pre-announcements when competing with a potential rival and whether those pre-announcements are strategically anti-competitive, provided that the market exhibits network externalities and the compatibility of system products is considered. This paper shows that if there are no potential rivals in the future, if the products have network externalities, and if the compatibility of cross-period products is relatively high, then the monopoly will have an incentive to exaggerate the pre-announcements. If potential rivals enter the market at the second stage, then the greater the monopoly¡¦s technological advantage is, the higher the extent of false pre-announcements will be. However, as long as the network effect is large enough, the monopoly is likely to employ pre-announcements, even if the product has no technological advantage. By excluding potential entrants from entering the market, established monopolistic firms keep their profits. And consumers may have false expectation¡Xa firm could win with an inferior technology¡Xwhich will in turn cause unfair competition. In addition, when the differences of the products are getting larger, a firm¡¦s incentive of employing false pre-announcements will raise. When the two products are totally compatible, the monopoly¡¦s new product pre-announcements are merely affected by the technological advantage. Then the greater the monopoly¡¦s technological advantage is, the higher the extent of false pre-announcements will be.

In recent years, mobile phone service has become the most popular term of telecommunication service. However, in back of the complex pricing plans and promotion plans, there are some interesting tropics. For example, how does a mobile phone service operator price the on-net and off-net charges? What is the factor that makes the off-net charges more expensively than the on-net one? And which principle is adopted to design the multiple pricing plans by the operators? In this study, we will make some amendment for the Hotelling Model, and set a new model which be called the Psychological Differential Model, that can expectably explain the eventuality which a man has a lot of phone number from different operators simultaneously. Besides, it will add a factor which will derogate the network externalities of the utility of mobile phone service. Mathematically, we use the way of ¡§Two-stage Market Pricing¡¨ to develop the equilibrium of on-net and off-net charges. By the cost pricing method, we can find the access fee will cause off-net charges more expensively than on-net one in the chapter three of this paper. Finally, in the chapter four, this study will introduce the principle of the third price discrimination to explain the outcome of multiple pricing plans.

Norwegian School of Management, Diss.--Sandvika, 2007.

Erasmus Univ., Diss.--Rotterdam, 2005. / Zsfassung in niederländ. Sprache.

RTWH, Diss.--Aachen, 2006.