regulatory reform in britain regulatory reform in britain john kay and john vickers major sectors of the british economy are currently undergoing far reaching regulatory reform deregulation removal of barriers to competition and the introduction of new methods of regulation are occurring notably in financial services some of the professions and in utility industries such as telecommunications gas and electricity this paper gives an economic assessment of these developments the authors examine the root causes of market failure that call for regulation externalities monopoly and information problems and the pros and cons of various regulatory responses a broad distinction is drawn between structural regulation the determination of which firms or types of firms can engage in which activities and conduct regulation the control of how firms behave in their chosen activities recent examples of deregulation plus re regulation in britain are seen in part as a shift from structural to conduct regulation the relative merits of the two modes of regulation are complex to assess but it is argued that some recent regulatory reforms are placing undue reliance on conduct regulation as well as assessing individual industries the authors draw general conclusions about the desirability of regulatory solutions that make full use of market forces

network externalities technological progress and the competition of market contracts abstract network externalities are used to describe the fact that many modern products become more valuable the more users adopt products of the same technology where network externalities and technological progress exist the various kinds of inefficiencies discussed in the recent literature can be explained by different types of contracts the main categories analysed are simple market contracts update contracts and service contracts it is shown that these types of contract emerge endogenously from the incentive structure of profit maximizing firms competition between these contracts may substantially reduce inefficient allocations caused by network externalities

tipping and concentration in markets with indirect network effects this paper develops a framework for measuring tipping the increase in a firm s market share dominance caused by indirect network effects our measure compares the expected concentration in a market to the hypothetical expected concentration that would arise in the absence of indirect network effects in practice this measure requires a model that can predict the counterfactual market concentration under different parameter values capturing the strength of indirect network effects we build such a model for the case of dynamic standards competition in a market characterized by the classic hardware software paradigm to demonstrate its applicability we calibrate it using demand estimates and other data from the 32 64 bit generation of video game consoles a canonical example of standards competition with indirect network effects in our example we find that indirect network effects can lead to a strong economically significant increase in market concentration we also find important roles for beliefs on both the demand side as consumers tend to pick the product they expect to win the standards war and on the supply side as firms engage in penetration pricing to invest in growing their networks

competition and social influence the diffusion of the sixth generation processor in the global computer industry1 when is a social actor most strongly influenced by its peers this article addresses this question by clarifying when computer firms were most strongly affected by the choices of their structurally equivalent rivals to adopt a well known technology intel s sixth generation processor the core hypothesis is that the effect of adoptions by structurally equivalent firms increases with the competitive pressure that a focal firm faces in its market position the results show that a chosen firm is most strongly influenced by comparable others when it faces scale based competition and is diversified the implications of this study are twofold a social actor s sensitivity to the conduct of others may depend not only on its place in a hierarchy but also on the nature of its ties to an external audience and a contingent theory of social influence may be necessary to characterize diffusion processes correctly particularly when external and time varying nonnetwork factors have significant effects

access pricing and investment with stochastically growing demand abstract this paper examines the effect of access charges on firms incentives to invest in a network facility with a stochastically growing demand an access to bypass equilibrium is characterized in terms of an access charge and a level of network investment cost in the equilibrium a leader first enters a market by building a new network then a follower makes a sequential investment for the construction of an additional network after accessing the incumbent s network in an open access environment we confirm that the incentive for preemption can be enhanced by an increase in the access charge

does there exist a relation between inflation and relative price change variability the effect of the aggregation level abstract the actual magnitude of relative price change variability is dependent on the level of aggregation this note demonstrates the effect of this dependence when we try to estimate a relation between inflation and relative price change variability and when we perform a decomposition analysis of this variability

tying and innovation a dynamic analysis of tying arrangements this paper analyses the effects of tying arrangements on r d incentives it shows that tying is a means through which a firm can commit to more aggressive r d investment in the tied goods market tying also has the strategic effect of reducing rivals incentives to invest in r d the strategy of tying is a profitable one if the gains via an increased share of dynamic rents in the tied goods market exceed the losses that result from intensified price competition in the market the welfare implications of tying and consequently the appropriate antitrust policy are discussed

