labor market discrimination in a poor urban economy labor market discrimination by sex and by race in a poor urban economy is analyzed using a survey of manufacturing employees in tanzania there are large differences in mean wages by both sex and race using techniques previously applied to developed countries it is found that whereas the sex difference in mean wages can be explained mainly in terms of sex differences in personal characteristics the race difference is mainly the result of wage and job discrimination an attempt is made to explain the results which run counter to common presuppositions about discrimination

efficiency growth and concentration an empirical analysis of hospital markets taking an evolutionary view of markets harold demsetz hypothesized that firms differ persistently in efficiency and that industry concentration results from growth of efficient firms at the expense of inefficient ones we test the hypothesis with high quality microdata from the us hospital industry an industry of keen policy and scientific interest we measure efficiency by firm in the early 1980s and relate it to subsequent growth of efficient firms to the persistence of profit differences and to changes in the concentration of markets initial hospital efficiency and subsequent growth and profitability are significantly and positively related also greater initial variation in hospital efficiency within local markets is positively related to subsequent growth in market concentration these findings support the logic of demsetz s evolutionary efficiency hypothesis though they cannot confirm the stronger idea that variation in firm efficiency is the dominant explanation for changes in concentration

integration of spatial markets studies of spatial market integration draw their implications from a theory which assumes that there are no intraregional transport costs an alternative theory is offered based on the assumptions that buyers and sellers are spatially dispersed and intraregional transport costs are significant this implies that the market is a linked oligopoly or oligopsony and that market integration tests are tests of alternative oligopoly price formation processes for example collusive basing point pricing produces results typically assumed to imply efficiently integrated markets while competitive fob pricing does not the theoretical implications are illustrated with an analysis of hog prices in canada

non monotonic effects of market concentration on prices for residential solar photovoltaics in the united states abstract emerging renewable energy markets may become more concentrated over time as the most efficient firms accumulate market share the effects of this market concentration on prices are tested using a rich dataset of residential solar photovoltaic pv systems in the united states a novel hypothesis is explored that the effects of market concentration may be non monotonic prices may decline in market concentration due to efficiency gains associated with returns to scale but increase in concentration in already concentrated markets due to increasing market power the results of an econometric model provide evidence to support the non monotonic hypothesis however the data suggest that the relationship between prices and firm scale is nuanced and that both large and small scale pv installers may wield efficiency advantages

the public private wage differential in a poor urban economy the occupational structure of wages is generally more compressed in high than in low income countries the role of non market forces in determining the structure of wages is of interest for reasons of allocative efficiency as well as for distributional concerns this paper considers how wage differentials may be generated between the public and private sectors of a developing economy data from a 1971 household survey of the tanzanian urban wage labor force are used to determine the pattern of wage differences across employer groups after standardizing by worker characteristics public sector employees are found to have earned a substantial wage premium over workers employed in the private sector the non market character of these differentials is examined in light of a number of hypotheses on public sector wage determination

investigating diesel market integration in france evidence from micro data abstract we use station level daily price observations collected over a period of eight years to study the extent of diesel market integration in france the empirical analysis starts off by examining the time series properties of diesel price ratios and then assesses how geographical separation and petrol station characteristics affect the speed of adjustment of prices to exogenous shocks our findings reveal that the great majority of diesel price ratios maintain stable long run relationships we also find that while price ratios take longer to adjust for pairs of petrol stations that are farther apart adjustment is quicker when pairs of petrol stations provide the same range of services and when they belong to the same owner

the nature and extent of the market for high quality beef in japan before the abolition of import quotas it is examined whether wagyu beef produced in japan and high quality beef produced in the united states and exported to japan are components of the same product market in addressing this issue an approach is used for defining the nature and extent of a product market relying on the concept of instantaneous causality the results for selected cuts of beef suggest that the markets are in fact separate

analysis of threshold cointegration with asymmetric adjustments in the hong kong grocery industry abstracthigh market concentration in the hong kong grocery industry has been prevalent over many years with the domination of a few large supermarket chains however no research has been conducted on the price dynamics between the supermarket and non supermarket sectors to investigate whether the non supermarket sector can impose competitive discipline on the dominating supermarket chains we argue that standard cointegration tests cannot allow for transaction costs and distinguish whether the price co movement is attributable to price competition or collusion our study therefore fills this research gap by adopting the threshold cointegration tests in a three regime threshold vector error correction model to account for the asymmetric price adjustment dynamics between supermarket and non supermarket sectors of hong kong and evaluate the market power of the supermarket sectors in the presence of transaction costs our results favour the presence of cointegration between the supermarket and non supermarke

