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Advertising, brand penetration and retailer service have been playing important roles in marketing for a long time. There are many studies which discuss about the effects of advertising on brand penetration, the effects of advertising on perceived quality, and the effects of brand penetration on perceived quality. However, the relationship among the advertising, brand penetration and perceived quality has rarely been studied. Furthermore, the studies about the effects of retailer service on perceived quality are much fewer. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand penetration and retailer service on perceived quality. The experiment with 2¡Ñ2¡Ñ2 factorial design is conducted to collect the empirical data. In the factorial design, we have 217 respondents in the 8 cells. The experiment variables have the effects of advertising, brand penetration and retailer service on perceived quality. The respondents are the more than the junior students of Sun Yat-sen University and National Taiwan University, and the product of this study is ¡§Notebook¡¨. This study applied structural equation model (SEM) to verify. The main results of this study are as follow: (1) Advertising positively influences perceived quality and that brand penetration partially mediates this influence. (2) Advertising positively influences perceived quality and that retailer service partially mediates this influence. The findings of this study can help the chief marketing officer to make strategic decision to increase the effect of advertising on perceived quality effectively.

Diploma thesis "Vertical integration and vertical restraints - The Case of the Czech manufacturing industry" deals with the empirical examination of the influence of the degree of vertical integration on the productivity of Czech firms in the manufacturing industry and is focused on some aspects of the automotive industry during the period 1998 -- 2007. At the theoretical level the work deals with determinants of vertical integration and vertical restraints, both on an individual level and also in terms of social welfare. The results of the analysis show the existence of the negative relationship between the degree of vertical integration and the productivity of companies in the manufacturing sector. Examination of the automotive industry showed reduction of the output gap between domestic and foreign firms.

品牌內垂直非價格限制，一般係指地域限制與顧客限制，通認為製造商建立有效率、具忠誠度經銷通路的良好競爭手段。製造商藉由此類限制，抑制下游經銷商對單一品排牌產品彼此相互競爭，使得經銷商間品牌內競爭減弱，而隨著降低競爭，經銷商則有能力提高產品價格，增加銷售利潤。相對於製造商而言，增加經銷商能增加經銷商促銷其產品的意願，總體來說，製造商也能增加利潤。尤其，對品牌弱勢、或新進市場的製造商，維持下游經銷商銷售利潤是刺激經銷商促銷、幫助品牌建立的有效方式。此外，品牌內垂直非價格限制亦可解決搭便車問題，製造商因此能確保下游經銷商之銷售不會受到搭便車者的折扣行為而受到影響。 品牌內垂直非價格限制雖有上述功能，惟畢竟其為以合意方式限制品牌內競爭，故對強調「維護自由競爭機能」的反托拉斯法來說，仍有所疑慮。雖說，是否管制此類限制，學說上仍有爭論。事實上，目前多數國家皆將品牌內垂直限制列入管制。但也因為其對競爭是否有影響並未有絕對定論下，如何管制、具體準則如何，似乎仍沒有形成一套明確的準則。尤其在我國，因公平交易法施行未久，實務案例累積數量有限，離標準的建立似仍有一段距離。本文認為，無論從立法歷史、實務管制經驗、經濟理論發達程度與相關探討文獻數量等觀點，美國法確為我國法往後執法的良好參考，適度參酌該國法經驗應有助我國法執法基準之建立。有鑑於此，本文以深入介紹美國法管制品牌內垂直限制為方法，內容中不乏對美國重要司法判決與學說理論之論述，希冀藉此作為我國往後立法、執法的借鏡。 品牌內垂直限制因僅影響品牌內競爭，故美國在Sylvania(1977)案，最高法院已確定將垂直非價格限制以「合理原則」審查。在合理原則下，訴訟原告必須負擔極為沈重的舉證責任，始能獲得勝訴。故往後原告多將品牌內垂直非價格限制定位為「當然違法」之行為類型，如水平限制、垂直約價(垂直價格限制)、聯合杯葛等，以求勝訴。垂直非價格限制與水平限制、垂直價格限制、聯合杯葛如何區分，為即具探討實益的問題。 品牌內垂直限制依芝加哥學派的見解，不論其限制內容為價格或非價格，一律為有助競爭、有效率的競爭方式。芝加哥學派的見解，對近幾十年美國反托拉斯法院，有相當重要的影響。故對芝加哥學派的思想，實有必要加以介紹，始能窺知美國法之全貌。除經濟理論外，從美國法院判決不難看出，非經濟因素對垂直非價格限制合法性的影響實不容忽視。