build or buy strategies in the local loop we provide a dynamic model to study how the presence of the option to buy the incumbent local exchange carrier s ilec facilities via local loop unbundling affects the competitive local exchange carriers clecs incentives to build alternative infrastructures we show that an unregulated incumbent sets a rental path for its local loop which delays technology adoption compared to the case in which there is no unbundling we also characterize the equilibrium rental path set by the unregulated incumbent it is prohibitively high at the initial phases when there is no effective threat of entry with alternative technologies and it is decreasing over time in later phases the decrease in the rental price follows the rise of the entrant s opportunity cost of leasing lines we also argue that neither allowing higher prices for unbundled elements over time nor setting a sunset clause would suffice to induce facility based competition by studying the unregulated ilecs decision regarding unbundling we challenge the implicit assumption behind the sunset clauses which is that the ilec would either deny unbundling or charge too high a price for its network elements in the absence of regulation we claim that the ilecs that initially resist unbundling requirements would tend to charge attractive access prices relative to the entrants alternatives for their infrastructure which become less essential over time this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

promoting network competition by regulating termination charges abstract this paper contributes to the policy debate about the optimal termination charge when penetration rates are explicitly taken into account although lowering termination charges towards cost leads to more efficient usage its impact on consumer surplus is ambiguous since it induces an increase in fixed subscription fee through the so called waterbed effect we show that a reduction in termination charge below cost has two opposing effects on consumer surplus it softens competition but also helps to internalize network externalities hence it can decrease or increase penetration depending on whether or not the first effect dominates the second we show that the first effect dominates the second when networks are weak substitutes or the penetration rate is high

policies and international trade agreements on technical compatibility for industries with network externalities abstract the paper considers a country home in which consumers have heterogeneous preferences over ex ante incompatible domestic and imported products and benefit from a network externality we analyze the cases with trade under perfect competition and the international duopoly in which both governments strategically use policies toward compatibility but cannot use conventional trade policies in both cases the equilibrium outcome of the non cooperative game depends upon the strength of the network externality effect and involves either an excessively high equilibrium level of compatibility in combination with either too much or too little trade or very low equilibrium levels of both compatibility and trade the paper concludes with the analysis of the international agreements on policies toward compatibility and evaluates the existing provisions in the wto legal system aimed at minimizing the trade inhibiting impact of standards and regulations in the area of technical compatibility

optimal bundling of technological products with network externality for many high tech and internet related products utility to consumers depends in part on the size of the user base a phenomenon called network externality a firm with a portfolio of these and other products that are often asymmetric in their degree of network externality or marginal cost may have to look beyond the traditional strategies of pure components pure bundling and mixed bundling one such strategic alternative in a two product case would be a so called mixed bundling 1 under which the bundle and product 1 are offered but the other product can only be purchased in a bundled form the purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the impact of such asymmetry or symmetry in direct network externality and cost on the choice of bundling strategies we model a monopolist firm that has a product in each of two categories and faces heterogeneous consumers results suggest that pure bundling is more profitable when both products have low marginal costs or high network externality whereas pure components or mixed bundling 1 is more profitable when the products diverge in their costs and network externality e g only one product has network externality traditional mixed bundling is optimal in other instances

attack defence and contagion in networks sanjeev goyal acknowledges support from a keynes fellowship cambridge inet institute and european research area complexity net resilience and interaction of networks in ecology and economics adrien vigier acknowledges support from a gates cambridge fellowship as well as a core fellowship from universite catholique de louvain

access price regulation investment and entry in telecommunications abstract we consider a model with a vertically integrated monopolist network provider who faces rival operators in the retail market we examine the network operator s incentives for infrastructure investment we find that investments are below the social optimum even when there is no regulation and access price regulation further reduces investment incentives we show that the underinvestment problem may have negative effects on the viability of competition access price regulation does not necessarily reduce the likelihood of foreclosure and in the presence of regulation rivals are most likely to be foreclosed when they would bring highest benefits to consumers

