Lower Transaction Costs Research Articles

When Unfair Trade Is Also at Home: The Economic Sustainability of Coffee Farms

This paper addresses the issue of unfair trade practices, investigating the drivers of the differences between farm-gate and free-on-board (FOB) prices in the most important Arabica coffee producing countries worldwide: Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, and Ethiopia. Our study looks at those differences taking into account the literature on governance in agri-food chains, with a focus on each country’s domestic market. We performed panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) estimates in ICO and World Bank data, covering the period from 2007 to 2016. In the paper we analyze (i) property rights as a proxy of transaction costs, once it brings more transparency and support to negotiations; (ii) access to electricity as a proxy of supporting infrastructure in communication and information activities, and (iii) quality of roads and quality of ports as proxies of transportation infrastructure. Our results show that heterogeneity in institutions and infrastructure are key in explaining the differences between farm-gate and FOB prices. The transaction costs derived from institutional failures and infrastructure gaps, lead to the use of intermediaries in the coffee supply chain, and this reduces the margin for coffee farmers. Actions that aim to reduce these inefficiencies bring more transparency and lower transaction costs, thereby directly contributing to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Manufacturer’s Entry in the Product-Sharing Market

Problem definition : Mobile communications technologies and online platforms have enabled large-scale consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sharing of their underutilized products. This paper studies a manufacturer’s optimal entry strategy in the product-sharing market and the economic implications of its entry. Academic/practical relevance : Sharing of products or services among consumers has experienced dramatic growth in recent years. The impact of C2C sharing on traditional firms can be very significant. In response to C2C product sharing, many manufacturers (e.g., General Motors and BMW) have entered the product-sharing market to provide business-to-consumer (B2C) rental services in addition to outright sales to consumers. Methodology : We employ a game-theoretic analytical model for our analysis. Results : Our analysis shows that when C2C sharing has a low transaction cost and the manufacturer’s marginal cost of production is not very high, the manufacturer will find it not optimal to offer its own rental services to consumers. In contrast, when the C2C sharing transaction cost is high or the manufacturer’s marginal cost of production is high, the manufacturer should offer enough units of the products for rental to squeeze out C2C sharing (in expectation). When the C2C-sharing transaction cost and the manufacturer’s marginal cost are both in the middle ranges, the manufacturer’s rental services and the C2C sharing will coexist, in which case the manufacturer’s entry in the sharing market may reduce the total number of units of the product in the whole market, but increase the consumer surplus and the social welfare. This reduced number of products due to the manufacturer’s B2C rental service also suggests less environmental impact from production. Managerial implications : The production cost and the C2C sharing transaction cost play critical roles in determining the manufacturer’s optimal quantity to use for its B2C rental services and the equilibrium outcome. In some situations, the manufacturer’s entry in the sharing market provides not only economic benefits to the firm and consumers, but also environmental benefits to the society as a whole.

Framework for agricultural e-trading platform adoption using neural networks

The digital e-trading platform is an ambitious and priority intervention in the agricultural sector. The research study is among the very few that identifies and prioritizes the predictors of wholesale electronic trading platform adoption in agricultural marketing. The research has been conducted in two phases—identification of predictors based on a scholarly articles’ review and generating the predictive function between the identified predictors and adoption using the multilayer perceptron neural networks method. A case study of the electronic national agriculture market platform is undertaken to understand the predictors in the context of a real project. The study has revealed significant predictors of priority (high to low) as fast transaction cycles, higher prices, easier to use, infrastructure availability, trust, social influence, low transaction costs and customer care. Post-adoption, the user expects to get benefits like transparency, quick trade settlement, reduced transaction cost, expanding the market reach, and increase in the product price realized by the farmer. The improvement in the critical predictors of the electronic trading platform may help the de-facto national initiative to succeed. In new markets, the prediction framework using the neural network may be used to identify users with the propensity to adopt e-commerce or digital initiatives in the agricultural sector and proactively approach them to get a high number of transactions—an essential ingredient of success. The digital e-trading initiative is a growth catalyst of Agriculture 4.0 and may transform the agricultural supply chain for the better.