雖說美國法院近來於反托拉斯案件中，多以經濟分析方式決定系爭限制之合法性，但事實上，倫理、社會、道德等價值，最高法院仍無法完全擺脫。而經濟、非經濟因素如何影響、甚至決定品牌內垂直非價格限制合法性，亦為本文的討論重點。 按我國管制品牌內垂直非價格限制之法規，為公平交易法第十九條第六款。該條款性質屬「限制競爭法」領域，但體例上卻列於不正競爭法，似有失當。又，構成該條款之不法限制須有「有限制競爭之虞」之共通要件、且具「不正當限制」之個別要件。此二要件如何具體適用、相互間有何影響，則有檢討之必要。依公平會見解，此二要件判斷標準相若，並無法區分。在如此見解下，導致公平會於執法時僅對「不正當限制」為檢驗，忽略對「有限制競爭之虞」作進一步分析。而是否「不正當限制」又常以無法標準化之非經濟因素，如不公平地位、限制相對人經營自由，為審查重心，卻忽略了限制競爭法管制的基礎—競爭機能受損害。故本文除評論此不合理的現象外，並參酌美國法的執法經驗，提出本文對我國法往後立法與執法的建言。 / Intrabrand vertical nonprice restraints, including territorial and customer restraints, are regarded as those of the best ways that can help a manufacturer to make the distribution of his products efficient. These restraints can lessen or eliminate the intrabrand competition of single manufacturer’s products. Therefore, the downstream dealers could make more profits by raising price. As far as a manufacturer is concerned, these restraints can stimulate dealers’ will of promoting his products by providing showrooms, more service, personnel and so on. After all, the more quantity of a manufacturer’s products dealers sell, the more profits a manufacturer earns. Especially when a manufacturer has weak brand or is new in the market, a manufacturer imposing intrabrand vertical nonprice restrains can build its brand rapidly and easily. Besides, they can solve the problem of free-riding between dealers. Although intrabrand vertical nonprice restraints have functions of improving distributive efficiency of manufacturer’s products, they are made by agreement between manufacturer and dealer to eliminate competition, and may break antitrust laws that preserve the mechanism of competition. In fact, most of the countries in the world have laws to regulate them. Unfortunately, there is no firm and convincible theory can explain whether intrabrand vertical nonprice restraints harm competition or not. Because of this situation, it’s hard for the antitrust bureau to form a standard of enforcing the antitrust law related to them. Especially in Taiwan, Fair Trade Act (FTA) was made in 1991, so the number of cases accumulated by antitrust bureau, Fair Trade Commission (FTC), is not enough to build a concrete guideline to solve the complexity of intrabrand vertical nonprice restraints. It may be helpful for us to see the foreign regulation toward intrabrand vertical nonprice restraints. Take U.S. antitrust law for instance, there are a long history of regulating experience, abundance of economic theories and essays related to antitrust law. Regarding this point, U.S. law perhaps is a good model to Taiwan. Because intrabrand vertical restraints only effect competition of single brand, U.S. Supreme Court in Sylvania (1977) evaluates them by rule of reason. Under rule of reason, the plaintiff must show what damage of competition the restraint at issue has did. Because of being in heavy burden of evidence, the plaintiff is actually hard to win in any case. Later, many plaintiffs who want to get rid of the burden of evidence claim the restraint at issue as a per se illegal type such as parallel collusion, resale price maintenance (RPM), group boycott, but most of them fail. According to Chicago School, intrabrand restraints (price or nonprice) in all circumstances is procompetitive and efficient. The economic theory of Chicago School has had great influence on antitrust decision of Supreme Court in past decades, so it is essential to introduce Chicago School for studying the U.S. antitrust