price competition and compatibility in the presence of positive demand externalities in many cases the benefit to a consumer of a product increases with the number of other users of the same product these demand interdependencies are referred to in the literature as positive demand externalities or network externalities this paper examines the dynamic pricing behaviors of an incumbent and a later entrant with special attention to the impacts of demand externalities compatibility and competition on prices and profits defining market power as the ability to price above a competitor without losing market share we show how demand externalities and installed base combine to confer market power we model optimal pricing as a differential game with the optimal price trajectory established as nash open loop controls for a duopoly durable goods market with strong demand externalities the results show an increasing price trajectory can be optimal as expected a new entrant is better off if its products are compatible with those of the incumbent especially when demand externalities are strong and the installed base of the incumbent is large less intuitively the incumbent as well may be better off agreeing on common standards the comparison of monopoly and duopoly shows that under strong demand externalities and a small installed base the incumbent profits from compatible entry

exclusionary pricing in markets with interdependent demands in this paper i use a simple model to study the competitive effects of exclusionary pricing involving two markets related by a positive demand externality it is shown that below cost pricing on one of these markets can allow an incumbent firm to exclude from both markets a more efficient rival which does not have a customer base yet however when exclusion occurs it is always socially optimal in addition under some circumstances there is inefficient entry the entrant wins both markets while the social optimum would require the incumbent to win them

diffusion of a new product under network effects the us dvd market we formulate a model that captures the inter dependence between hardware demand and software supply indirect network effect in the dvd industry the identification of the network effect comes from the difference in software availability across two different formats vhs and dvd we find that a 1 increase in the number of dvd titles raises the demand for dvd players by 0 87 simultaneously a 1 increase in video player ownership leads to a 0 14 increase in the variety of video titles our simulations show that hardware manufacturers might be able to internalize the network externality to increase total industry revenues

business to business bargaining in two sided markets abstract bargaining regularly takes place on the business to business side of two sided markets however little is known about the consequences of these negotiations in this paper we allow the platform or a policy maker to choose between a standard design offering posted prices to both sides or a design with bargaining offering a posted price to consumers and negotiating with at least some firms we find that the platform pursues negotiations when it has a strong bargaining position and does so by targeting firms with the largest network effects while this behavior may appear exploitive we show that profits and welfare often align across platform designs this alignment stems from how bargaining incentivizes the platform greater platform bargaining power allows the platform to extract more of the network surpluses since it can convert more of the firm surplus into profits and this incentivizes the platform to draw in greater participation generating greater welfare these results suggest that platform and policy maker preferences often align in this setting

grabber holder dynamics and network effects in technology innovation abstract economists and marketing researchers have examined how network effects can have an impact on the adoption of technology and products and how an intrinsic inferior product or technology may dominate the market however their studies have not explained how a producer could create network effect for a new product and how after successfully creating the network effect for this product the producer could lose it in a short period of time while these studies provide insight into technology innovation after it happened they fail to shed light on understanding many of the surprises that we experience in the process the objective of this paper is to present a fundamental framework that helps us understand most of the surprising outcomes that we have seen in technology innovation processes especially the winners and losers in an innovation process the framework is built on a grabber holder dynamic model that captures how all the intelligent agents involved in an innovation shape the forces that either induce a strong network effect or destroy a network effect that is already in place the model can be used to explain many surprising events that have happened in technology innovation in this paper i apply the model to the personal computer innovation

can two part tariffs promote efficient investment on next generation networks abstract we analyze if two part access tariffs solve the dynamic consistency problem of the regulation of next generation networks we model the industry as a duopoly where a vertically integrated incumbent and a downstream entrant that requires access to the incumbent s network compete on hotelling s line the incumbent can invest in the deployment of a next generation network that improves the quality of the retail services we have three main results first we show that if the regulator can commit to a policy a regulatory moratorium may emerge as socially optimal second we show that if the regulator cannot commit to a policy it can induce investment only when the investment cost is low third we show that in this case two part tariffs involve very large payments from the entrant to the incumbent

network effects software provision and standardization in this paper we examine the software provision decision of software firms the provision decision by software firms determines the value and hence the market share of competing hardware technologies we show how the provision decision by software firms determines whether multiple hardware technologies are supported in equilibrium or whether there is de facto standardization with only one hardware technology supplied with software in equilibrium we show that when consumers place a high value on software variety there is a suboptimal amount of standardization by the market

