should government fund assisted reproductive techniques a study using willingness to pay during recent years there has been a growth in the use of assisted reproductive techniques arts across europe america and australia this has resulted in debates about whether health insurance should cover this procedure this study used the closed ended ce willingness to pay wtp technique to establish the value the infertile place on in vitro fertilization ivf treatment in scotland the intention is to consider the use of the economic instrument of wtp for informing the debate on the public provision of ivf assuming that the value of the service outweighs the cost public provision should be encouraged the responses suggested that users of the service have a mean wtp of over 5000 for an attempt at ivf this compares with an average government expenditure of 7pound 2700 the internal validity of the ce wtp was also shown with income being positively related to wtp it is concluded that the ce wtp technique is potentially a useful tool for policy makers in considering the public provision of i

growing sub systems vertically hyper integrated sectors and the labour theory of value the author starts from piero sraffa s notion of subsystem and from his own notion of vertically integrated sector and goes on to a complete generalization to dynamic analysis a production system is partitioned into a set of self contained growing subsystems each of which compactly considered is characterized by one single unit of consumption good at one extreme and one single labor coefficient at the other extreme a vertically hyper integrated sector this logical construction is shown to possess remarkable analytical and normative properties particularly suitable for dynamic analysis among these properties a complete generalization is obtained of ada m smith s pure labor theory of value copyright 1988 by oxford university press

two sided markets with pecuniary and participation externalities the existing literature on two sided markets addresses participation externalities but so far it has neglected pecuniary externalities between competing platforms in this paper we build a model that incorporates both externalities in our setup differentiated platforms compete in advertising and offer consumers a service free of charge such as a tv program that is financed through advertising we show that advertising can exhibit the properties of a strategic substitute or complement surprisingly there exist cases in which platforms benefit from market entry moreover we show that from a welfare point of view perfect competition is not always desirable

concentration and public policies in the broadcasting industry the future of television tv regulation concentration and public policies in the broadcasting industry new technologies are deeply transforming the broadcasting industry what we have seen so far is only the beginning of a long story inevitably industry regulations must adapt which means that a wide ranging rethink of current practices is required in order to assess the likely evolution of the industry this article decomposes it into a number of components from conception of programmes to their broadcasting including distribution storage and licensing contrary to popular expectations the analysis suggests that the current high degree of concentration will if anything increase the policy implication is that regulation so far driven by now obsolete technological constraints should increasingly emphasize promoting competition massimo motta and michele polo

platform competition in two sided markets many if not most markets with network externalities are two sided to succeed platforms in industries such as software portals and media payment systems and the internet must get both sides of the market on board accordingly platforms devote much attention to their business model that is to how they court each side while making money overall this paper builds a model of platform competition with two sided markets it unveils the determinants of price allocation and end user surplus for different governance structures profit maximizing platforms and not for profit joint undertakings and compares the outcomes with those under an integrated monopolist and a ramsey planner jel l5 l82 l86 l96

market provision of broadcasting a welfare analysis this paper presents a theory of the market provision of broadcasting and uses it to address the nature of market failure in the industry advertising levels may be too low or too high depending on the nuisance cost to viewers the substitutability of programs and the expected benefits to advertisers from contacting viewers market provision may allocate too few or too many resources to programming and these resources may be used to produce programs of the wrong type monopoly ownership may produce higher social surplus than competitive ownership and the ability to price programming may reduce social surplus

measuring the economic benefits of recycling the case of the waste agricultural film in korea recently increase of the waste agricultural film waf raises the loss of the resources and produces the environmental damage in korea the korean government has established the basic plan for increasing the recycling rate and abating the environmental damage the objective of this paper is to estimate the economic benefits attached to the policy of recycling the waf using contingent valuation method aiming to provide policy makers with useful information to make an informed public decision in recycling the waf the overall results show that the respondents well accepted the contingent market and would be willing to pay a significant amount for the proposed policy of recycling the waf the mean willingness to pay and the truncated mean willingness to pay per household were 4641 korean won us 3 6 and 5730 korean won us 4 4 respectively total economic benefits for the population amounted to approximately 14 33 billion korean won us 11 02 million per year this quantitative information can be use

