The Impact of the Potential Entry of Copycats: Entry Conditions, Consumer Welfare, and Social Welfare

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 594-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Y. Gao ◽  
Wei Shi Lim ◽  
Christopher Tang
Author(s):  
Weixin Shang ◽  
Gangshu (George) Cai

Problem definition: Few papers have explored the impact of price matching negotiation (PM), in which a channel matches its price with the resulting wholesale price bargained by another channel, on firms’ performances, consumer welfare, and social welfare, with and without supply chain coordination. Academic/practical relevance: Negotiation has been widely seen in determining both uniform and discriminatory wholesale prices, which affect outcomes of competitive supply chain practices. Methodology: To characterize the PM mechanism, we use game theory and Nash bargaining theory to compare PM with simultaneous negotiation (SN) through a common-seller two-buyer differentiated Bertrand competition model. Results: Our analysis reveals that PM can benefit the seller but hurt all buyers, which is at odds with some fair wholesale pricing clauses intending to protect buyers. Under coordination with side payments, however, all firms can conditionally benefit more from PM than from SN. Despite firms’ gains, PM leads to less consumer utility and social welfare compared with SN, unless the second buyer in PM is considerably less powerful than the first buyer. Coordination further worsens PM’s negative impact on consumer utility and social welfare. Moreover, the existence of a spot market can increase the wholesale price in PM, hurting buyers, consumers, and society. Furthermore, the qualitative results about PM remain robust under an alternative disagreement point for PM, multiple buyers, and other extensions. Managerial implications: This paper delivers insights on when price matching in supply chain wholesale price negotiation can benefit a seller, buyers, consumers, and society in a variety of scenarios. It advocates how managers can use PM to their own advantages and provides rationale to decision makers for policy regulations regarding wholesale pricing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 112-151
Author(s):  
Panle Jia Barwick ◽  
Shengmao Cao ◽  
Shanjun Li

This study documents the presence of local protectionism and quantifies its impacts on market competition and social welfare in the context of China’s automobile market. A salient feature of China’s auto market is that vehicle models by joint ventures and state-owned enterprises command much higher market shares in their headquarter provinces than at the national level. Through county border analysis, falsification tests, and a consumer survey, we uncover protectionist policies such as subsidies to local brands as the primary contributing factor to the observed home bias. We then set up and estimate a market equilibrium model to quantify the impact of local protection, controlling for other demand and supply factors. Counterfactual analysis shows that local protection leads to significant consumer choice distortions and results in 21.9 billion yuan of consumer welfare loss, amounting to 41 percent of total subsidy. Provincial governments face a prisoner’s dilemma: local protection reduces aggregate social welfare, but provincial governments have no incentive to unilaterally remove local protection. (JEL L24, L32, L62, O14, O18, P25, R12)


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Tobias Wölfle ◽  
Oliver Schöller

Under the term “Hilfe zur Arbeit” (aid for work) the federal law of social welfare subsumes all kinds of labour disciplining instruments. First, the paper shows the historical connection of welfare and labour disciplining mechanisms in the context of different periods within capitalist development. In a second step, against the background of historical experiences, we will analyse the trends of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” during the past two decades. It will be shown that by the rise of unemployment, the impact of labour disciplining aspects of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” has increased both on the federal and on the municipal level. For this reason the leverage of the liberal paradigm would take place even in the core of social rights.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Pankaj Sinha ◽  
Naina Grover

This study analyses the impact of competition on liquidity creation by banks and investigates the dynamics between diversification, liquidity creation and competition for banks operating in India during the period from 2005 to 2018. Using the broad and narrow measures of liquidity creation, an inverse relationship is determined between liquidity creation and competition. The study also indicates a trade-off between pro-competitive policies to improve consumer welfare and the liquidity-destroying effects of competition, and it highlights how diversification affects liquidity creation. Highly diversified banks in India create less liquidity compared with less-diversified banks, both public and private. The liquidity-destroying effects of competition is intensified among highly diversified private banks, which suggest that diversification has not moderated the adverse impact of competition. JEL Codes: G01, G18, G21, G28


2003 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reimar von Alvensleben ◽  
Bernhard Brümmer ◽  
Ulrich Koester ◽  
Klaus Frohberg