the relationship between relative prices and the general price level it is very nearly a truismi amaong neoclassical economists that the public is wont to confuse changes in the general price level with relative price changes correspondingl y one might speak of the independence between the two as one of the central postulates of the neoclassical tradition william stanley jevons was aml ong the first to identify this basic dichotomin economic life as well as to attempt to explain the ordinary citizen s seenming incapacity to understand it

entry in monopoly market this paper develops new empirical models of market concentration from game theoretic models of entry we construct our models from inequality conditions that describe entrants equilibrium strategies in simultaneous move and sequential move games and use them to study the effects of entry in isolated monopoly markets for new automobiles from estimates of the market size necessary to support one and two dealers we conclude that monopoly dealers do not block the entry of a second dealer we also find that entry does not cause price cost margins to fall by much

uncertainties in future energy demand in uk residential heating fossil fuels are the main source of space heating in the uk and therefore climate mitigation implies a systemic change in space heating systems the challenge is difficult because of an inefficient building stock and high penetration of natural gas we present new quantified scenarios for residential energy use in the uk to 2050 with minimal policy intervention the uk will remain locked into a gas based heating system which would conflict with the policy goal of decarbonisation however there is a range of scenarios in which this is avoided a system heavily reliant on heat pumps powered by low carbon electricity is uk policy makers currently preferred alternative we conclude that some shift in this direction is likely to be required but complete reliance on this solution raises a number of problems greater use of energy efficiency and biomass can also play a significant role these options have different risks but a more diversified strategy would be more prudent we conclude that the future of uk residential space heating is very uncertain but meeting low carbon heating goals is better conceptualised as reducing reliance on gas rather than necessarily mass electrification our analysis has implications for any country with high use of fossil fuels in space heating and ambitious decarbonisation goals

competing by restricting choice the case of search platforms we show that a two sided matching platform can successfully compete by limiting the number of choices it offers to its customers while charging higher prices than platforms with unrestricted choice we develop a stylized model of online dating where agents with different outside options match based on how much they like each other starting from these microfoundations we derive the strength and direction of indirect network effects and show that increasing the number of potential matches has a positive effect due to larger choice but also a negative effect due to competition between agents on the same side agents resolve the trade off between these competing effects differently depending on their outside options for agents with high outside options the choice effect is stronger than the competition effect leading them to prefer an unrestricted choice platform the opposite is the case for agents with low outside options who then have higher willingness to pay for a platform restricting choice as

limits and uncertainty for energy efficiency in the uk housing stock abstract the uk government s clean growth strategy unambiguously described the decarbonisation of heat as the uk s greatest policy and technical challenge in meeting our carbon targets maximising the potential for energy efficiency in the existing domestic stock is critical to the low carbon heat transition good information exists on the technical potential for energy efficiency measures in the uk stock however a lack of knowledge about current stock conditions and in use factors places considerable uncertainty on how much of this technical potential is achievable in practice this study uses data from the fifth carbon budget cb5 policy projections and updates the in use factors using measured data from the national energy efficiency database need this results in a 26 shortfall by 2035 in the anticipated energy savings through cavity solid wall and loft insulation compared to what is assumed in the cb5 projections this will have costly implications for meeting future carbon budgets risks and policy implications are discussed the practical potential for energy efficiency measures beyond cavity solid wall and loft insulation is explored

social capital for hire mobility of technical professionals and firm influence in wireless standards committees the movement of personnel between firms has been shown to have important implications for firms yet there has been little direct investigation of the underlying mechanisms we propose that in addition to their human capital mobile individuals carry social capital affecting the outcomes of the firms they join and leave by altering the patterns of interaction between firms in this study we examine how job mobility affects firm influence in a technical standards setting committee for u s wireless telecommunications we hypothesize and find that hiring individuals who are richer in social capital increases firm influence in technical standards setting committees by increasing the hiring firm s social capital we also find the benefits of hiring social capital are attenuated when an interfirm relationship is maintained by multiple individuals in contrast we find that the loss of personnel does not affect a firm s social capital or influence over standards directly but that it does have an effect on firm social capital and influence contingent on changes in the firm s business strategy in advancing these arguments we address the broader question of individuals as carriers of social capital and the conditions under which interpersonal connections are appropriable by firms