defining geographic coal markets using price data and shipments data abstract given the importance of coal in world energy supply an analysis of the relevant geographic market is essential for consumers producers as well as for competition policy the purpose of this paper is to define the relevant economic market for steam and coking coal and to test the hypothesis of single world markets for these coal products methodologically the paper relies on two different tests for defining markets using both shipments data and price data the results from both methods point in the same direction in the case of coking coal the results indicate that the market is essentially global in scope and also that the market has become more integrated over time the results for steam coal show that the market is more regional in scope and there exist no clear tendencies of increased integration over time one policy implication of the finding that the steam coal market is more regional in scope and thus that the market boundary is smaller than if the market would have been international is that a merger and acquisition in this market likely would have been of a more concern for antitrust authorities than the same activity on the coking coal market

market delineation and demand structure this paper addresses the relationship between the cointegration approach to market delineation and the more traditional approach of analyzing the demand structure among different products in terms of degree of substitutability cointegration tests for market delineation and estimation of a dynamic system of demand equations are undertaken utilizing the same data set the data set consists of three high quality seafood products in the european union the results are encouraging as the results from the two approaches are not only compatible but are also complementary in the sense that they provide more information together than they do separately

competition and geographical integration in commercial bank lending abstract this paper tests the hypothesis that interest rates on bank commercial loans in the regions of the united states are generated in an integrated national market the tests of a joint hypothesis compounded of integration behavioral models and the absence of systematic errors in the data are applied to 60 series of data short term and long term loans in five size classes in six regions the joint hypothesis is not rejected for five of the six regions and four of the five size classes the exceptional region is the southeast the exceptional loan size class is 1 000 to 9 000 the smallest in the sample

the decline of discrimination against colored people in south africa 1970 to 1980 abstract the paper analyses the gap in earnings between white and colored people in south africa in 1970 and 1980 the gap is decomposed into its explained and discrimination components and from a model of occupational attainment into wage and job discrimination job discrimination decreased between 1970 and 1980 colored people in younger experience cohorts experienced a significant decline in discrimination between 1970 and 1980 most of which was due to a decline in job descrimination discrimination against those in older experience cohorts appears not to have declined

european market integration for gas volume flexibility and political risk this is a copy of an article originally published by elsevier in energy economics see http www sciencedirect com science journal 03014215 2002 elsevier science b v

returns to scale and scale elasticity in data envelopment analysis abstract the purpose of this paper is to provide mathematical characterizations of the data envelopment analysis dea based scale elasticity that is computable for both frontier and nonfrontier units in order to accomplish this we first review existing frontier results extend them formally to the nonfrontier case and then analyze how the scale elasticity behaves we also study how shadow pricing can be done as an application of the scale elasticity and show how upper and lower scale elasticity bounds can be obtained finally we provide an illustrative example for the clarification and verification of our results

women s urban labour market status in developing countries how well do they fare in khartoum sudan this article examines the insertion of women in the formal sector labour market in urban khartoum sudan in order to explain their inferior employment status in one particular developing country environment a number of hypotheses are tested drawing upon recent labour market theoretical developments and econometric techniques from the literature which have had limited previous applications in third world settings particularly in africa our findings indicate that occupational segregation rather than pay discrimination is primarily to blame for observed wage differentials suggesting that well intentioned equal pay laws will do little to reduce the earnings gap

cross border constraints institutional changes and integration of the dutch german gas market we evaluate the contribution of nine institutional changes to the integration of the dutch and german gas markets we analyse this contribution through the impact of bottlenecks in the cross border infrastructure on the absolute value of cross border price differences in the period 2007 2013 the absolute value of the differences in price levels between the dutch and the german ncg market decreased indicating more integration we find evidence that the improved connections within the german networks as well as between the dutch and the german network contributed to this the strengthening of the connections with the uk market and the russian supply however had a negative effect on market integration between the dutch and the german ncg market the liquidity enhancing changes within the dutch market had a negligible effect

