Mixed Oligopoly Research Articles

Privatization Neutrality Theorem in Free Entry Markets

AbstractIt is known that if the number of entering firms is endogenous (free entry markets), privatization is not necessarily welfare neutral in mixed oligopolies under a uniform production subsidy policy. We revisit this problem by considering another policy tool, the output floor regulation. We investigate three free entry models with different time structures, a Cournot and two Stackelberg models. We find that neutrality is restored in free entry markets under the optimal output floor regulation, regardless of the time structure.

An Investigation of Stackelberg Mixed Oligopoly with Advertising Competition

This paper conducts a comprehensive investigation of Stackelberg mixed oligopoly with advertising competition. We focus our attention on misleading advertising, and at the same time derive some results that are closely related to profit‐raising entry. Different from Matsumura and Sunada (Economics Letters, Vol. 119 (2013), pp. 183–185), we find that it is the leadership of the public firm in the advertising stage that may lead to the negative advertising level of the public firm and make the profit of each private firm decrease in the number of the private firms. In addition, we also find that the public leadership in the advertising stage may lead to the negative aggregate advertising level.

Equilibria with vector-valued utilities and preference information. The analysis of a mixed duopoly

This paper deals with the equilibria of games when the agents have multiple objectives and, therefore, their utilities cannot be represented by a single value, but by a vector containing the various dimensions of the utility. Our approach allows the incorporation of partial information about the preferences of the agents into the model, and permits the identification of the set of equilibria in accordance with this information. We also propose an additional conservative criterion which can be applied in this framework in order to predict the results of interaction. The potential application of the theoretical results is shown with an analysis of a mixed oligopoly in which the agents value additional objectives other than their own benefit. These objectives are related to social welfare and to the profit of the industry. The flexibility of our approach provides a general theoretical framework for the analysis of a wide range of strategic economic models.

Output and R&D subsidies in a mixed oligopoly

We analyze an oligopoly where public and private firms compete in quantity and R&D. Using general functions, we show that an output subsidy and an R&D tax can achieve the first-best allocation. Moreover, the degree of privatization does not influence the optimal output subsidy but does influence the optimal R&D tax.

Mitsuyoshi Yanagihara and Minoru Kunizaki （Eds.）: <i>The Theory of Mixed Oligopoly: Privatization, Transboundary Activities, and Their Applications, New Frontiers in Regional Science:Asian Perspectives</i>, Vol. 14, Springer, 2017, 208 p.

Mitsuyoshi Yanagihara and Minoru Kunizaki （Eds.）: <i>The Theory of Mixed Oligopoly: Privatization, Transboundary Activities, and Their Applications, New Frontiers in Regional Science:Asian Perspectives</i>, Vol. 14, Springer, 2017, 208 p.

Equilibria with Vector-Valued Utilities and Preference Information. The Analysis of a Mixed Duopoly

This paper deals with the equilibria of games when the agents have multiple objectives and therefore, their utilities cannot be represented by a single value, but by a vector containing the various dimensions of the utility. Our approach is based on the incorporation into the model of information about the preferences of the agents, together with additional decision rules. This allows us to identify the equilibria according to this preferential information.The potential application of the theoretical results is shown with an analysis of a mixed oligopoly in which the agents value additional objectives other than their own benefit. These objectives are related to social welfare and to the profit of the industry. The flexibility of our approach provides a general theoretical framework to analyze a wide range of strategic economic models.

Informative Advertising in a Mixed Oligopoly

We study a mixed duopoly in which firms compete in advertising and quantity. The sum of informative advertising undertaken often exceeds that in a private duopoly, and whenever this happens the presence of the public (i.e., government) firm decreases social welfare. Surprisingly, the public firm may increase its advertising as the cost of advertising increases. Moreover, the basic insight that the public firm can increase advertising and reduce welfare remains when there are advertising spillovers, in a case with a foreign rival, and in an illustration of Bertrand competition.