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

waves in consumption with interdependence among consumers this paper presents a model to analyze the development of consumption patterns when there are social interactions among consumers in particular a consumer in this model recognizes three reference groups a peer group of similar consumers with whom the consumer wishes to share consumption activities a distinction group from which the consumer wishes to distinguish him or herself and an aspiration group to which the consumer does not belong but wishes that he she did and with whom the consumer would like to share consumption activities the interplay of aspiration and distinction can lead to waves in consumption these can happen when for example the avant garde consumption of up market pioneers is copied by other types of consumer as the latter aspire to emulate the former the former in turn seek to distinguish themselves from these unwelcome companions by varying their consumption in consequence a particular consumption activity may start up market an then gradually proceed down the social spectrum more complex patterns with continuing cycles in consumption can also be found the paper argues that this model is not only applicable to the consumption behaviour of an elite or would be elite but is relevant in a wide range of consumption settings

competing technologies the learning curve and rational expectations abstract the problem of choice between several variants of a technology subject to dynamic learning economies is examined in a rational expectations model with overlapping adopters it is shown that even with rational expectations the long term market outcome depends sensitively on the pattern of early chance events and that only one variant of the technology will come to dominate the market in the long run this variant need not be the one which is socially optimal or most promising technically

globalizing carbon lock in this paper extends the arguments surrounding carbon lock in elaborated in unruh energy policy 28 2000 817 30 2002 317 to countries currently undergoing industrialization it argues that for numerous reasons industrializing countries are unlikely to leapfrog carbon intensive energy development on the contrary carbon lock in may be globalizing and could further constrain climate change mitigation options it is then argued that many policy recommendations ignore carbon lock in possibly limiting their potential for successful implementation the paper then discusses four policy approaches that appear to have advantages given lock in conditions it is recognized however that relative ease of implementation does not necessarily equate with superiority instead it is merely a path dependent outcome of past development decisions pursuing policies on the basis of relative implementation ease may help address the issue of climate change but could also result in sub optimal outcomes along other dimensions of sustainable development

from exogenous to endogenous economic networks internet applications economic agents behaviour is affected by their position in a network either exogenous or endogenous in which they interact with a sub set of neighbours only the network s links which may be generated by vertical and or horizontal relations or by more complex morphologies may explain the transition between dynamic equilibria and the instability of economic aggregates moreover networks shape strategic interaction among agents by determining their strategies the problem of access and interconnection particularly relevant in the internet is perhaps the best example a two way feedback between strategies and network structures arises instead when links are endogenous those features are clearly shown in the mechanism underlying the formation of peering links an dr d networks

a global game with strategic substitutes and complements abstract we study a global game in which actions are strategic complements over some region and strategic substitutes over another region an agent s payoff depends on a market fundamental and the actions of other agents if the degree of congestion is sufficiently large agents strategies are non monotonic in their signal about the market fundamental in this case a signal that makes them believe that the market fundamental is more favorable for an action may make them less likely to take the action because of the risk of overcrowding

growth incentives to invest in a network externality environment firms that operate in the telecommunications industry often have to make large and risky investments in digital infrastructure this paper examines how firm size affects the incentive to invest in infrastructure projects in industry environments that incur substantial network externalities we suggest that in the presence of network externalities a firm s rate of growth first declines and then increases with the size of its user base an implication of this result is that firms may benefit from making investments in emerging digital infrastructure early enough to achieve a substantial user base and to gain that user base before other firms investments pre empt them the results mean that firms that undertake earlier successful investment may achieve preemption very quickly the sources of network externalities contribute to the incidence of strategic alliances in network industries particularly when coupled with the pressures of technical uncertainty copyright 1998 by oxford university press

social learning and dynamic pricing of durable goods we analyze the impacts of social learning sl on the dynamic pricing and consumer adoption of durable goods in a two period monopoly consumers can make either early uninformed purchases or late but potentially informed purchases as a result of social learning several results are derived first we identify the market conditions under which ex ante homogeneous consumers may choose to purchase at different times second equilibrium adoption may demonstrate inertia where all adopt late or frenzy where all adopt early in particular adoption inertia appears when sl intensity is reasonably high but may vanish when sl intensity exceeds a certain threshold third firm profits and social welfare first weakly decrease in sl intensity and may then jump up by a lump sum amount at the threshold sl intensity level mentioned above last we show that the firm potentially benefits from informative advertising or investing to cultivate more social learning