law. Addition to economic theory, non-economic concerns such as protection of small retailers and consumers also have some effect on Supreme Court. But unlike economic theory, non-economic concerns are usually involved with moral and social values, and not only hard to evaluate with economic concepts but with each other. Therefore, Chicago School’s advocates like Bork and Posner claim in antitrust case a judge should ignore about non-economic concerns. It’s, however, still a dispute between scholars. In Taiwan, regulating vertical nonprice restraints is Article 19(6) of FTA. Theoretically this Article belongs to antitrust law’s territory, but legislators put it mistakenly in ChapterⅢ “unfair competition.” Besides, there are two elements to meet Article 19(6), general and particular element. In other words, an illegal vertical restraint must meet “which is likely to lessen competition or to impede fair competition” called general element and “limiting its trading counterparts' business activity improperly by means of the requirements of business engagement” called particular element. According to the opinion of TFC, general and particular element can’t be distinguished from each other and should be judged by the same standard. Because general element is about the concepts of the market and competition and hard to investigate, in terms of the cost of enforcing laws, FTC will naturally judge Article 19(6) of FTA by focusing the particular element. But what’s “improper” in the particular element is not so clear and usually is involved with non-economic concerns such as the freedom of dealers’, the consumer’s rights of option. In fact, from seeing cases made by FTC, we can conclude that FTC usually put non-economic concerns in a key role in cases and ignore economic concerns. It’s a serious problem we need to discuss. After all, economic concern in the U.S. antitrust law is one of the most important reasons to punish the behavior of agreement. At the end of this thesis, we not only get a conclusion but present some advice of FTA and FTC by comparing with U.S. laws.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROHIBITION ON PARALLEL IMPORTS RESTRICTIONS WITHIN COMPETITION LAW OF THE EUROPEAN UNION The aim of this thesis is to analyse the current approach of EU competition law to parallel imports restrictions in light of nearly a half-century of EU Courts' case-law's evolution and in comparison with the approach adopted by US antitrust law. The traditional attitude of the EU Courts and of the Commission towards competition restraints of this type is described in literature in clear terms. However, this is not the case when it comes to the recent and current ambiguous developments within EU competition law. Therefore, this thesis aims to verify these two hypotheses. The first hypothesis says that evolution of the EU institutions approach to parallel imports restrictions has a circular nature: it starts from the traditional, intransigent position adopted in the early decades of European integration and it continues through a more lenient, economic approach in the period of the so called modernization of EU competition law to return to a rather traditional attitude typical of the current times. According to the second hypothesis, the current EU institutions' attitude towards parallel imports restrictions has nevertheless been shifted, during the modernization period, to a more...

