Monopolistic Power Research Articles

Transforming China's electricity sector: Politics of institutional change and regulation

The political failure of China's first independent regulator in a strategic industry – the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), 2002–2013 – provides a natural experiment to uncover fundamental challenges to a gradualist approach to electricity market formation. Taking a political institutional approach, we show that while it was largely predictable that the breakup of the monopolistic power industry in 2002 created bureaucratic and corporate interests that would undercut the institutional role of SERC, subsequent difficulties in reforming electricity pricing, dispatch system, and integrating renewable energy sources strongly suggests that a central regulatory body would be necessary to lead a decisive transition to a market-based electricity market.

Are Mergers and Acquisitions Necessarily Anti-competitive? Empirical Evidence from India’s Manufacturing Sector

Policy initiatives and regulatory changes made during the last two-and-half decades of economic reforms have led to a considerable increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the Indian corporate sector. Given the policy-induced flexibilities, while the domestic firms have taken the route of mergers to restructure their business and grow, the foreign firms have preferred to enter into specific markets through acquisitions and raise monopoly power therein. In this context, the present article attempts to examine the impact of M&As on market the structure in major industries of the Indian manufacturing sector during the post-reform period. Using a panel dataset of 34 major industries for the period 2001–2009, the article finds that M&As do not necessarily cause any appreciable adverse impact on market concentration. Instead, the degrees of sellers’ concentration are influenced by the growth of market, capital intensity, firms’ advertising efforts and their financial performance. The findings of the present article, therefore, suggest for a rethink on policies and regulations relating to M&A, international trade and intellectual property, as they play a significant role in enhancing firms’ competitiveness and restricting the emergence of a monopolistic power. JEL Classification: L1, L4, L5, O3

Decentralization and Distributed Innovation: Catch-up and Leapfrog

The catch-up of developing economies to advanced economies has been slower than some people predicted. The focus of this chapter is to present evidence and arguments that decentralized technology and distributed innovation may be changing the picture. If ASEAN governments allow decentralization and distributed innovation to take place, it may give those developing economies the best chance to leapfrog more advanced economies. The use of Yu’E Bao in an imperfect money market, under a decentralized governance environment, acted as a catalyst to trigger the growth of China’s entire Internet finance industry. We have seen how China has created the fear of missing out in comfortable incumbents like Singapore and Japan; both are now seeing challengers arise from leapfrog economies. Forward-looking regulators such as Singapore and Japan are taking considerable calculated risks to allow for regulatory arbitrage for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) so that innovation can take place. We have also discussed how decentralization system and technology with digital transparency/privacy, such as blockchain technology, can be a real game changer to address the limitations in catch-up theory and the problem of the innovation paradox. It can circumvent the real bottlenecks, like barriers that are set up to retain monopolistic power and regulations to ward off challengers.

International Real Estate Review

Concentration amongst the top 100 mortgage originators rose substantially during the Great Recession. Furthermore, Originator Profits and Unmeasured Costs (OPUCs), a proxy measure of the profit from originating residential mortgage loans also rose over the same period. Recent studies suggest that these increases are only partially explained by rational factors such as rising costs from increased regulatory burdens and changes in risk. We find statistically significant evidence that increasing concentration raised loan costs by 97 basis points using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models during the Great Recession. This finding suggests that banks are exploiting increasing monopolistic power to increase profits and as such, consumers face rising costs as competition amongst lenders declines. Further to this issue, this study suggests that mortgage markets are not fully competitive and that the rates and fees charged to borrowers are in fact impacted by the level of competition amongst lenders.

Dissecting the survivors – how the age of a club contributes to the ability of a team to maintain the top position in the European soccer leagues

Summary Objectives To test the hypothesis that the age of a club is a major determinant of the higher survival rates exhibited by European soccer teams. News We studied 185 teams from the 2006/2007 season to the 2012/2013 season. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models. We also controlled for the age effect with variables suggested by the literature. These variables included transfer flows, the presence of the team at UEFA competitions (Champions League or Europa League), stadium attendance, and the percentage of national players. Prospect We observed that the age of the club is an important determinant in explaining the higher survival rates of the teams belonging to older clubs. More nuance was discovered when the teams were analyzed by professional league. Among English teams, the survival rate at the top is positively affected by having higher percentages of national players, higher transfer inflows, participation in UEFA competitions and higher stadium attendance. Stadium attendance is an important factor in keeping a team at the top, independent of the European league (with the exception of the French competition). French teams’ survival tends to benefit from the acquisition of players (proxied by higher transfer outflows). Although significant, the age effect nevertheless does not prevent young clubs (those founded within the last 50 years) from achieving first place. Young clubs that manage transfers well, have impressive stadium attendance, and are stimulated by UEFA participation tend to experience additional positive effects on their survival rate at the top. Conclusion The most robust results indicate that the age effect is a statistically significant determinant. Older clubs tend to benefit from four age-related dimensions: the relevance of assets, more efficient decision-making processes, monopolistic market power and the control of decisions by the executive board.