speeding up the internet regulation and investment in european fiber optic infrastructure in this paper we study how the coexistence of access regulations for legacy copper and fiber networks shapes the incentives to invest in network infrastructure to this end we develop a theoretical model explaining investment incentives by incumbent telecom operators and heterogeneous entrants and test its main predictions using panel data from 27 eu member states over the last decade our theoretical model extends the existing literature by among other things allowing for heterogeneous entrants in internet access markets as we consider both other telecom and cable tv operators as entrants in the empirical part we use a novel data set including information on physical fiber network investments legacy network access regulation and recently imposed fiber access regulations our main finding is that more stringent access regulations for both the legacy and the fiber networks harm investments by incumbent telecom operators but in line with our theoretical model do not affect cable tv operators

coordinating adoption decisions under externalities and incomplete information abstract a monopolist sells a good whose value depends on the number of buyers who adopt it as well as on their private types the seller coordinates the buyers adoption decisions based on their reported types and charges them the price based on the number of adoptions we study ex post implementable sales schemes that are collusion proof and show that under the revenue maximizing scheme more buyer types are willing to adopt when there are more adoptions and the number of adoptions is maximized subject to the participation constraints

rational incompatibility with international product standards abstract international product standardization enables traditional price based competition but the existence of redesign costs or network effects creates market frictions that diminish the incentive to standardize if there already exists a different technology in an established market this leads to multi attribute competition between products and will generally reduce trade flows not only do incumbent firms using a different technology have an incentive to deviate from an international standard but a host country government concerned for its consumers welfare has no incentive to enforce the international standard and may even value deviation from the international standard through technical barriers to trade

the diffusion of clean technologies a review with suggestions for future diffusion analysis abstract this article gives an overview of the literature on clean technology diffusion followed by suggestions for future analysis findings from diffusion analysis are presented in the form of 10 stylised facts helping the reader to see the forest for the trees the overall conclusion is that the diffusion of clean technology same as the diffusion of normal innovations is governed by endogenous mechanism epidemic learning and learning economies and by exogenous mechanisms policy is important for clean technology diffusion but other factors are important too the characteristics of the clean technology absorptive capacities of potential adopters and the age structure of capital it is often overlooked that companies have a choice they can choose between an end of pipe solution a process change adaptation and a change of process substitution this means that the diffusion and evolution of one clean technology will be at the expense of the diffusion of another clean technology something overlooked in studies on clean technology diffusion further research is needed on the influence of public policy on clean technology choice expectations about learning economies and prices adjustment costs network externalities and complementary innovations on clean technology adoption choices

telecommunications infrastructure and economic development a simultaneous approach in diesem beitrag wird untersucht welchen einflus die telekommunikations infrastruktur auf die wirtschaftliche entwicklung ausubt diese wichtige frage hat im zusammenhang mit der diskussion um informationsautobahnen aktualitat erlangt in der vorliegenden studie wird der einflus der telekommunikations infrastruktur fur 21 oecdlander fur die vergangenen 20 jahre analysiert es wird ein strukturgleichungsmodell geschatzt in dem investitionen in die telekommunikations infrastruktur als endogene variable erfast werden und in einem mikromodell angebot und nachfrage nach telekommunikations investitionen spezifiziert werden das mikromodell wird dann zusammen mit der makro wachstumsgleichung geschatzt als ergebnis stellen die autoren dann eine positive kausalbeziehung zwischen telekommunikations investitionen und wirtschaftlicher entwicklung fest wenn eine kritische masse an telekommunikations infrastruktur existiert