India's COVID-19 social assistance package and its impact on the agriculture sector

ContextCVOID-19 induced significant economic and social disruptions in India. Rural households, including smallholders, were affected by loss in migrant income, livelihood and farm and non-farm incomes. During this lockdown, the Indian government enacted several emergency legislations to provide direct and indirect relief to workers and households. India’s COVID-19 social assistance package, namely, PM-GKY, announced in March 2020, was designed to provide immediate relief to the vulnerable population. The PM-GKY provided cash direct benefit transfers (DBT) and in-kind supports (IKS) through existing schemes. ObjectivesThis study examines the impact of India’s government assistance package (known as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana or PM-GKY), announced immediately after the COVID-19 lockdown, on the procurement of agricultural inputs for the upcoming farming season. MethodsThe study uses a quasi-experimental method and survey data from 1,789 smallholder households in three northern Indian states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh). ResultsThe result suggests that the fungibility of funds received under the government transfer package was significant in alleviating credit constraints and increasing agricultural investments in agricultural inputs. The farmers who received benefits from the PM-GKY scheme spent significantly more on the procurement of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. ConclusionsThe disbursement of cash transfers in the three states showed that emergency relief packages had reached the vulnerable sections of Indian society. Overall, 89-94% of households benefited from direct cash transfers. Perhaps lower transaction costs, minimal leakages, and immediate delivery make a strong case for direct cash transfers. The above advantages facilitate the provision of relief to a large proportion of vulnerable sections of Indian society in a short period.

From the Artist’s Contract to the Blockchain Ledger: New Forms of Artists’ Funding Using NFTs, Fractional Equity, and Resale Royalties

Although the Artist’s Contract, first developed in 1971, was not broadly adopted in its early decades, renewed interest in it fifty years later has led to inventive related structures that are enabled by blockchain technology, in particular the phenomenon of NFT (non-fungible token) sales in art. We argue that the Contract’s conceptual roots have laid groundwork for a potentially powerful funding mechanism via the Contract’s resale royalties terms. Blockchain technology radically alters risks of incomplete contracting and lowers transaction costs, making the Quixotic terms of the Artist’s Contract newly actionable. We study the artist Hans Haacke’s longtime experimentation with the Artist’s Contract, along with contemporary data from the blockchain registry SuperRare, which pays royalties to artists. Blockchain companies such as SuperRare generally sell digital works outside the taste-making and gate-keeping systems of the upper echelons of the traditional art market. This arc from conceptual practice within the arts to commercial practice at the edge of the traditional art market points to the Contract’s legacy as a model for potentially disruptive technology and a new fundraising model for artists.

Defragmenting Markets: Evidence from Agency MBS

Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have historically traded in separate forward markets. We study the consequences of this fragmentation, showing that market liquidity endogenously concentrated in Fannie Mae MBS, leading to higher issuance and trading volume, lower transaction costs, higher security prices, and a lower primary market cost of capital for Fannie Mae. We then analyze a change in market design—the Single Security Initiative—which consolidated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS trading into a single market in June 2019. We find that consolidation increased the liquidity and prices of Freddie Mac MBS without measurably reducing liquidity for Fannie Mae; this was in part achieved by aligning characteristics of the underlying MBS pools issued by the two agencies. Prices partially converged prior to the consolidation event, in anticipation of future liquidity. Consolidation increased Freddie Mac’s fee income by enabling it to remove discounts that previously compensated loan sellers for lower liquidity.

Discussion on Payment Application in Cross-border E-Commerce Platform from the Perspective of Blockchain

Features like the distributed ledger, consensus mechanism, asymmetric encryption technology, smart contract and Token of blockchain can lower transaction cost, enhance trust between customers and merchants, as well as eliminate false payment and consumer information leakage, problems which are common in current payment of cross-border E-Commerce platform. Based on the analysis of existing scholars, this paper studied two payment models: digital cash payment based on blockchain technology and the application of blockchain in third-party payment platform. Then the paper discussed the mechanism of blockchain in cross-border e-commerce payment platform, and creatively proposed a blockchain cross-border e-commerce payment platform, serving as reference and guidance for further development of blockchain technology in cross-border payment.1

Risk Concentration and Interconnectedness in OTC Markets

We analyze the impact of a regulatory reform in a novel framework that jointly determines banks’ bilateral networks and platform access. In our model, banks use their bilateral connections to obtain indirect access to the platform, which saves direct entry costs but results in risk concentration. This trade-off leads to a unique market structure, which is generally asymmetric with multiple layers even if all banks are ex ante homogeneous. Policies that increase balance sheet costs relative to entry costs could result in a more symmetric market structure but have ambiguous effects on transaction costs. Our results underscore that policies aiming to achieve all-to-all trading, reduce risk concentration, or lower transaction costs can be counterproductive.