understanding the marxian notion of exploitation a summary of the so called transformation problem between marxian values and competitive prices the ending in the second part of the article the author examines the so called problem of transformation first he analyze certain contradiction faced by marx in the third volume of capital in studying the question of how to transform the cost into the price then he turns to the problem of inverse transformation and argues that marx procedure works only in a single case equal organic composition of capital the third part of the article bibliography provides an overview of the work on the analysis of marx s theory

chicken and egg competition among intermediation service providers we analyze a model of imperfect price competition between intermediation service providers we insist on features that are relevant for informational intermediation via the internet the presence of indirect network externalities the possibility of using the nonexclusive services of several intermediaries and the widespread practice of price discrimination based on users identity and on usage efficient market structures emerge in equilibrium as well as some specific form of inefficient structures intermediaries have incentives to propose non exclusive services as this moderates competition and allows them to exert market power we analyze in detail the pricing and business strategies followed by intermediation services providers copyright 2003 by the rand corporation

consumers preferences for the attributes of post pc results of a contingent ranking study with the explosive growth of the internet and the change in consumer demand post pc is emerging as a substitute for the existing desktop pc and laptop pc post pc is a new computer which is portable with wireless networking cheaper than the existing pc and specializing in the specific functions that consumers want rudimentary post pcs such as pda web pad and smart phone are already in use in the future owing to technological progress the heterogeneity of related companies and the low entry barrier various post pcs will be developed this paper attempts to analyse consumers willingness to pay wtp for post pc with such attributes as portability cpu speed data input method using key board or electric pen monitor size and price to this end a contingent ranking method is applied which makes the respondents rank hypothetical post pc alternatives featuring various combinations of attributes via a survey data collected in korea using the estimated wtp the shape and the capacity of future po

the transformation problem abstract the history of the marxian transformation problem is surveyed from 1885 to the present particular emphasis is placed on the less well known literature and the focus is on problems of interpretation rather than on technicalities a substantial bibliography is provided

press advertising and the ascent of the pensee unique the press industry depends in a crucial way on the possibility of financing an important fraction of its activities by advertising receipts we show that this induces the editors of newspapers to moderate in several cases the political message they display to their readers compared with the political opinions they would have expressed otherwise to this end we consider a three stage game in which editors select sequentially their political image the price of their newspaper and the advertising tariff they oppose to the advertisers the intuition of the result lies in the fact that editors have to sell tasteless political messages to their readers in order to sell a larger audience to the advertisers

the non use benefits of enhancing forest biodiversity a contingent ranking study until recently the majority of commercial forestry in the uk has comprised blanket planting of non native coniferous species which typically do not offer a high level of biodiversity however the uk government and consequently the uk forestry commission are committed under various international agreements to conserve and enhance biodiversity in british forests the study reported in this paper estimates that substantial non use values would be generated if the forestry commission were to continue in its current efforts to develop management practices that promote an increase in biodiversity across a large area of its commercial holdings in remote parts of the country which are seldom visited rather than adopting a referendum type contingent valuation method a discrete choice contingent ranking approach is used to estimate the general public s willingness to pay to increase the area of these forests managed under each of three forest management standards designed to offer increasing levels of biodiversity at the expense of commercial timber production this permits relative preferences for different forest management standards to be measured at the same time as willingness to pay to enhance biodiversity

marx s transformation problem and pasinetti s vertically integrated subsystems pasinetti 1988 constructs a complete generalization of marx s transformation problem in the context of a non uniform growth model by proving that production prices are not proportional to the physical quantities of labour supplied to vertically hyper integrated subsystems pasinetti therefore restricts the labour theory of value to a pre institutional stage of analysis in this paper i demonstrate that the transformation problem dissolves once we consider the vertically integrated subsystems induced by the specific institutional setup of a capitalist economy i prove that production prices both in steady state and non uniform growth models are proportional to the physical quantities of labour supplied to vertically super integrated subsystems in consequence the labour theory of value suitably generalized also applies at the institutional stage of analysis