Monopolistic markups in the Polish food sector

Research background: Research background: Agro-food sectors are commonly considered as highly regulated, traditional and of strategic importance, mainly due to the food security issues. Changes in the related market structures are subject of constant interest because of their importance for competition and economic welfare of food producers and consumers. In Poland, a rising concentration among various branches of the food industry can be observed. Unfortunately, there is a lack of studies regarding the level of actually exerted market power.Purpose of the article: The main objective of the article was to depict the changes of the market power execution in the Polish food sector and its branches in the period 2002?2013.Methods: As a measure of market power, markups of price above the marginal cost were applied and for their estimation two methods were used, namely the Roeger method involving primal and dual Solow residuals and the method based on the marginal cost of labor. Yearly data from F-01 financial statements regarding 32 food sector branches and various accounting categories were used in the calculations.Findings and Value added: It was found that in the analyzed period the markup over marginal cost on average amounted to 9.75%, and it was increasing over time. The labor input category seemed to be not sufficient for the markup calculation. The evolution of the monopolistic power in the Polish food sector appears to be associated not only with the business cycle, but also with the sector developments accelerated by the accession to the EU. Moreover, the differences in results for the branches indicate a considerable heterogeneity in the Polish food industry companies pricing practices. The research constitutes the first trial of the measurement of both the Roeger markups in the Polish food sector branches and the labor markups changes in the Polish food sector.

Does Immigration Promote the Investment of the Monopolistic Firm?

In the present paper, we examine the effect of increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth on the optimal timing of investment of a firm that has a monopolistic power over the labor market. It is revealed that when the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is more than a threshold level, increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth accelerates the optimal timing of firms’ investment and enhances the economic growth, even if the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is formulated by the geometric Brownian motion, which is in sharp contrast to the standard result that an increase in the uncertainty postpones the optimal timing.

Small and Medium Enterprises: Management of Intellectual Property Rights in Nigeria

It is important that SMEs assess their intellectual property and develop policies on the management of intellectual property rights to effectively and efficiently maximise the use of intellectual property rights in relation to threats from competitors. Managers sometimes use their IP rights to suppress other competitors from engaging in the production and distribution of products covered by the IP rights, thereby having the monopolistic power to raise prices of the products to increase profits. This study examines four ways managers at SMEs can adequately manage intellectual property rights which include (1) acquisition (2) exploitation (3) monitoring and (4) enforcement. One of the key conclusions of this study is that Managers should continuously check IP databases to determine the status of their intellectual property rights and whether there is any infringement on their intellectual property rights. Infringement of intellectual property rights can result to huge financial losses as a result of mass production, cheap and substandard copies of original products.

Towards a Framework of Digital Platform Competition: A Comparative Study of Monopolistic & Federated Mobile Payment Platforms

This paper advances a framework for examining the competitive principles of mobile payment platforms. We postulate that the strategic interplay of platform layers will drive the competitive dynamics of platform-driven ubiquitous systems. This framework has been employed in a comparative case study between monopolistic (i.e., Pingit) and federated (i.e., Paym) mobile payment platforms to illustrate its applicability and yield principles on the nature and impact of competition among platform-driven ubiquitous systems. Preliminary findings indicate that monopolistic mobile digital platforms attempt to create unique configurals to obtain monopolistic power by tightly coupling platform layers, which are difficult to replicate. Conversely, federated digital platforms compete by dispersing the service layer to harness the collective resources from individual firms. Furthermore, the interaction and integration among platform layers give rise to commodity and value platform layers that translate into competitive battlegrounds among mobile payment services. This paper therefore represents a concrete step in unraveling the competitive dynamics of platform-driven ubiquitous systems from an architectural viewpoint.

ATC enhancement by incorporating FACTS devices for deregulating scenario in present power market

The cost based monopolistic power market rules are new fangled by the word deregulation. Trepidations in its conceptualisation and integrated operation in the impending scenario are transmission pricing, congestion management and Available Transfer Capability (ATC). Of this intriguing technical challenge, ATC is the one that needs to be interrogated and dogged to make open access a feasible obsession for private entity participation which is deregulation’s intention. This research work aims at calculating ATC using non iterative, simple, Power Transfer Distribution Factors (PTDF) based methodology, enhancing them using Flexible AC Transmission system (FACTS) devices like Static compensator (STATCOM) and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC). A proven alternative to overcome extravagance by erecting new transmission facility is incorporation of FACTS devices in the existing structure that indulge in reactive power compensation. These FACTS devices are modelled using the power flow equations and is placed optimally based on the slope of sensitivity factors. The optimal settings of FACTS devices is obtained by a soft computing technique labelled as Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) to enhance the ATC for the assumed bilateral and multilateral power contracts. The voltage and angle of shunt and series FACTS devices are randomly generated as the population of PSO on sample 6 bus and standard IEEE 30 bus systems.