antitrust and merger policy a review and critique a ny antitrust policy that tries to put some restrictions on mergers must have a conceptual basis one such framework might be a populist approach in which only absolute or relative size of the merger partners and or the resulting entity would be the criterion political rhetoric often embodies this approach an alternative approach the one that underlies the 1982 department of justice merger guidelines concerns itself with the possible exercise of market power 1 i believe this second approach is more consistent with the language of section 7 of the clayton act itself which instructs the department of justice and the federal trade commission to prevent those mergers the effects of which may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly this market power approach also places merger policy in a realm that is susceptible to economic analysis for this reason as well this approach appeals to me the merger guidelines are firmly rooted in the standard oligopoly theory developed by chamberlin 1933 fellner 1949 and stigler 1964 and strengthened

on the dynamics of gasoline market integration in the united states evidence from a pair wise approach abstract this paper employs a pair wise approach to examine regional integration in the us gasoline market using gasoline price data at the state level over a period of more than two decades we find strong support for the view that the law of one price holds in regional markets as more than 80 of bivariate price differentials turn out to be stationary furthermore we uncover evidence that the speed at which prices converge to the long run equilibrium depends upon the distance between states asymmetries are also present in this relationship our findings suggest that the more similar are states with respect to taxation gas stations and refining capacity the faster is the speed of adjustment towards the long run equilibrium

on the internal contradictions of the law of one price as stated originally the venerable law of one price succinctly describes long run equilibrium in a perfectly competitive market the law was later amended defining a market as the geographic area within which the same thing sells for the same price at the same time allowance being made for transportation costs modified in that way the law has two plausible interpretations by one interpretation every production site is a market by the other prices in fact do not differ by transportation costs the transportation cost amendment thus introduces internal contradictions that render the revised law of one price either useless or wrong jel d40 l10 a market according to the masters is the area within which the price of a commodity tends to uniformity allowance being made for transportation costs that is two places are in the same market for a good if the prices at the two places differ by transportation costs stigler 1987 77 economic terms seem to pass in their historical development through a series of stages which without pretension to rigidness may be described as follows first no definition is given but it is assumed that every one has a sufficiently clear idea of the subject to make a formal definition unnecessary second a definition is attempted and a number of exceptional forms are noted third with the further increase of data the relative importance of the various forms changes confusion in discussion is introduced logomachy takes the place of constructive investigation fourth a complete classification of the forms embraced under the original term is made and problems are investigated with reference to these classes the bewildering vagueness of economic theory is largely due to the fact that the terms used are in all of these stages of development moore 1906 211 i introduction delineating the boundaries of markets engaged economists attention early on many product attributes are important to consumers but price is an objectively measurable margin along which rivalry is sharply engaged market prices transmit information about changing demand and supply conditions to buyers and sellers and widening price cost margins signal profit opportunities to which alert entrepreneurs respond price consequently has held center stage in economists attempts to define markets augustin cournot 1927 51 for instance wrote that a market is the entire territory of which the parts are so united by the relations of unrestricted commerce that prices take the same level throughout with ease and rapidity alfred marshall 1930 325 supplied a similar definition in his celebrated declaration that the more nearly perfect a market is the stronger is the tendency for the same price to be paid for the same thing at the same time in all parts of the market more recently joseph stiglitz 1993 19 summarized what he called the law of the single price stating that under this law there is a uniform price in the market and price differences are quickly eliminated by arbitrage 1 marshall 1930 325 introduced an important qualification however when he observed that but of course if the market is large allowance must be made for the expense of delivering the goods to different purchasers each of whom must be supposed to pay in addition to the market price a special charge on account of delivery that qualification subsequently found its way into stigler s price theory textbook quoted in the epigraph intentionally or not the law of one price was thereby converted into a law of different prices other economists subsequently added transaction costs and information costs to the list of caveats culminating in a multiplicity of prices nevertheless claimed to be consistent with the law of one price economics has few laws

caste discrimination in the indian urban labour market abstract this the pioneering quantitative analysis of caste in the indian urban labour market examines the age old problem of caste in the light of discrimination theory and government policy using a survey of workers in delhi the gross wage difference between scheduled untouchable and non scheduled caste is decomposed into its explained and discrimination components and from a model of occupation choice into wage and job discrimination discrimination is found to exist and to operate at least in part through the traditional mechanism viz assignment to jobs with the scheduled castes entering poorly paid dead end jobs it is assisted by methods of recruitment based on contacts prevalent in the manual occupation which also cause past discrimination to carry over to the present its practice serves the economic interests of those who exercise a taste for discrimination