Les accords verticaux correspondent pour l'essentiel au monomarquisme, à la distribution exclusive, à l'achat exclusif, à la distribution sélective, à la franchise et à la concession. Bien que leur diversité soit grande, ils constituent la plupart du temps des accords "de" concurrence car ils développent la concurrence intermarques. L'objectif principal de cette étude est de rechercher et d'analyser les critères d'appréciation des accords verticaux de distribution en droit de la concurrence français, communautaire et argentin. En droit de la concurrence communautaire, les accords de distribution font l'objet d'une importante réglementation et d'une riche jurisprudence. Les règles relatives aux accords verticaux ont subi une réforme qui a abouti à l'adoption d'un nouveau règlement d'exemption par catégorie (Règlement n° 330/2010) accompagné de nouvelles Lignes directrices sur les restrictions verticales. De nombreux accords verticaux bénéficient ainsi d'une exemption catégorielle leur conférant une présomption de légalité et en l'absence que ces accords bénéficient d'un règlement d'exemption par catégorie, ils demeurent tout de même exemptables, à condition que soit établi un bilan économique positif, notamment en raison de gains d'efficience. À la différence du droit communautaire de la concurrence, le droit argentin de la concurrence relatif aux accords verticaux n'a pas adopté de règlements d'exemption par catégorie et les autorités de concurrence argentines procèdent à une analyse au cas par cas des accords au travers de la règle de raison ainsi qu'à une analyse de leur incidence sur l'intérêt économique général. / Vertical agreements mostly correspond to single branding, exclusive distribution, exclusive purchase, selective distribution, franchising and concession. Although their variety is large, most of the time they constitute competition agreements because they increase inter-brand competition. The main aim of this study is to look for and to analyse the assessment criteria of distribution vertical agreements in French, European and Argentine Competition Laws. In European Competition Law, an important set of regulations and a rich case-law exist concerning distribution agreements. The rules concerning vertical agreements have been reformed ; as a consequence of this reform, a new Block Exemption Regulation (Regulation No 330/2010) has been adopted and accompanied by new Guidelines on Vertical Restraints. Lots of vertical agreements also benefit from Block Exemption which confers them a presumption of legality and in case these agreements do not benefit from the Block Exemption Regulation, they still can be exempted on the condition that a positive economic balance should be established, notably in view of efficiency gains. Unlike European Competition Law, the Argentine Competition Law concerning vertical agreements has not adopted Block Exemption Regulation and the Argentine competition authorities analyse each agreement in the light of the Rule of Reason and analyse their impact on the general economic interest.

This thesis deals with the selected vertical restraints on competition that occur in the sector of e-commerce, namely resale price maintenance, dual pricing and most-favoured-nation clauses. The thesis raises the research question what stance the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and particularly national competition authorities and courts of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden take to the above-mentioned practices. The decisions of the authorities are considered in terms of their degree of strictness towards the vertical restraints in question. From a systematic point of view, the thesis is divided into eight chapters. Its subject, basic questions, aims and methods used are outlined in the introductory chapter. The second chapter, which deals with the concept of e-commerce, mainly provides the definition of the scope of the sector under consideration from a material point of view. The third chapter analyses the results of the European Commission's inquiry into the e-commerce sector, especially its conclusions on the functioning of the sector, its features and trends in this sector, particularly with regard to their...

Mi tesis utiliza la noción de contrato relacional para explicar pautas aparentemente contraintuitivas de organización vertical. El primer capitulo muestra que, cuando existen externalidades entre empresas, la integración vertical reduce la tentación de sus ejecutivos de bajar el esfuerzo, haciendo sus promisas de cooperar más creibles. El segundo capitulo muestra que, cuando una regulación europea prohibió los territorios exclusivos en la distribución de automóviles, los fabricantes impusieron estándares de servicio y precios maximos, estos últimos para reducir la tentación de los concesionarios de romper pactos informales para no competir. El tercer capitulo muestra que, pese a la asignación simétrica de derechos de decisión en sus contratos de franquicia, los fabricantes de coches dictan estándares a los concesionarios, remunerandolos con descuentos discrecionales. Eso sugiere que los fabricantes son delegados informalmente para tomar decisiones, y usan sus podéres contractuales como recurso extremo contra la tentación de los concesionarios de rechazarlas. / My thesis applies the notion of relational contracts to explain seemingly counterintuitive vertical arrangements. The first chapter shows that, in the presence of spillovers between an upstream and a downstream firm, vertical integration reduces the downstream manager's present gains from shirking, making her promise to cooperate with the upstream firm credible. The second chapter shows that, after a European regulation prohibited exclusive territories, car dealership contracts switched to a mix of service standards and price ceilings, and argues that price ceilings were introduced to reduce the dealers' short-run profits from reneging on an informal "no-compete" agreement. The third chapter shows that, despite the even allocation of decision rights in dealership contracts, car manufacturers dictate performance standards ex post, and reward dealers through discretionary discounts. This suggests manufacturers are informally delegated to set standards, and use formal decision rights as a last resort against the dealers' temptation to overturn their decisions.