a constructive approach to air quality valuation in korea abstract this paper uses a new constructive contingent valuation approach based on the value structuring capabilities of multi attribute utility theory maut to help respondents construct and express environmental value judgments in monetary terms the maut approach adopts a decomposition procedure which seems to be more in harmony with the constructive nature of human values and the coping strategies of respondents dealing with complexity we provide an application of the approach in a survey of random population samples where we seek valuation of specific damages due to air pollution in seoul korea a developing country where the economic valuation of environmental impacts remains scarce a discussion of the results is also presented the overall results show that although empirical evidence is sparse there appears to be considerable scope for the use of the approach in environmental valuations

using choice experiments to value the environment this paper we outline the choice experiment approach to environmental valuation this approach has its roots in lancaster s characteristics theory of value in random utility theory and in experimental design we show how marginal values for the attributes of environmental assets such as forests and rivers can be estimated from pair wise choices as well as the value of the environmental asset as a whole these choice pairs are designed so as to allow efficient statistical estimation of the underlying utility function and to minimise required sample size choice experiments have important advantages over other environmental valuation methods such as contingent valuation and travel cost type models although many design issues remain unresolved applications to environmental issues have so far been relatively limited we illustrate the use of choice experiments with reference to a recent uk study on public preferences for alternative forest landscapes this study allows us to perform a convergent validity test on the choice experiment estimates of willingness to pay

two sided markets a progress report the paper provides a road map to the burgeoning literature on two sided markets and presents new results it identifies two sided markets with markets in which the structure and not only the level of prices charged by platforms matters the failure of the coase theorem is necessary but not sufficient for two sidedness the paper builds a model integrating usage and membership externalities that unifies two hitherto disparate strands of the literature emphasizing either form of externality and obtains new results on the mix of membership and usage charges when price setting or bargaining determine payments between end users

regulation and competition in the taiwanese pharmaceutical market under national health insurance this article investigates the determinants of the prices of pharmaceuticals and their impact on the demand for prescription drugs in the context of taiwan s pharmaceutical market where medical providers earn profit directly from prescribing and dispensing drugs based on product level data we find evidence that the profit seeking behavior of the medical providers in the prescription drug market transfers the force of competition from the unregulated wholesale market to the regulated retail market and hence market competition still plays an important role in the determination of the regulated price we also find that the profit seeking behavior plays a similar role to advertising in that it increases the brand loyalty and hence lowers price elasticity an important implication of our study is that the institutional features in the pharmaceutical market matter in shaping the nature of pharmaceutical competition and the responsiveness of pharmaceutical consumption with respect to changes in price

advertising competition and entry in media industries this paper presents a model of media competition with free entry when media platforms are financed both from advertising receipts and customers subscriptions we establish a relationship between the equilibrium levels of prices advertising and entry the welfare maximizing levels and the advertising technology under constant or increasing returns to scale in the audience size we find an excessive level of entry and an insufficient level of advertising we then extend the analysis along several dimensions the price as a strategic variable on the market for advertising free media platforms and the media quality dimension

estimating stated preferences with rated pair data environmental health and employment effects of energy programs abstract respondents stated preferences for attributes related to various electricity generation scenarios are analyzed using a series of pairwise ratings multiple observations for each respondent facilitate estimating individual scale parameters scale estimates can identify uninformative rating patterns and make it possible to delete such observations or adjust wtp calculations cross section time series analysis of the data indicates that nonprice attributes increase in salience during the course of the experiment thus later responses may be better indicators of preferences than earlier responses comparisons of polychotomous with dichotomous models indicate that most respondents relative preference ratings are not simply dichotomous but discriminate systematically along the rating scale