Imported inputs and privatization in downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

AbstractThis paper examines welfare implications of privatization in a mixed oligopoly with vertically related markets, where an upstream foreign monopolist sells an essential input to public and private firms located downstream in the domestic country. The impact on domestic welfare of privatizing the downstream public firm is shown to contain three effects. The first is an output distortion effect, which negatively affects welfare since privatization decreases the production of final good for consumption. The second is an input price lowering effect resulting from a decrease in derived demand for the input. When the level of privatization increases, a decrease in final good production lowers input demand, causing input price to decline and domestic welfare to increase. The third is a rent‐leaking effect associated with foreign ownership in the downstream private firm. The rival domestic firm strategically increases its final good production, causing profits accrued to foreign investors to increase and domestic welfare to decline. Without foreign ownership in the downstream private firm, the optimal policy toward the public firm is complete privatization as the output distortion effect is dominated by the input price lowering effect. With foreign ownership, however, complete privatization can never be socially optimal due to the additional negative impact on domestic welfare of the rent‐leaking effect. We further discuss implications for domestic welfare under different privatization schemes (e.g., selling the privatization shares to the upstream foreign monopolist or to the rival domestic firm).

Privatization and efficiency: a mixed oligopoly approach

While models of mixed oligopoly have been analyzed within a rapidly growing literature, little is known about the mechanism of efficiency improvement relating to partial privatization. In this paper, we endogenize efficiency improvement in relation to the level of privatization. We show that in the short run, an improvement in efficiency associated with a state-owned firm reduces the output substitution among firms, and that the reduction in output substitution effect is proportional to the strength of the improvement in efficiency. Specifically, if the effect of efficiency improvement is sufficiently small, the magnitude of the improvement of social welfare is reduced. In the literature, the optimal policy in the long run is full nationalization. However, we argue that the optimal policy for a state-owned firm is partial privatization. Moreover, efficiency improvement provides the impetus for indirect entry regulation of private entrants.

A comment on mixed oligopoly spatial model: the non-uniform consumer distribution

We allow a general (non-uniform) consumer distribution in a mixed duopoly Hotelling model. We characterize respective conditions under which socially optimal pricing and location are achieved. We find that, while the condition for socially optimal pricing is fairly general, that for a socially optimal location is much more restrictive. Consequently, using a public firm to regulate a market may continue to yield a socially optimal price, but not the socially optimal location. This implies that privatization of the public firm may be desirable.

International Tariffs in a Mixed Oligopoly with Research Spillovers

AbstractThis paper merges three strands of the literature – industrial organization, international trade, and economics of technical change – to examine the effect of tariffs on international mixed oligopolies which conduct research and development (R&D) that is prone to spillovers. Mixed oligopolies are prevalent in the defense sector, among other sectors. Using a two-stage sequential game with R&D in the first stage and production in the second stage, results show that higher tariffs reduce outputs of both the domestic public firm and foreign private firms, and private R&D. Effects on domestic R&D and welfare, and profits of foreign private firms depend upon spillovers. Within a large range of research spillovers, higher tariffs can in fact lower welfare. Some of these findings are different from traditional oligopolies and from models that ignore research spillovers. Policy implications are discussed.

Taxation on a mixed oligopoly in the presence of foreign ownership

This paper analyzes the optimal taxation policy in a mixed duopoly when the private firm is jointly owned by domestic and foreign investors. The optimal policy is tax if the foreign shareholding is high enough; otherwise, it should be subsidy. Besides, to obtain a higher welfare, the taxation policy is superior to the privatization policy only when the private firm is mainly domestically owned. However, when full foreign shareholding of the private firm is allowed, the taxation and privatization can obtain the same level of social welfare regardless of the public firm’s marginal cost.

ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES OF A PUBLIC ENTERPRISE IN OLIGOPOLY REVISITED: AN EXTENSION TO STACKELBERG COMPETITION

This paper revisits De Fraja and Delbono (1989), which is the seminal paper on mixed oligopoly, in order to pay more attention to Stackelberg competition. First, we show that, even in Cournot competition, if the number of private firms is sufficiently small, privatization necessarily reduces social welfare. Second, we demonstrate that when a public firm is a Stackelberg leader before and after privatization, privatization necessarily reduces welfare irrespective of the number of private firms. Moreover, we show that even when a public firm remains a follower, privatization reduces welfare if the number of private firms is relatively small.

Partial Privatization in Upstream Mixed Oligopoly with Free Entry

Utilizing the model with upstream mixed oligopoly in which there are one public and n private wholesalers in the upstream market, and m private retailers in the downstream market, this paper examines the optimal privatization policy of the upstream public wholesaler. It shows that: Firstly, in an environment with mixed oligopoly in the wholesale market and many private firms in the retail market, the public wholesaler should be partially privatized in the short run. Besides, the more private firms are in wholesalers or retailers market, the higher degree of privatization the government should take. Secondly, the public wholesaler should be partially privatized in the long run; moreover, the more private retailers firms are in the market, the less degree of privatization the government should take. Thirdly, the difference of optimal degree of privatization between long run and short run is increasing in the market scale and decreasing in the entry cost. Hence, the optimal degree of privatization in long run is smaller than in short run, when the market scale is restricted and the entry cost is high.