the transmission of world maize price to south african maize market a threshold cointegration approach this article seeks to provide an explanation for the relationship between domestic maize price in south africa and world maize prices in order to evaluate comovement and transmission of world prices to domestic prices in sub sahara african countries this is done by comparing nested and nonnested models that capture different forms of nonlinearity in the price spread adopting a bayesian approach that allows for comparison of models using bayes factor we found that the relationship between south african price and world price for maize indicates the presence of nonlinearity in price transmission with three regimes that is triggered by the price spread in previous period

the integration of the market for soybeans and soybean products abstract this article addresses the question of whether soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil produced in the usa and exported were part of a single world geographic market during the decade of the 1980s an answer to this question is sought using an approach to defining a geographic market based on the notion of instantaneous causality the empirical results based on prices for soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil for three spatially diffuse locations suggest that there was but a single identifiable world market for these commodities over the period of study this has implications for the continued presence of soybean production subsidies and discussions on international agreements designed to reduce or eliminate these subsidies

market integration between wild and farmed seabream and seabass in spain abstractgilthead seabream sparus aurata and european seabass dicentrarchus labrax production from aquaculture has been increasing since the 1990s nowadays about 95 of their production comes from aquaculture in this study we analyse if the rapid growth in the aquaculture production of both species has affected the capture fisheries prices of both species in other words we investigate if there is market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and european seabass in order to do this analysis we use data from the main gilthead seabream and european seabass markets in spain the results show that there is no market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and european seabass this implies that capture fisheries are not affected by increases in the aquaculture production of both species but gilthead seabream and european seabass aquaculture producers face a smaller demand that explains the difficulties this aquaculture segment is facing

market analysis methods are our enriched toolkits well suited to enlivened markets the past fifteen years have brought historic reduction of government intervention in agricultural markets in the developing world most economists and policy makers believe these reforms enliven markets previously fettered by excessive government authority nonetheless the impact of market oriented reforms on the spatial and intertemporal extent and the competitiveness of markets remains an inherently empirical question meanwhile there also have been major innovations in methods used to analyze markets and prices due largely to the rapidly emerging time series econometric literature agricultural economists toolkits have changed nearly as rapidly and dramatically as have developing economy markets but can these enriched toolkits answer the

a pair wise analysis of the law of one price evidence from the crude oil market abstract this paper applies a pairwise approach to investigate the validity of the law of one price in the crude oil markets price differentials appear smaller between crude oil pairs with similar physical chemical characteristics and also for pairs within opec

the extent of the market examines the classical theory of the market in this paper authors consider the role of price market determination price movement in competitive and monopolistic markets extension of commodity markets

the disintegrating canadian labour market the extent of the market then and now analysis of real wages for three occupations in 13 canadian cities for 1901 50 suggests canada had a national labour market at least until 1950 however analysis of real wages for 10 canadian cities for 1971 2000 yields little evidence favouring integration of canada s regional labour markets the apparent lack of labour market integration reflects a weakness of an approach that assumes markets are in equilibrium unemployment rates after 1970 suggest that some regional markets may be characterized by excess labour supply analysis of relative provincial unemployment rates yields evidence consistent with local labour force adjustment to changing labour market conditions jel classification e24 j61 le marche du travail en desintegration au canada l etendue du marche alors et maintenant les auteurs analysent les salaires reels pour trois occupations dans 13 villes canadiennes au cours de la periode 1901 50 et suggerent que le canada a joui d un marche du travail qui etait national tout au moins jusqu a 1950 toutefois l analyse des salaires reels dans 10 villes canadiennes au cours de la periode 1971 2000 ne fournit pas de resultats supportant l idee d integration des marches regionaux du travail on suggere que le manque apparent d integration du marche du travail est l effet d echo d une approche qui presume que les marches sont en equilibre la periode de l apres 1970 en est une ou les taux de chomage suggerent plutot que certains marches regionaux peuvent etre raisonnablement caracterises comme definis par une offre excedentaire de travail une analyse des taux de chomage provinciaux relatifs revele que la force de travail locale s ajuste aux conditions changeantes du marche du travail