Labor Market: Monopolistic Exploitation by Firms and Employees

Based on the author's previous paper entitled “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Perfect Competition”, which demonstrates the monopolistic nature that even purely theoretically perfect competition has, this paper identifies the factors that determine the equilibrium in the labor market as well as their impact.The non-perfectly elastic demand curve for the product of the firm results in a labor demand curve that does not reflect the Value of Marginal Product (VMP) of the labor, but the Marginal Revenue Product (MRP). This implies an exploitation of monopolistic form of the labor and lower levels of wage and employment even in perfectly competitive markets. On the other side, the employees exploitation of their monopolistic power on labor through labor unions, for the maximization of the collective benefit they can get from the demand of their labor, leads to even lower employment levels and to aggravation of the unemployment.In conclusion, there is an inevitable deviation of the social welfare from its optimal state, due to the labor market, which is an unavoidable consequence of the monopolistic-form exploitation that both, firms and employees, exert on the good they provide in the market - namely the product for the firms and the labor for the employees - in order to maximize their benefit.

Post-Entry Product Introduction: Who Explores New Niches?

Where do innovative products come from? Why do some firms address new market niches and others do not? The literature has rarely blended the concept of innovativeness of a product at the market level with the coherence of the product portfolio at the firm level. In this paper, we examine whether the introduction of products that are highly innovative occurs in firms that are very differentiated, both in terms of target niches and in terms of technological competencies, or rather in firms that focus on specific market segments and that have a limited technological capability. The results show that the introduction of products that are new to the market generally occurs in firms that introduce many products in few market segments and are characterized by a set of specialized technological and market competencies. At least in this industry, the myth of the small specialized niche player does not hold. Implications have a positive relevance to assess firms' behaviour in a given market. From the welfare point of view, this paper helps disentangle monopolistic power generated by truly new products and simple versioning of the product.

Mixed bundle retailing under a stochastic market

Bundling is a pervasive marketing strategy in real business. In this paper, we study the strategy of mixed bundling under a stochastic market for two products for a retailer who has monopolistic power in the market, and the bundle consists of one unit of each individual product. The retailer needs to make joint pricing and inventory decisions with the aim of maximizing expected profit. Firstly, the relationship between the prices and market shares of the three bundle variations in the mixed bundling strategy is modeled after the reservation price model, which is commonly adopted in the bundling literature. Based on the market shares, a two-stage stochastic model is proposed to determine inventory decisions, including the ordering decision before the selling season starts and the allocation decisions after demands are realized. Global concavity in the order quantities is demonstrated. For experimental purposes, an algorithm incorporating both pricing and inventory decisions is presented. We measure the importance of incorporating inventory matters into bundling decisions under the stochastic market by calculating expected loss of profit, which can exceed 5 % under some parameter settings. In the numerical experiments, we identify two attributes of mixed bundling performance, which are bundling pricing effect and inventory pooling effect.

The pricing of breakthrough drugs: theory and policy implications.

Pharmaceutical sales exceed $850 billion a year, of which 84% are accounted for by brand drugs. Drug prices are the focus of an ongoing heated debate. While some argue that pharmaceutical companies exploit monopolistic power granted by patent protection to set prices that are “too high”, others claim that these prices are necessary to motivate the high R&D investments required in the pharmaceutical industry. This paper employs a recently documented utility function of health and wealth to derive the theoretically optimal pricing of monopolistic breakthrough drugs. This model provides a framework for a quantitative discussion of drug price regulation. We show that mild price regulation can substantially increase consumer surplus and the number of patients who purchase the drug, while having only a marginal effect on the revenues of the pharmaceutical company.