Alternative Objectives in an Oligopoly Model: An Aggregative Game Approach

A rapidly growing literature analyzes models in which firms maximize objectives other than profit and enjoy market power. Examples include the labor-managed firm, mixed oligopoly, and delegation models. These models typically retain the aggregative structure of the conventional Cournot model of imperfect competition. We exploit this fact and apply the framework recently developed by Cornes and Hartley (2005, 2011) to analyze the properties of the equilibrium in such games. We show that existing treatments often make more restrictive assumptions than necessary to generate their results. Specifically, we identify conditions sufficient to ensure the existence of a unique equilibrium, and we explore the comparative static properties of these conditions.

Why Chinese Anti-Corruption has Not Yet Promoted Economic Growth?

Economists always have disputes over the relationship between corruption and economic growth. From the end of 2012 to the present, the Communist Party of China has launched a fierce anti-corruption campaign so that a large number of officials suspected of corruption were investigated. Anti-corruption, however, did not actually promote economic growth. To explain this, we build a framework based on government regulation and mixed oligopoly. The basic views are as follows: First, on the premise of meeting the government's budget balance, fighting against corruption accompanied with removing inefficient regulation is the optimal anti-corruption policy, which will facilitate economic growth. Second, given there are inefficient regulations, lower cost of corruption and superior employment pressure; no anti-corruption is a better choice than anti-corruption. Current Chinese anti-corruption campaigns focusing solely on anti-corruption rather than removal of regulation are useless to economic development. These movements contribute to the development of the state-owned enterprises at the cost of private sectors’ growth. As a result, the whole economic growth has been dragged down.

Mixed oligopolies and collusion

We introduce a firm partially owned by the government in a dynamic model of collusion between a subset of private firms. We show that increasing the public ownership of the non-colluding firm may help collusion between the private firms.

Mixed Industry Outcomes in Oligopoly Markets with Socially Concerned Firms

In this paper we study the long run evolution of a mixed oligopoly market where profit-maximizing firms and socially concerned firms compete in quantities. We consider an evolutionary setting based on payoff-monotone selection dynamics with N-firm matching which captures the endogenous profit-maximizing choice of the business objective of firms. We argue that in long run outcomes where both types of firms coexist the McWilliams-Siegel-neutrality result necessarily holds. We contrast the outcomes with predictions derived by employing the concept of coalition stability. First, we show that overall the two stability concepts predict the same ranges for the level of social concern which yield mixed market outcomes. Additionally, coalition stability allows predictions about particular coalitions on subintervals of these ranges. Second, our analysis reveals that a medium level of social concern is preferable in terms of long run survival if firms select a social strategy. Third, there is a non-monotonic influence of the competitiveness of the industry measured by the number of firms and the long run survival. In particular, if a social strategy entails higher marginal production costs, a social strategy is more effective if the number of firms is not too high. Third and finally, although in most cases the presence of socially concerned firms is welfare-enhancing, we demonstrate that in the case of associated higher marginal costs a market which consists of socially concerned firms might be less preferable in terms of welfare than a market with just profit-maximing firms.

The Role of Foreign Competition and Cost Asymmetry in Partial Privatization

This paper investigates the role of foreign competition and cost asymmetry in influencing privatization policy for domestic firms. With a mixed oligopoly model, we characterize and compare optimal privatization policy, and find that cost asymmetry and foreign competition interact in an interesting way.

Output subsidies in mixed oligopoly with research spillovers

Output subsidies have been proposed as a policy to rectify inefficiencies in mixed markets with public and private firms. This paper adds to the literature on mixed oligopolies by examining the behavior of firms, with research spillovers, and the government subsidizes output. A key finding is that output subsidies, unlike R&D subsidies, do not necessarily attain efficient resource allocation. Output subsidies are justified only at relatively low R&D spillovers. The rankings of optimal output subsidies, output and profits under alternate scenarios are significantly affected by spillovers. Social welfare ranking, on the other hand, is independent of spillovers, and welfare is largest under R&D competition.