Конкуренция сегодня: процесс или результат?

Digital economy has significantly changed business reality. The radical transformations are ubiquitous. New patterns feature economic behaviour of market participants, their interactions, their business models and their market activities. What about competition? What forms of competitive conduct have lost importance in contemporary digital economy? And what are the newest strategies that enhance competitiveness of the firms? Which digital business practices could limit competition? And which of them could stimulate business rivalry? Digitalization has changed many, in not all, of our traditional conceptual visions in the area of competition, market, market power, relevant market actors. The nature of competition itself is under scrupulous investigation. What conclusions could we draw from current theoretical and empirical analyses of competition mechanism? First of all, we deal with new forms of competition. The old Schumpeterian question – whether competition is a creative innovative destruction or it leads only to unfair elimination of competitors from the market – has arisen again nowadays. Online competition has two radically different outcomes. On the one hand, lower transaction costs, more possibilities to compare prices and assortment, expanding markets beyond geographical limits, low entry barriers reinforce rivalry. On the other hand, online activity of the firms can mitigate competitive pressure though new forms of product differentiation and usage of phantom strategies, phantom products, phantom plans. In order to increase their overall competitiveness, firms have elaborated an O2O (online-to-offline) business model that is allowed to utilize virtual and actual activity at the same time. Restaurant business, cosmetic industry, taxi deals are examples of its successful implementation. Is more competition better for consumers? This concept has been considered doubtful. Digital competitive pressure has led to a novel format of product differentiation, that is, targeted product design. Unlike traditional view in line with Salop circular model, contemporary firms choose product strategies that target as little individuals as possible. The less the circle of potential clients is, the less their price elasticity would be, and the weaker price rivalry might become. Traditional concept views competition as a Markov stochastic process. Contemporary analyses demonstrate more complicated nature of competitive mechanism. Online and offline innovations transform competition into non-linear process with “humps and jumps”, the outcomes of which are not always in the interests of consumers’ welfare.

Friends in High Places: Demand Spillovers and Competition on Digital Platforms

By lowering transaction costs, digital platforms may foster complementary dynamics across offerings that compete in other settings. In a study of the Spotify music streaming platform, I study the effect of peer expansion on provider performance and consider when demand spillovers outweigh substitution across providers on a digital platform. I find that, on average, increases in peer demand improve provider performance on the Spotify platform, however provider characteristics moderate this effect. Expansion by popular peers improves provider performance, while expansion by niche peers does not generate sufficient spillovers to overcome the negative effects of substitution. I explore how platform recommendation systems magnify spillovers and consider the strategic implications of these market dynamics. In doing so, I highlight that digital platforms alter how firms compete and whom they compete with.

Cross-Sectoral Externalities Related to Natural Resources and Ecosystem Services

Standard approaches to environmental and natural resource use externalities generally focus on single-sector resources and user groups. Remedies include Pigouvian-style government constraints, small group controls following Elinor Ostrom, or less frequently, bargaining across users as outlined by Ronald Coase. However, many difficult natural resource management problems involve competing uses of the same resource or multiple interdependent resources, across multiple, heterogeneous sectors. Cross-sectoral externalities are generated and impede attainment of conservation objectives. The multiplicity of resources and stakeholders, who may have different property rights, hold different use or non-use values, have different traditions, or fall under different regulatory regimes, increases the likelihood of multi-jurisdictional conflicts. We provide an institutional analysis following Oliver Williamson’s four-levels of institutions (social embeddedness, institutional environment, governance, resource allocation) to illustrate the sources of potential conflict, the costs of addressing them, and the potentials for exchange. In comparing the costs of alternative approaches, we include transaction costs associated with property rights; the costs of lobbying, implementing, and enforcing government regulation; and the costs of scaling up from small-group controls when resource problems involve multiple sectors and heterogeneous populations. In our illustrative case examples, instruments that are not formal property rights are exchanged at lower transaction costs. We close by discussing how Coasean, Pareto-improving voluntary exchange agreements may be lower cost, more effective, and more durable solutions than alternative management regimes to mitigate cross-sectoral externalities.

Foreign Direct Investment, Global Value Chains, and Labor Rights: No Race-to-the-Bottom?

