Upstream Firms Research Articles

Effects Of Patent Pools On Innovation Investment Ex Ante Perspectives

Recently Patent Pooling has a fast growing interest as a good alternative means to decrease transaction costs between IPRs owners and promote technology commercialization and diffusion. In this paper we attempt to shed light on the effects of patent pooling on the ex-ante innovation investment or incentive using the game theoretical economic model. We generalize the model by including many vertical integrated firms, research laboratories, and specialized manufacturing firms. Main results of this paper are: 1) Patent Pools can affect on the innovation incentives of vertically integrated firms(I-firms) and of research laboratories(R-firms) differently, and the effect depends on the number of I-firms owning essential patents and the number of specially manufacturing firms(M-firms). But in the presence of many I-firms owning essential patents, the instruction of patent pooling increases I-firms’ ex-ante innovation incentive or investments with independence of M-firms. 2) There is strategic complementary relationship between innovation investments of I-firms and those of R-firms, so I-firms’ increased ex-ante innovation investments make R-firms’ ex-ante innovation investments increasing. 3) In the case of R-firms maximizing private profit, the best aspect is to license independently their patent technology when I-firms make up patent pools. But this aspect is not desirable for I-firms because I-firms’ gross profit is smaller than that of I-firms which license their patent technologies independently. However, we show that in the cases of many I-firms owning essential patent technologies, patent pools including only I-firms(IP) or all upstream firms(CP) can affect asymmetrically on the I-firms’ or R-firms’ innovation investments. Nonetheless, any types of patent pools make the innovation investments of I-firms and R-firms higher than those of all firms which license independently. In summary, nowadays under general aspects that production of final goods requires many complex technologies and that many I-firms and R-firms attend R&D for essential technologies, competition authorities’ deregulation for patent pooling or government policy supporting the patent pooling can promote upstream firms’ innovation incentives or investments and compulsory licensing about R-firms is not necessary for enhancing upstream firms’ innovation investments or incentives..

Bundling, A La Carte Pricing and Vertical Bargaining in a Two-Sided Model

We develop a two-sided market model with an upstream-downstream structure. More specifically, the platform consists of two rival upstream firms and a downstream monopolist. Each upstream firm negotiates the input price (license fee) with the downstream monopolist and also chooses the amount of advertising that is embedded in the good it sells to the downstream monopolist. The downstream monopolist can offer the two goods either on an a la carte basis or as a bundle. We use this model to understand the incentives to bundle and the welfare properties of bundling in a two-sided market framework. We also contribute to the ongoing debate on a la carte pricing in the TV industry, where the two upstream firms can be viewed as two rival TV networks and the downstream monopolist as a cable operator. We show that an a la carte regulation will raise consumer surplus and downstream profit, while it will decrease the profits of the upstream TV networks.

Government Role in the Coordinated Mechanism for River Basin Water Quality Control

Abstract This paper discusses the necessity of a coordinated mechanism for controlling river basin emissions and water quality. The authors, based on the models by Hung et al, present new models by taking government as the most important role in the coordinated mechanism. The main conclusions from the discussions are: (1) dividing the basin into various coordinated development zones to achieve preset effluents load standards and least -cost abatement; (2) conducting an emissions permits trading system will provide environmental compensation for the upstream firms and realize Pareto improvement for all firms in the basin region.

Franchise fee, contract bargaining, and economic growth

This paper combines the industrial organization (IO) theory and the R&D-based endogenous growth theory in a model of a successive imperfect competitive economy. The current study assumes that firms between upstream and downstream industries bargain over both the price of intermediate goods and the franchise fee. Findings show that the intermediate goods firm with a R&D sector charges the price equal to the marginal cost. Economic rent may also be partly transferred into the franchise fee determined by the relative bargaining power. In particular, the traditional double marginalization result, such as in Spengler (1950), does not take place here due to the above-mentioned bargaining scheme. Finally, this work shows that final goods firms in vertically linked industries play an important role in an economic growth model. The more bargaining power the final goods firms have (or the more returns to specialization upstream firms have, or the less substitution elasticity the final goods have), the more the economy grows. However, the consumer preference for diversity seemingly does not affect economic growth rate.

Input Pricing and Market Share Delegation in a Vertically Related Market: Is the Timing Order Relevant?