AbstractReimar von Alvensleben asks in his article whether the “Agrarwende” in Germany could be a model for Europe. He argues that the new agricultural policy (the so-called “Agrarwende”), which has been proclaimed and implemented after the German BSE crisis 2000/2001, adds new problems to the already existing problems of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The strategy of improving international competitiveness of German agriculture by promoting the niche markets for organic food, animal-friendly produced food and regional food is unrealistic and thus neglecting the problem of improving the competitiveness of 85−90% of German agriculture. The criterion of ecological efficiency (How to achieve ecological goals at lowest costs?) is totally neglected in agricultural environmental policy. The strategy of implementing environmental and animal welfare standards by the market mechanism will not lead to reasonable results because of perception distortions of the consumers. As a consequence of distorted perception of food risks by politicians, cost of risk prevention are too high and/or safety and health standards in other less spectaculous areas are too low. For these reasons he concludes that the “Agrarwende” in Germany cannot be regarded as a model for Europe, especially not for Eastern Europe.Bernhard Brümmer and Ulrich Koester write in their paper that the Eastern Enlargement of the EU will have significant implications for governance of the CAP. The evolution of the CAP has led to a permanent increase in the intensity of regulation, although the rate of external protection has declined. Past experience - mainly revealed by the European Court of Auditors - has evidenced many irregularities and even fraud as a by-product of the CAP. Governance problems are due to badly designed policies, which demand control of even individual farms and give the member countries, administrative regions (which are supposed to implement the policies on the local scale) and the individual farms themselves incentives to breach the rules. In their view governance problems will certainly increase in the enlarged EU. The new member countries have a weaker administrative capacity and are subject to more corruption than the present EU countries. Adequate policy reaction should lead to fundamental changes of the CAP.Klaus Frohberg argues that in its Mid Term Review the EU-commission proposes a change in the most important instruments of the CAP. Direct payments and intervention prices belong to this group. In his paper the impact of these changes is discussed. Direct payments shall become decoupled from production and be summarised into a single payment to farmers. In addition, the right of these transfers shall be made tradable independent of a simultaneous exchange of land. With regard to the intervention prices they shall be reduced as to approach world market levels. Assuming that the Member States will confirm the proposals the CAP is expected to improve considerably. Allocation and transfer efficiency will increase, consumer welfare will go slightly up, taxpayers will be little if at all affected and the EU can defend its position in the negotiations of the ongoing WTO round. These advantages accrue to the current as well as to the new Member States. In spite of the improvements the CAP still needs to be enhanced in some areas such as the market organisation of sugar and milk.


2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Johnson

Students of race and politics in the U.S. have long asserted a relationship between the racial composition and public policies of states. A related but distinct line of research demonstrates a strong connection between white attitudes about the perceived recipients of social welfare spending—blacks and members of other minority groups—and support for these programs. This article bridges these lines of scholarship by asking how racial diversity shapes aggregate attitudes about minorities in the American states and how these opinions in turn influence welfare spending. Using public opinion data from the General Social Survey ( 1974–96), I find that diversity has a direct influence on welfare policy in the states, as well as an indirect influence through shaping majority-group racial attitudes. Diversity and racial attitudes are found to have these effects even when controlling for factors traditionally used to explain variation in state spending levels, such as party competition, lower class mobilization, ideology, and state capacity.


Author(s):  
R. Cherry

This article briefly reviews the conservative, liberal and radical approaches to social welfare programs, and compares these with empirical evidence from the USA. Conservatives stress that welfare programs reduce work incentives and undermine individual initiatives. Liberals suggest that cuts in welfare have created increased hardship without changing significantly the incentives to work. The Massachusetts Employment and Training Program is analyzed from both perspectives. The Program does not reduce benefits but instead increases work incentives. The results of this Program are skeptically reviewed by radicals as well as some liberals.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152-172
Author(s):  
Willem Adema ◽  
Peter Whiteford

This chapter contributes to the discussion of public and private social welfare by drawing together recent information on these different ways of providing social benefits. It presents data on public social expenditure for 2015–17 and accounts for the impact of the tax system and private social expenditure to develop indicators on net social expenditure for 2015. The chapter shows that conventional estimates of gross public spending differ significantly from estimates of net public spending and net total social expenditure, leading to an incorrect measurement and ranking of total social welfare effort across countries.Just as importantly, the fact that total social welfare support is incorrectly measured implies that the outcomes of welfare state support may also be incorrectly measured. Thus, the main objectives of the chapter include considering the implications of this more comprehensive definition of welfare state effort for analysis of the distributional impact of the welfare state and for an assessment of the efficiency and incentive effects of different welfare state arrangements.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukesh Pal ◽  
Hemant Gupta ◽  
Yogesh C. Joshi

PurposeWomen empowerment becomes an important policy discussion in development economics and modernization theory. The empowerment of women can lead to an increase in the quality viz-a-viz the capacity of human resources accessible for economic development. The purpose of this study is to evidence the impact of social and economic dimensions on women empowerment through financial inclusion in rural India.Design/methodology/approachTo reveal the research objective, the study has utilized a primary survey of women respondents from the Gujarat state of India by a simple random sampling method and applied a logistic regression approach to identify the relationship between the need of a bank account (determinant of financial inclusion) as a dependent variable and social and economic dimensions of women empowerment such as earning status, participation in financial decision-making, recipient of social welfare schemes and perception towards the safety of saving as independent variables.FindingsThe results of this study show that earning status, participation in financial decision-making at household level and recipient of social welfare schemes by women have a significant impact on women empowerment through financial inclusion; however, safety of their savings is observed as an insignificant variable, yet the odd value is very high (2.437) in the present study.Originality/valueThe present study is the first of its kind to examine the social and economic status of women and its impact on their requirement of a formal bank account for the overall empowerment of women in rural India.


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