In a stylized model of multinational firms choosing host locations for their global value chains, host-country governments choose the strength of collective-bargaining rights that allow their workers to receive a share of the resulting quasi-rents. Each government must trade off the direct benefit of stronger bargaining rights against both the effect of chasing multinationals away to rival countries and general-equilibrium effects of discouraging investment in the industry altogether. We find that an increase in globalization in the sense of lower transaction costs has no effect on equilibrium workers' rights, but adding more countries to the global trading system tends, in the limit, to weaken them. Thus, as a matter of theory, the effect of globalization on labor rights is ambiguous. Empirically, we find little evidence that globalization drives movements in labor rights in either direction.

Unlimiting Unlimited Liability: Legal Equality for Swedish Banks with Alternative Shareholder Liability Regimes, 1897–1903

This article examines the aftermath of the 1897 Riksbank Act in Swedish banking. The act placed banks with unlimited liability and those with limited liability on equal footing, removing the note-issuing privileges of the former. We consider whether changes in risk preferences occurred subsequent to the act, or whether extended liability was a sufficient deterrent. We conclude that when legal differences were removed, lower transaction costs for unlimited liability banks (ULBs) spurred aggressive competition, reflected in narrower interest spreads relative to limited liability banks (LLBs). ULBs also took on greater leverage and held less liquidity, which supports the Coasean interpretation that the shareholder liability regime mattered little. After 1897, ULB shareholders continued to receive higher dividends, enjoyed substantially superior returns on equity, and maintained an array of corporate governance controls to shield themselves against their additional risk.

Can central bank digital currency increase financial inclusion? Arguments for and against

This paper presents the arguments for and against central bank digital currency increasing financial inclusion. Financial inclusion is arguably one of the many reasons for issuing a central bank digital currency. The arguments in support of CBDC increasing financial inclusion are that CBDC can digitize value chains, CBDCs can improve access to digital financial services, CBDC can help to enlarge the digital economy, CBDC can enhance the efficiency of digital payments, CBDC can be used offline when there is no internet coverage, and CBDC offer low transaction costs. The arguments against CBDC increasing financial inclusion are that CBDC may not prioritize financial inclusion, the high cost to purchase digital devices for holding a CBDC, non-interest bearing CBDC, the strong preference for cash over digital currency, the burdensome identification and regulatory requirements, and the imposition of transaction costs. The arguments presented in this paper shows that there is still disagreement over whether a central bank digital currency can increase financial inclusion. Nevertheless, in the light of recent events, many central banks are determined to issue a central bank digital currency for many reasons. Even though a central bank digital currency does not achieve the intended financial inclusion objective, at least, the other objectives for issuing a central bank digital currency can be achieved such as the reduction in cash management costs and the effective conduct of monetary policy.

Does the investment horizon of institutional investors matter for stock liquidity?

This paper examines the role of the investment horizon of institutional investors on stock liquidity of firms. We show that an increase in long-term institutional ownership is negatively associated with firm liquidity, while an increase in short-term ownership is positively related to a firm's stock liquidity. We identify the ownership-liquidity relationship by examining two major channels: the trading activity channel and the informational friction channel. Long-term investors reduce stock liquidity through low frequency trading and access to value-enhancing and private information, which induces adverse selection bias. In contrast, short-term investors improve liquidity through trading activity and competition with other investors, which lowers transaction costs. Our findings further suggest that the effects of an increase in long-term (short-term) institutional investors on liquidity weaken (strengthen) when a firm has more publicly available information. Finally, we show that the positive impact of an increase in long-term ownership on valuation is more pronounced for firms with higher liquidity and the valuation effect is persistent.

Equity Mutual Funds: Current Status and Issues

An equity mutual fund is a financial intermediary that collects funds from various investors and invests in equities and other assets. It has the following advantages or functions: record keeping and administration, diversification and divisibility, professional management, and low transaction costs. Compared to the rapid growth of the global equity fund markets over the past decade, the Korean market has shrunk significantly. The main cause is the decline in the reliability of equity funds. This study examines the current status of the global and Korean fund markets and their relationships with private pension markets. Based on the findings, various issues in the Korean equity fund market are identified, and various possible solutions concerning asset management companies, sales companies, and institutional regulations are suggested. If the equity fund market gains the investors’ trust, it will reduce the direct investment of stocks by individuals, benefit the private pension markets, and contribute to the development of the Korean capital market. Key words: Equity Mutual Fund; Retirement Pension; Individual Retirement Account; Exchange Traded Fund; Master Trust JEL Classification: A20, G10, G23

IS COVID-19 AN EXCUSE FOR NON-PERFORMANCE AND NON-ENFORCEABILITY OF BUSINESS CONTRACTS? ANSWERS FROM ECONOMIC ANALYSIS WITH A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE.