This paper adds to the literature on the strategic use of managers’ contracts in competition by examining whether market‐share delegation, in which managers receive rewards based on a combination of profits and market share, and the order of moves affect input pricing in a vertically related market. It shows that: (i) input pricing is not affected by delegation form and the order of moves between upstream and downstream firms under quantity competition; (ii) downstream firms obtain the same profit as in the simple Nash equilibrium regardless of delegation forms in a delegation–input price–quantity competition game; and (iii) the upstream monopolist will set input price beforehand regardless of the delegation form. Since the outcomes in our model create higher quantity and lower price in a Cournot product market, it lessens the double‐marginalization problem in such a vertically separated industry.

The financial accelerator in an evolving credit network

We model a credit network characterized by credit relationships connecting (i) downstream (D) and upstream (U) firms and (ii) firms and banks. The net worth of D firms is the driver of fluctuations. The production of D firms and of their suppliers (U firms) in fact, is constrained by the availability of internal finance—proxied by net worth—to the D firms. The structure of credit interlinkages changes over time due to an endogeneous process of partner selection, which leads to the polarization of the network. At the aggregate level, the distribution of growth rates exhibits negative skewness and excess kurtosis. When a shock hits the macroeconomy or a significant group of agents in the credit network a bankruptcy avalanche can follow if agents’ leverage is critically high. In a nutshell we want to explore the properties of a network-based financial accelerator.

A generalized algebraic model for optimizing inventory decisions in a centralized or decentralized multi-stage multi-firm supply chain

First of all, a number of integrated models with/without lot streaming under the integer multiplier coordination mechanism is generalized by allowing lot streaming and three types of inspection for some/all upstream firms. Secondly, the optimal solutions to the three- and four-stage models are individually derived, both using the perfect squares method, which is a simple algebraic approach so that ordinary readers unfamiliar with differential calculus can easily understand how to obtain the optimal solution procedures. Thirdly, optimal expressions for some well-known models are deduced. Fourthly, expressions for sharing the coordination benefits based on Goyal’s (1976) scheme are derived, and a further sharing scheme is introduced. Fifthly, two numerical examples for illustrative purposes are presented. Finally, some future research works involving extension or modification of the generalized model are suggested.

Trade Credit, Relationship-Specific Investment, and Product-Market Power

The extant literature on trade credit emphasizes its financing role wherein financially sound firms provide trade credit to ease the credit constraints of weaker trading partners. We offer an alternative, though not mutually exclusive, perspective in which trade credit serves as a commitment device. We develop a simple model to argue that an upstream firm commits to making the appropriate level of relationship-specific investment (RSI) by offering trade credit to the downstream firm. Our model predicts that trade credit will increase in (i) the level of the upstream firm's RSI, (ii) the relative bargaining power of downstream firms, (iii) the economic importance of the vertical relationship, and (iv) the cost and difficulty of verifying RSI. Using firm R&D, innovation activity, and production of differentiated goods and services to proxy for RSI, we find strong support for these predictions in a large panel of publicly listed firms. We show that trade credit is increasing in RSI proxies and decreasing in the market power of upstream firms. Further, these relationships are stronger when information frictions are greater: for example, when the upstream firm has had a shorter relationship with its downstream customer, the upstream firm is further away, is younger, or not NYSE-listed.

Liberalizing Trade in Environmental Goods

Trade liberalization in environmental goods is high on the agenda of the current Doha round. We examine its effects in a model with one domestic downstream polluting firm and two upstream firms (one domestic, one foreign). The domestic government sets the emission tax rate after the outcome of R&D is known. The upstream firms offer their technologies to the downstream firm at a flat fee. The effect of liberalization on the domestic upstream firm's R&D incentive is ambiguous. Liberalization usually results in cleaner production, which allows the country to reach higher welfare. However this increase in welfare is typically achieved at the expense of the environment. Thus our results cast doubt on the hoped-for win-win-win outcome of trade liberalization in environmental goods.

Predicting the impact of upstream mergers on downstream markets with an application to the retail gasoline industry

This paper presents an empirical model of oligopolistic supply and demand that reflects divisions between downstream retailers and upstream suppliers in order to evaluate the potential effects of upstream mergers. The demand model allows for downstream product differentiation, while the supply model allows upstream firms to inherit market power from their affiliated retailers. The supply and demand models are jointly estimated using data on the retail gasoline industry for the Hawaiian islands in the 1990s. A number of hypothetical upstream mergers in the Hawaiian retail gasoline industry are simulated to evaluate the effects of the mergers on market outcomes and welfare. Various scenarios with post-merger cost savings are also considered.