spatial price transmission and asymmetry in the ghanaian maize market abstract this paper utilizes recently developed threshold cointegration tests that allow for asymmetric adjustment toward a long run equilibrium relationship to examine price linkages between principal maize markets in ghana unlike previous studies the approach employed here assumes that economic agents only act to move the system back to equilibrium when the deviation from equilibrium exceeds a critical threshold whereby the benefits of this adjustment exceed the costs the findings indicate that major maize markets in ghana are well integrated both the threshold cointegration and asymmetric error correction models reveal that wholesale maize prices in local markets accra and bolgatanga respond more swiftly to increases than to decreases in central market techiman prices accra prices are found to react faster than bolgatanga prices to changes in techiman market prices

resolving the impasse on hospital scale economics a new approach the existence of scale economies in hospitals in important for both public and managerial policy yet production and cost function studies have found conflicting evidence more recently more sophisticated studies have typically found scale diseconomies which is inconsistent with the views of industry participants and observers in the early 1980s california deregulated both private and public health insurance medical which provides a natural laboratory for examining hospital efficiency using stigler s original and multivariate survivor analysis we resolve the conflict in favour of scale economies and reconcile the controversy the survivorship methodology in simple to apply and a useful tool in conjunction with statistical cost and production studies

price relationships in the petroleum market an analysis of crude oil and refined product prices in this paper the relationships between crude oil and refined product prices are investigated in a multivariate framework this allows us to test several partly competing assumptions of earlier studies in particular we find that the crude oil price is weakly exogenous and that the spread is constant in some but not all relationships moreover the multivariate analysis shows that the link between crude oil prices and several refined product prices implies market integration for these refined products this is an example of supply driven market integration and producers will change the output mix in response to price changes

migration amongst the batswana the present study undertakes analysis of the effects of employment probabilities and wage alternatives on migration decisions in the context of botswana adopting micro level data both to estimate a multinomial migration function and to develop prediction equations for wages and likelihood of employment data are from the 1978 1979 national migration survey the factors that influence rural batswana adults to remain at home migrate to town on a short or long term basis move to another rural area or emigrate to south africa are examined consideration is given to the effects of employment alternatives on the rate of internal migration and the selectivity of movements with respect to personal household and locational factors excerpt

women work and weil being in the middle east an outline of the relevant literature there is now an extensive literature on the role of women in economic development and the impact of development on their lives this article concentrates on the economic literature and discusses its importance for policies aimed at working women in the middle east it identifies the important strands and places the discussion within the wider context of women in the labour market in both developing and developed countries the general conclusion is that we are very far from having sufficient knowledge to implement effective policy or even to evaluate existing policies

determinants of firms backward and forward looking r d search behavior this study develops and operationalizes a behavioral forward looking search model by incorporating prospect theory organizational risk literature and the logic of the behavioral theory of the firm with recognition of the bounded rationality of decision makers and the goal directed rule based nature of organizations this model suggests that a comparison between firms performance expectation and performance target translates the cognitive representation of the firms future into their subsequent actions by examining the research and development r d expenditures of u s manufacturing firms from 1980 to 2001 this study explores how performance aspirations expectations and slack affect decision making about firms r d search investments the findings show that both performance feedback and performance prospect are important determinants of firms search behavior after controlling for firm industry and time effects in addition backward and forward looking determinants have interactive effects on search behavior firms problem driven search activity further increases when firms feel unlikely to achieve the performance target for another year in contrast search intensity is reduced when firms expect to improve their performance from an underperforming situation to an outperforming situation the findings suggest that future research on performance feedback and experiential learning should also consider the effect of forward looking prospects on firm behavior

identifying price linkages a review of the literature and an application to the world market of cotton this paper reviews the literature of price linkages and examines the degree to which cotton prices are linked it also tests whether such linkages have improved over the last decade it concludes that the degree of linkage has improved over the last decade while the main source of this improvement appears to be a result of short run price transmission and to a lesser extent long run co movement

labour market discrimination against migrant workers in an indian state the case of punjab based on an extended human capital model some earnings functions have been estimated for punjab in the first part of the article later on we investigate the earnings differentials between natives and migrants based on their productivity related charac teristics and labour market discrimination since a majority of migrants come from the neighbouring state of uttar pradesh and lag behind the rest of migrants in most productivity characteristics the two groups of workers are analysed separately the study finds that while migrants in each group face discrimination its extent is greater for workers from uttar pradesh the important factors that favour natives and contribute to the native migrant earnings gap include schooling experience and the number of days worked the factors that favour migrants and tend to reduce the gap include overtime single multi earner family member and gifts bonus received variables