Evaluation and Analysis of Administrative Monopoly in China's Oil Industry

China's oil and petrochemical industry is under administrative monopoly. Administrative monopoly, according to the Unirule Institute of Economics, refers to trade monopoly from concessions granted and the monopolistic power conferred by administrative departments through administrative documents on business entities—enterprises or administrative institutions that are also engaged in profit-making activities. Administrative monopolies come in various forms, including barriers to entry, special privileges and price regulation, which lead to multi-level monopolistic powers and status. The administrative monopoly in China's oil and petrochemical industry has evolved from the previous planned economy. Although the central government has the motivation to reform state-owned enterprises to increase revenue, which has been mainly from taxation, it lacks the impetus to break the administrative monopoly. This article shows that the barriers to entry form high monopoly prices and transfer the consumer surplus into business profit, which is unfair and distorts income allocation. After analysing the forms and origins of administrative monopoly in China's oil and petrochemical industry, the article demonstrates that administrative monopoly causes distorted factor prices, compromises fair trade, reduces efficiency and causes loss of social welfare and degradation of business ethics. This article also proposes judicial, administrative and market-oriented reform solutions

The Power of Economics vs the Economics of Power: Introduction

This article analyzes the systematic absence of power in economic analysis, beginning with early economist's almost universal denial of the process of primitive accumulation. Microeconomics also excludes considerations of power, except for what it considers to be abuse of power by government and labor unions. Monetary theory also avoids the application of Federal Reserve power to create unemployment in order to reduce wages. Businesses also employ power in competing with other businesses. Economists ignore such use of power, emphasizing the benign consequences of competition: lower prices, improved quality, and even entirely new products. Business wields power against workers, the power that might be limited by labor unions, which themselves are limited because of business' application of political power. Not only can business use monopolistic power in order to increase prices, as buyers, business can use monopsonistic power to reduce the prices it pays. Business can also apply power in order to hamper competitors. The final form of power is the power of economists to exclude power from their theory, except for the two exceptions mentioned.

Segmentation, Access to Finance Constraints and the Credit Monopolistic Power of Financial Institutions in Nicaragua

Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology is a peer-reviewed international journal, which publishes original papers promoting theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in the discipline of socio-cultural anthropology.

디스토피아 관념의 영향을 받은 패션 연구

This study investigates the relationship between dystopian ideas and fashion since the century and examines the social meaning of fashion influenced by dystopian ideas. From the 1900s to the 1950s, the idea of dehumanization by authoritarian governments and technology gave rise to fashion for freedom and self-introspection, which includes surrealistic fashion and beat style. In the 1980s and 1990s, a society marked by monopolistic power and the hi-tech control of humans was regarded as dystopia. It influenced a fashion that expressed dehumanization by hi-tech means such as cyberpunk style and designs that depicted or used electronic elements. The ongoing fear of ecological disaster since the late century also influenced designers to present collections concerned with environmental problems. Designers have created designs with printed messages on environmental issues or designs that express environmental devastation, and protective designs that use hi-tech fabrics or mechanical devices. Fashion influenced by dystopian ideas expressed contemporary fears, provided a critical view of society through defamiliarization, and sought problem-solving actions and alternatives to change or cope with the dystopian situation. Dystopian fashion gave society a chance to face contemporary problems and pursue a better society.

The politics of recognition: critical discourse analysis of recent PLAR policies for immigrant professionals in Canada

The unprecedented transnational mobility that skilled immigrants have experienced in the global war for international talents has made foreign credential recognition a policy challenge for many countries. Under the pressure of critics, Canadian governments recently launched new initiatives to facilitate foreign qualification recognition through policy interventions. Using critical discourse analysis, this article analyses the policy orientation of two benchmark government documents concerning prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) for immigrant professionals in Canada. The analysis shows that while these initiatives claim to promote fair, timely and transparent recognition practices, they are found playing an instrumental role in reinforcing the ideals of market individualism and procedural fairness. In particular, they have established Managerialism as the mechanism to reducing recognition barriers, which has in effect served to strengthen the monopolistic power positions of the Canadian regulatory bodies to delimit valid knowledge and skills and Canadian standards. Not only are immigrants left out of the process to decide on the value of their qualifications, they have also been further objectified vis-à-vis universal Canadian occupational standards. To build a more inclusive and equitable PLAR system, this article suggests a paradigmatic shift towards recognitive justice, which will take us beyond the discourse of righteousness in debating issues of PLAR concerning foreign credentials recognition for immigrant professionals.

Optimum Long - Term Generation Maintenance Scheduling to Enhance the Grid Reliability Using Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper presents an optimum long – term generation maintenance scheduling to enhance the grid reliability using Particle Swarm Optimization. Maintenance scheduling establishes the outage time scheduling of units in a particular time horizon. In a monopolistic power system, maintenance scheduling is being done upon the technical requirements of power plants and preserving the grid reliability. While in power system, technical viewpoints and system reliability are taken into consideration in maintenance scheduling with respect to the economical viewpoint. In this paper a Particle Swarm Optimization methodology for finding the optimum preventive maintenance scheduling of generating units in power system. The objective function is to maintain the units as earlier as possible. Various constraints such as spinning reserve, duration of maintenance and maintenance crew are being taken into account. In case study, a 66 bus utility power system in India with twelve generating units and IEEE test system consist of 24 buses is used.