Business fluctuations and bankruptcy avalanches in an evolving network economy

We analyze the properties of a three-sector network economy characterized by credit relationships connecting downstream and upstream firms (inside credit) and credit relationships connecting firms and banks (outside credit). The network topology changes over time due to an endogenous process of partner selection (the preferred-partner choice rule). The output of simulations shows that a business cycle at the macroeconomic level can develop as a consequence of the complex interaction of the heterogeneous financial conditions of the agents involved. In this paper we focus on the emergence of bankruptcy crises: the bankruptcy of one agent can bring about the bankruptcy of one or more other agents in a snowball effect of more or less large size, depending on the network structure and the incidence of non-performing loans on balance sheets of agents involved.

Exclusive Dealing and Entry, when Buyers Compete: Comment

In a recent paper, Chiara Fumagalli and Massimo Motta (2006) challenge the idea that an incumbent can foreclose efficient entry in the face of scale economies by using exclusive contracts. They claim that inefficient exclusion does not arise when buyers are homogenous firms that compete downstream. However, when upstream firms can compete in two-part tariffs, their equilibrium analysis contains some errors. Fixing these errors, inefficient exclusion arises when scale economies are sufficiently large or the entrant's cost advantage is not too big. Inefficient exclusion arises to protect industry profits from competition. (JEL L11, L13, L14)

The Role of Upstream‐Downstream Competition on Bundling Decisions: Should Regulators Force Firms to Unbundle?

We develop an upstream–downstream model to analyze downstream firms' incentives to bundle. In our framework, the upstream firms are content providers (such as television stations) and the downstream firms are system operators (such as cable/satellite operators). We show that an a la carte regulation (i.e., a regulation that forces downstream firms to unbundle) leads to higher consumer surplus, if the unregulated equilibrium exhibits pure bundling (PB). Hence, our model predicts that in the television industry, which is mainly characterized by PB, an a la carte regulation will be beneficial for the consumers. If, on the other hand, the unregulated equilibrium is characterized by mixed bundling, then an a la carte regulation will increase consumer welfare provided that demand for multiple purchases is strong.

The Pitfalls of Subsystem Integration: When Less is More

In various industries end-product manufacturers acquire core subsystems from upstream technology provider firms, and focus primarily on efficient end-product integration.We examine the strategic interactions between a technology firm that introduces a new subsystem, and the respective end-product manufacturers (’integrators’). We analyze how the fraction of end-product functionalities pre-packaged into the subsystem impacts the optimal introduction strategy and the relative value appropriation power across the industries. Offering a subsystem that performs many end-product functions has a dual effect on the provider’s profits. On the positive side, the provider extracts a higher ease-of-use rent from the integrators because of the easier/cheaper integration. On the negative side, such subsystems may curtail the adopters’ ability for competitive differentiation, and render adoption less valuable. We discuss the role of subsystem functionality in value appropriation in technology markets, and we highlight the perils of subsystem over-integration.

DIVISIONALIZATION AND HORIZONTAL MERGERS IN A VERTICAL RELATIONSHIP*

In this paper we evaluate the effects of horizontal mergers in a vertical relationship. Each downstream firm can create autonomous divisions. We show that an infinitesimal merger of downstream firms may exhibit a positive welfare effect if the upstream and downstream sectors are sufficiently unconcentrated. However, any merger of upstream firms reduces social welfare. Moreover, a decrease in the concentration in the upstream stage (respectively downstream stage or non‐merging stage) makes the welfare effects of the merger in the upstream stage (respectively downstream stage or non‐merging stage) less negative (respectively ambiguous or ambiguous).

Trade Credit Linkages Along a Supply Chain: Evidence for the Italian Textile Sector

We examine the trade credit linkages among firms within a supply chain to reckon the effect of such linkages on the propagation of liquidity shocks from downstream to upstream firms. We choose a sample appropriate for this task, consisting of a large data set of Italian firms from the textile industry, a well known example of a comprehensive manufacturing cluster featuring a large number of small and specialized firms at each level of the supply chain. The results of the analysis indicate that the level of trade credit that firms provide to their suppliers is positively related to the level of trade credit granted to their clients: when the level of trade credit granted to clients divided by sales goes up by 1, the level of trade credit provided to suppliers divided by cost-of goods-sold goes up by an amount that varies between 0,22 and 0,52. Since all firms along the chain are linked by trade credit relationships, an increase in the level of trade credit granted by wholesalers generates a liquidity cascade throughout the chain. We designate the overall increase in the level of trade credit among all firms in the chain as a result of a unitary impulse in the level of trade credit granted by wholesalers as the multiplier effect of trade credit for the industry chain. We estimate such multiplier to vary between 1.28 and 2.04. We also investigate the effect of final demand on the level of trade credit sourced by firms at various levels of the chain and, in particular, whether such effect is amplified for firms further up in the chain as a result of liquidity propagation via trade credit linkages. We uncover evidence of such amplification when the links of liquidity transmission along the chain are individually modeled and estimated. An unitary increase in wholesalers’ sales is found to produce an effect on trade payables among firms at the top of the chain (i.e., Preparers and Spinners) that is more than twice as big as the corresponding effect among firms at the bottom of the chain (i.e., Wholesalers).