a structural approach to market definition with an application to the hospital industry a structural approach to market definition market definition is essential to merger analysis because no standard approach to market definition exists opposing parties in antitrust cases often disagree about the extent of the market these differences have been particularly relevant in the hospital industry where the courts have denied seven of eight merger challenges since 1994 due largely to disagreements over geographic market definition we compare geographic markets produced using common ad hoc methodologies to a method that directly applies the ssnip test to hospitals in california using a structural model our results suggest that previously employed methods overstate hospital demand elasticities by a factor of 2 4 to 3 4 and define larger markets than would be implied by the merger guidelines s hypothetical monopolist test the use of these methods in differentiated product industries may lead to mistaken geographic market delineation and was likely a contributing factor to the permissive legal environment for hospital mergers

the definition of housing market areas and strategic planning the purpose of this paper is to develop the concept of a housing market area thereby provide insights into our understanding of the sub regional structures of the housing system and hence propose a framework for strategic planning research in the housing market to tackle this task it is first necessary to consider the criteria for a local housing market area the paper begins by reviewing previous definitions by both academics and planners and their underlying assumptions based on the principle of spatial arbitrage a local housing market area is defined by reference to criteria linked to migration self containment parallels are drawn with the principles that have been applied to define a system of spatial labour markets using travel to work areas this spatial arbitrage definition is tested empirically by developing a system of housing market areas for west central scotland using data derived from the land registry finally the paper draws together the empirical findings to discuss the nature of s

the extent of european power markets abstract there is an ongoing debate on the degree of integration of european wholesale power markets a major task of the european union is the creation of a common market in europe and a common power market is an important part of this goal the literature analyzing the degree of integration of european energy markets is growing and provides mixed results we add to this literature by using national holidays as exogenous demand shocks to measure integration of european energy markets our main findings indicate that integration of european wholesale energy markets has increased with regard to germany and austria as well as belgium and the netherlands

indirect competition with spatial product differentiation although two markets may appear to be separate sometimes one firm participates in both of them that firm provides a link between the two markets such a straddling firm transmits indirect competition from each market to the other since its actions reflect competitive conditions in both markets in a model of spatial product differentiation the author shows that indirect competition may make a market perform significantly better than the number of firms would indicate moreover total consumer surplus increases if two previously distinct markets are linked by a straddler finally the author considers implications of these results for antitrust analysis copyright 1989 by blackwell publishing ltd

the economic basis of hyde are market power and hospital exclusive contracts related in order to attract admitting physicians hospitals must provide or otherwise arrange for specific services that these physicians demand for their patients these services include not only the traditional hospital amenities such as room board medical supplies and nursing care but also the talents of other hospital based physicians hbps who do not themselves admit or manage the care of patients but who instead perform ancillary medical tasks at the request of the admitting physician or of the hospital the four principal hbp specialties are anesthesiology radiology pathology and emergency medicine in this market characterization the hospital sells services to the admitting physicians who serve as the patient s agents 1 the admitting physicians are hospital customers in the important sense of deciding which hospital to patronize the hospital is the buyer also in the choice of supplier sense of all of the separate inputs that jointly define hospital services 2 like many buyers in most industries hospitals often arrange

testing for spatial market integration evidence for colombia using a pairwise approach we examine the extent of spatial market integration in colombia using consumer price index data for 153 consumer goods in 13 cities an econometric analysis of the time series properties of all the possible city price differentials reveals that market integration tends to occur more frequently in unprocessed food products as opposed to processed foods other traded and nontraded products the results also support the view that except for nontraded products the speed at which prices adjust to the long run equilibrium is slower for cities that are farther apart

market integration efficiency of arbitrage and imperfect competition methodology and application to u s celery this paper develops and applies a methodology to test for efficiency of interregional commodity arbitrage application of the methodology requires only time series data on prices for alternative cities regions countries or product forms yet the approach is capable of generating evidence on a number of market parameters including market integration arbitrage efficiency the magnitude of marketing margins product substitutability and competitiveness of markets estimation is based on a switching regression model with three regimes efficient arbitrage relative shortage and relative glut results from application of the model to u s celery marketing indicated significant departures from efficient arbitrage for both california and florida celery