) In any contract, parties only perform because it is worthy for them, and law surely can influence their behavior making sure it is not worth breaching. (b) Business contracts with different moment of payment can be addressed as a form of investment, since the party that pays first holds the default risk while financing the activity of the counterparty. (c) COVID 19 imposes great burden and uncertainty towards the contracts and courts may aggravate such uncertainty. (d) Statutory or jurisprudence provisions are not prepared for COVID 19. (e) For its characteristics as Business counterparties, neither of the parties are interested in losing a recurrent investor or a recurrent investment. (f) The Coase theorem, once again, shows itself as the best perspective of analysis. Since neither the Courts nor the statutory provisions can interfere efficiently, only the parties, if in a built environment of low transaction costs, will allocate the burdens in an efficient way.

Which market dominates the price discovery in currency futures? The case of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Intercontinental Exchange

This paper examines the relative contributions to the price discovery process of EUR/USD futures traded in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). We find that the CME contributes 66.4%, 92.7%, and 97.3% to the price discovery process according to information share metrics suggested by Harris, McInish, and Wood (2002), Hasbrouck (1995), and Putninš (2013), respectively. The intraday information share metrics also show that the CME dominates the price discovery in most time periods. We attribute the CME's price discovery leadership to its higher trading activity, lower transaction costs, and higher volatility as compared to the ICE.

Hotel booking through online travel agency: Optimal Stackelberg strategies under customer-centric payment service

Facing stiff competition, online travel agencies (OTAs) are dedicating to provide customer-centric payment service in hotel online booking, which poses challenges for hotels and customers to make optimal strategies. This paper studies the optimal Stackelberg decisions and strategic interactions of a hotel and a customer in online booking through online travel agencies with customer-centric payment service. The results show that refund rate has great effect on the customer's payment decision, while transaction cost has great influence on the hotel's operational decision. When the refund rate is greater than a threshold, the customer prefers online payment. Being a leader in the Stackelberg game, the hotel can induce customers to choose the payment option with the lowest transaction cost by setting a refund rate.

Digital platforms and their application in the aviation industry

The article considers one of the directions of digital transformation, namely digital platforms. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says that digital platforms create new opportunities for companies of all sizes to engage in trade. They can lead to efficiency gains through lower transaction costs and reduced information asymmetries supported by rating systems. Other benefits include lower consumer prices, increased market access, more competition, better use of underutilized resources and increased flexibility for the providers of services. However, gains are not automatic, and there are growing concerns over the rising market power of certain platforms and the related implications for competition, data protection and ownership, consumer protection and taxation and employment policies. Economic policies and regulations will need to maximize the benefits while at the same time minimizing the costs of digital platforms. Accordingly to Digital Economy Report 2019 by UNCTAD digital platforms provide the mechanisms for bringing together a set of parties to interact online. A distinction can be made between transaction platforms and innovation platforms. Transaction platforms are two/multi-sided markets with an online infrastructure that supports exchanges between a number of different parties. They have become a core business model for major digital corporations (such as Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook and eBay), as well as for those that are supporting digitally enabled sectors (such as Uber, Didi Chuxing or Airbnb). Innovation platforms create environments for code and content producers to develop applications and software in the form of, for example, operating systems (e.g. Android or Linux) or technology standards (e.g. MPEG video). Several factors help explain the rapid rise to dominance of these digital giants. The first is related to network effects (i.e. the more users on a platform, the more valuable it becomes for everyone). The second is the platforms’ ability to extract, control and analyses data. As with network effects, more users mean more data, and more data mean a stronger ability to outcompete potential rivals and capitalize on first-mover advantages. Thirdly, once a platform begins to gain traction and starts offering different integrated services, the costs to users of switching to an alternative service provider start to increase. The transformative power of data in the sphere of economic and social interactions means that governments, businesses, and people must adapt to use emerging opportunities and avoid traps and risks. The ability of countries and various stakeholders to master digital transformation varies greatly and depends on their level of development and digital readiness. Developed countries are in many ways better equipped to deal with the growing role of digital platforms than countries with limited resources and capabilities. The aviation, travel and tourism industry has been at the forefront of digital innovation, but industry and technology trends suggest that further change lies ahead. The sector has been an early adopter of digital technologies and platforms, but steep demand for travel, driven by a growing middle class in emerging markets and the increasing importance of digital experiences, implies that further digitalization will be vital if the expectations of tomorrow’s consumers are to be met.