Welfare Effects of the Tax Reforms in Two Vertically-Related Oligopolies with Environmental Externality

In this paper, I examine the welfare effects of various revenue-neutral tax reforms in the case of two vertically-related oligopolies (downstream and upstream), where the upstream industry is polluting. I show analytically when and how government can improve welfare by initiating various tax reforms, regardless of either the feasibility of a lump sum transfer or the availability of a tax on pollution. The profit wedge that is the difference between the unit price and the unit cost and the marginal environmental damages (MED) becomes important to decidethe direction of a tax reform and is crucial to determine the direction of welfare-improving tax-subsidy schemes. I also show that a tax on pollution (Pigouvian tax) is superior to a tax on intermediate good even in the case of vertically-related oligopolies, because the former always brings in positive welfare effect from the upstream firms`input substitutability, which a tax on intermediate good cannot provide. Some policy implications for ‘reducing environmentally-harmful subsidies’ are also discussed.

Environmental policy with upstream pollution abatement technology firms

This paper examines how the existence of an upstream abatement technology sector affects optimal environmental policy. We explore whether the policy should be especially stringent in order to spur a successful export industry based on abatement technology. Furthermore, we investigate if a stringent policy can be used to increase competition in the upstream sector. Our point of departure is a three-stage game between a government in a country with a polluting downstream industry, and a limited number of upstream firms supplying abatement technologies. The government moves first, and may use its environmental policy strategically to influence the behavior of the upstream technology firms. We find that an especially stringent environmental policy towards the polluting downstream sector may be well founded, as it increases competition between the technology suppliers, leading to lower abatement costs. However, to our surprise, an especially stringent environmental policy is not a particularly good industrial policy with respect to developing successful new export sectors based on abatement technology.

What's Wrong with Royalties in High Technology Industries?

Over the past few years, there has been an unprecedented degree of interest among competition authorities, scholars, Standard-Setting Organizations (hereafter, SSOs) and trade associations with respect to the level of royalties that are charged by holders of intellectual property rights (IPRs). For instance, in the past two years, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) granted business letter clearance to two SSOs - VITA and IEEE - to implement new IPR policies designed to control the IPR costs. In April 2007, the DoJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jointly released a report on Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights. But the interest is not limited to the United States. The European Commission is currently investigating the compatibility of certain licensing regimes and conduct within SSOs against EC competition law. Reflecting the debate at the policy level, scholars have produced a large body of legal and economic literature on IPR and standardization issues, including patent hold-up (where the patent holder exploits ill-gotten market power in excessive licensing fees) and royalty stacking (where multiple patents must be licensed and thus the royalty rates stack up to excessive amounts). Against this background, this paper addresses the issue of whether something has gone wrong with royalties in high technology industries. This paper seeks to answer this question first by looking at a number of concrete scenarios where firms holding IPRs seek to obtain a return on their patent portfolios by licensing them. As will be seen, the behaviour of these firms essentially depends on whether they are vertically-integrated or non vertically-integrated. Vertically-integrated firms engage in research and development activities, patenting at least some of their inventions, and also manufacturing products based on their own innovations and the innovations produced by others. Non vertically-integrated firms, in contrast specialize in one or the other layers of production. Pure upstream firms conduct research and development activities and patent their innovations, but they do not engage in manufacturing. Downstream firms specialize in manufacturing, but do not engage in R&D.

Resale price maintenance and collusion

The article revisits the conventional wisdom according to which vertical restrictions on retail prices help upstream firms to collude. We analyze the scope for collusion with and without resale price maintenance (RPM) when retailers observe local shocks on demand or retail costs. In the absence of RPM, retail prices react to retailers' information, and deviations from collusive behavior are thus difficult to detect. By eliminating retail price flexibility, RPM facilitates the detection of deviations but reduces profits and thus increases the short‐run gains from a deviation. Overall, RPM can facilitate collusion and reduce total welfare when firms adopt it.