federal timber restrictions and interregional arbitrage in u s lumber harvesting restrictions to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl on federal forests in the pacific northwest pnw substan tially reduced timber available for processing by the forest products industry we consider the ex tent to which these restrictions may have altered the degree of integration of the pnw and u s south in a national market for lumber descrip tive statistics and econometric analysis of monthly price data suggest that a structural break occurred in the relationship between the two re gions product prices around the time of the har vest restrictions leading to a more integrated market after the restrictions were imposed jel q23

interconnections and market integration in the irish single electricity market interconnections can be an effective way to increase competition and improve market integration in concentrated wholesale electricity markets with limited number of participants this paper examines the potential for interconnections and increasing market integration in the irish single electricity market sem we use a time varying kalman filter technique to assess the degree of market integration between sem and other large mature and interconnected wholesale electricity markets in europe including great britain gb the results indicate no market integration between sem and other european markets except for elspot and gb we show that the current state of market integration between sem and gb is just 17 indicating potential to improve market integration via increased interconnector capacity the results indicate that liquidity of wholesale markets might be a crucial factor in the market integration process while our results remain inconclusive in determining whether increased trade of renewables can improve market integration

open access and the evolution of the u s spot market for natural gas federal regulations promoting open access transportation dramatically altered the organizational structure of the u s market for natural gas in the 1980s generally unbundling the merchant and transport functions of interstate pipelines an empirical analysis of wellhead spot prices is undertaken to examine the effect of open access on the geographic scope of the spot market using monthly spot price data from 1984 91 three statistical tests are applied and compared price correlations granger causality and cointegration we find that open access integrated the regional wellhead markets into a national competitive market for natural gas the effects of unbundling on contracts for natural gas are then investigated incentives for long term contracts between pipelines and producers are shown to be effectively removed by the introduction of competitive buying and selling of gas at the wellhead through open access

thinking creatively about markets abstract the paper takes a broad view of how economists identify market boundaries three types of definition are distinguished trading markets anti trust markets and strategic markets the first is based on the familiar law of one price while the second follows us dij guidelines and is designed to identify positions of market power neither of these definitions suits the needs of one of the more recent and fastest growing users of economics namely those responsible for corporate strategy decisions inside firms the paper reviews why market definitions are a fundamental part of strategy decisions and identifies several ways that such users might define market boundaries

fewer fish for higher profits price response and economic incentives in global tuna fisheries management this paper evaluates industry wide economic incentives arising from changes in product prices in an industry exploiting a common renewable resource tropical tunas that is regulated via output limits changes in prices alter economic incentives by affecting revenues profits conservation and nonmarket public benefits economic incentives in industries exploiting common resources have been examined from multiple angles however industry level variation in market prices arising from changes in public regulation has not been explored we analyse the impact on economic incentives due to changes in output limits and market prices through estimation of ex vessel price and scale flexibilities for imported skipjack and yellowfin in thailand s cannery market the unitary scale flexibility estimated from the general synthetic inverse demand systems indicates no loss in revenue and even potential profit increases resulting from lower harvest levels that could arise from lower catch limits however for a revenue neutral or positive outcome to be achieved the three inter governmental tuna regional fisheries management organizations which manage the majority of the yellowfin and skipjack tuna in the pacific and indian oceans would have to coordinate multilaterally to set the catch limits for both species

electricity spot price dynamics beyond financial models we reveal properties of electricity spot prices that cannot be captured by the statistical models commonly used to model financial asset prices that are increasingly used to model electricity prices using more than eight years of half hourly spot price data from the new zealand electricity market we find that the half hourly trading periods fall naturally into five groups corresponding to the overnight off peak the morning peak daytime off peak evening peak and evening off peak the prices in different trading periods within each group are highly correlated with each other yet the correlations between prices in different groups are lower models adopted from the modeling of security prices that are currently applied to electricity spot prices are incapable of capturing this behavior we use a periodic autoregression to model prices instead showing that shocks in the peak periods are larger and less persistent than those in off peak periods and that they often reappear in the following peak period in contrast shocks in the off peak periods are smaller more persistent and die out perhaps temporarily during the peak periods current approaches to modeling spot prices cannot capture this behavior either