Two Essays on Firm Entry and Pricing

Two Essays on Firm Entry and Pricing
Author: Xiaochen Xie
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021
Genre:
ISBN:

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Chapter 1: Re-exploring Markups and the Gains from International Trade This article investigates the welfare implication of trade liberalization, with variable markups, using evidence from the global smartphone industry. Higher trade exposure imposes forces on firms' markups from two directions: more competitive markets induce firms to lower their markups, while lower delivery costs motivate firms to lower their prices to an extent smaller than the decline in costs with the higher market demand and enhance their markups. To date, most structural work in international trade has ignored the potential welfare gains of trade liberalization through the markup channel by alleviating price distortions or has otherwise failed to track both of the directional forces that international trade imposes on markups. Accounting for the smartphone markets of 40 countries, I build a model of supply and demand in which both firms' product portfolio and pricing strategies are endogenous. I find that an increase in tariff rates would prompt mostly low-quality goods producers to exit the affected markets while increasing the price-to-cost margins of the remaining low-quality goods producers; meanwhile, the markups of the high-quality goods incumbents vary only little, or even reducing slightly to offset the market demand slump that the higher costs generate. My results suggest that if researchers only focus on the loss of variety when examining the impacts of higher trade barriers following traditional methods of measurement without paying attention to the markup channel, then the average consumer surplus loss could be underestimated by 7% to 10% through the price distortion. Chapter 2: Export Dynamics This paper studies firms' export dynamics using evidence from the global cellphone industry. Exporters tend to enter foreign markets that are geographically close or culturally similar to their previous export destinations. Most structural work of international trade has ignored firms' sequential export decisions across countries when estimating entry costs or has failed to build a framework in which firms' export-dynamic actions can be tractable or in which entry costs can be accurately estimated. I build a dynamic model in which firms first sequentially choose global regions for penetration and then spread out over the countries in the regions. I estimate firms' region- and country-level entry sunk costs for starting a business and the country-specific fixed costs for maintaining operation. I find that entering a new region with consumer characteristics similar to the previous export regions could reduce the entry costs as drastically as 81%. Relatedly, adding countries after penetrating a region would incur much lower entry costs than the costs associated with entering the first country in that region. Stricter trade regulation in large countries, such as the G7 group, would also reduce importers' entry margins and their trade value in the surrounding, smaller European countries. Moreover, conditional on the same productivity level, the geographical location of a firm's headquarters could determine as much as 70% of the variation in global expansion and sales. My model primitives predict a world with more advanced infrastructure, which can shorten the world's distance by half, could reduce delivery cost, and greatly enhance the consumer surplus in the mobile phone market by 1.3% to 3.87%. Compared to a static model, my dynamic model reports a gradual and less volatile increase in consumer surplus and market competition.

Two Essays in Finance

Two Essays in Finance
Author: Ward R. Kangas
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1997-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1581120044

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Based on data on publicly traded insurance firms, the first essay examines questions about the effect of large catastrophic events on insurance firms. Rather than looking at a single event, thirty catastrophic events were aggregated into quintiles and the cumulative abnormal returns around these events were found to be significantly positive over a 25 day trading window. There is no significant evidence that post-catastrophic stock returns are correlated to the magnitude of the catastrophe. The second essay analyzes the effect of a large land grant university, the University of Illinois, on the State Treasury of Illinois. If the State Treasury were acting as its own agent trying to maximize revenues, would it choose higher education as an investment versus other alternative investments. While it is true the State makes large expenditures for the operations of the University, it is also true that individuals receiving degrees on average receive higher incomes. Taxes or higher incomes offset the cost of operating the University. The study is broken out by the level of student: undergraduate, masters, doctorate, medical professional, and by function of the University. It was found that all levels of education have a positive return not only for the individual, but also for the State Treasury. This is in excess of any non-pecuniary benefits to the State of having a better educated population, or the local taxation effects on the county or city where the campus is located. These returns are found to be higher than other types of investments.

Essays on the Relationship of Competition and Firms' Price Responses

Essays on the Relationship of Competition and Firms' Price Responses
Author: Sungbok Lee
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

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This dissertation investigates the relationship of competition and firms' price responses, by analyzing: i) whether new entry reduces price discrimination, ii) when incumbents reduce price discrimination preemptively in response to the threat of entry, and iii) how competition increases prices. The dissertation consists of three independent essays addressing each of the above questions. The first two essays present an empirical analysis of the airline industry and the third essay presents a theoretical analysis of the credit card industry. In the empirical study of the relationship between competition and firms' pricing in the airline industry, I emphasize the importance of distinguishing the equilibrium behaviors with respect to different market characteristics. Major airlines can price discriminate differently in a market where they compete with low-cost carriers comparing to in another market where they don't, and also they can respond dfferently to the threat of entry depending on whether they are certain about the rival's future entry. The study reveals that competition has a positive effect on price discrimination in the routes where major airlines compete against one anther. In these routes, competition reduces lower-end prices to a greater extent than upper-end prices. In contrast, an entry by low-cost carriers results in a significant negative relationship between competition and price discrimination. Thus, the opposite results in the literature are both evident in the airline industry, and it is very important to identify the different forces of competition on price discrimination. Firms can respond to potential competition as well as actual competition. So, I extend the study to the relationship of potential competition and price discrimination, specially in cases where major airlines compete against one another while facing Southwest's threat of entry. I also attempt to suggest major airlines' motives of reducing price discrimination preemptively. The results of the study suggest that incumbents reduce price dispersion when it is possible to deter the rival's entry and that the potential rival discourages incumbents from deterring entry by announcing before its beginning service. Finally, I examine when competition can increase prices in a market, by analyzing the issuing side of the credit card industry. This industry is characterized by a two-sided market with a platform. Under the no-surcharge rule that restricts merchants to set the same price for cash and card purchases, the equilibrium interchange fee increases with competition. This occurs because issuers can compensate losses from competing on the issuing side by collectively increasing the interchange fee. As a result, limiting competition may improve social welfare when the interchange fee is higher than the social optimal level. In contrast, in the absence of the no-surcharge rule, the analysis shows that competition always improves social welfare by lowering the price of the market.

Essays on firm heterogeneity and quality in international trade

Essays on firm heterogeneity and quality in international trade
Author: Eddy Bekkers
Publisher: Rozenberg Publishers
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN: 905170903X

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The thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 2 contains a survey of the three most in‡fluential models on fi…rm heterogeneity and of the most important empirical work on firrm heterogeneity. The chapter starts with a brief review of the homogeneous productivity imperfect competition literature. Chapter 2 …finishes with a comparison of the three most in‡fluential models of fi…rm heterogeneity and the oligopoly model put forward in the thesis. Chapter 3 addresses exporting uncertainty under heterogeneous popularity. Chapter 4 contains the chapter on …firm heterogeneity under oligopoly. Chapter 5 constitutes the models on …firm heterogeneity and endogenous quality. Chapter 6 points out the within-sector specialization model. Chapter 7 addresses the effect of importer characteristics on unit values and the role of markups and quality to explain this effect. Chapter 8 concludes.

Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy

Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy
Author: János Kornai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2013-11-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199334773

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In Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy, János Kornai examines capitalism as an economic system and in comparison to socialism. Kornai explains his view of capitalism as an economy of surplus--a chronic excess of supply of goods and labor. This environment breeds rivalry among producers, which in turn encourages innovation. Socialism, on the other hand, is defined by a shortage of goods and labor and excess of demand. Whereas socialism is slothful and imitative, capitalism is dynamic and progressive. The two essays of this book will explore these differing ideologies on macro and micro levels, ending with definitive explanations of how the systems work and how they develop.