the market value of rarity abstract most theories of demand assume that consumers value the characteristics of products but are unconcerned with how many other consumers also consume the product however several theories of demand argue that consumers can value the exclusivity of possessing a rare object we test this implication on a particular collectible rare coins our paper examines the case of coins of a given type and identical quality that have mintages in different quantities this allows us to exclude the common case in which rarity or price itself is an indicator of quality for our sample rarer coins command higher prices rarity in the form of original mintage more strongly influences the market price than does collectibility as represented by the rarest coins of each mint mark or year we also point out that here may be other goods such as automobiles for which rarity may influence market demand

local network externalities and market segmentation this paper models interaction between groups of agents by means of a graph where each node represents a group of agents and an arc represents bilateral interaction it departs from the standard katz shapiro framework by assuming that network benefits are restricted only amongst groups of linked agents it shows that even if rival firms engage in bertrand competition this form of network externalities permits strong market segmentation in which firms divide up the market and earn positive profits the analysis also shows that some graphs or network structures do not permit such segmentation while for others there are easy to interpret conditions under which market segmentation obtains in equilibrium c 2009 elsevier b v all rights reserved

the welfare implications of unauthorized reproduction of intellectual property in the presence of demand network externalities this paper finds that unauthorized reproduction of intellectual property in the presence of demand network externalities can not only induce greater firm profits relative to the case where there is no copying it can lead to a pareto improvement in social welfare ceteris paribus when network externalities are present firms have a greater incentive to expand output because marginal revenue is higher and or they may wish to create preemptive installed bases this paper suggests that unauthorized copying can be a relatively efficient means of achieving this by allowing the firm in effect to price discriminate among different classes of consumers copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

access pricing competition and incentives to migrate from old to new technology abstract in this paper we analyze the incentives of an incumbent and an entrant to migrate from an old technology to a new technology and discuss how the terms of wholesale access affect this migration we show that the coverage of the new technology varies non monotonically with the access price of the old technology a higher access charge on the legacy network pushes the entrant firm to invest more but has an ambiguous effect on the incumbent s investments due to two conflicting effects the wholesale revenue effect and the retail level migration effect when the new technology is also subject to access provision we find that migration from the old to the new generation network at the wholesale level can be incentivized if a positive correlation between the access prices to the two old and new generation networks is maintained

unbundling the local loop abstract we study competition for high bandwidth services in the telecommunications industry by introducing the possibility of unbundling the local loop where leased lines permit the entrant to provide services without building up its own infrastructure we use a dynamic model of technology adoption and study the incentives of the entrant to lease loops and compete service based and or to build up a new and more efficient infrastructure and compete facility based given the rental price we show that the incumbent sets too low a rental price for its loops hence the entrant adopts the new technology too late from a social welfare perspective the distortion may appear not only on the timing of technology adoption but also on the type quality of the new technology to be adopted we also show that while regulating the rental price may suffice to achieve socially desirable outcomes a sunset clause does not improve social welfare

uk energy policy stuck in ideological limbo energy policy in the uk has undergone a paradigm change over recent decades from the free market stance of the 1990s to the more interventionist measures of the 21st century however the two approaches have not been reconciled even as the government intervenes it reaffirms its goal of creating more competitive markets the contradictions are most apparent with electricity which has been the main focus of intervention to date in line with decarbonisation strategy investment is dependent on government support which changes in response to circumstances creating uncertainty and undermining the basis of market operation so leading to the need for more intervention the future for other sources natural gas nuclear power and carbon capture and storage in particular remains unclear the government risks getting the worst of both worlds without the coordination and direction which could come from a centralised approach or the efficiencies and innovation which might emerge from a more consistent market based policy unless a fuller policy statement expected later this year can clarify matters uk energy policy will not be fit for purpose and will fail to meet its key goals of economic effectiveness environmental protection and energy security

configuring value for competitive advantage on chains shops and networks building on thompson s 1967 typology of long linked intensive and mediating technologies this paper explores the idea that the value chain the value shop and the value network are three distinct generic value configuration models required to understand and analyze firm level value creation logic across a broad range of industries and firms while the long linked technology delivers value by transforming inputs into products the intensive technology delivers value by resolving unique customer problems and the mediating technology delivers value by enabling direct and indirect exchanges between customers with the identification of alternative value creation technologies value chain analysis is both sharpened and generalized into what we propose as a value configuration analysis approach to the diagnosis of competitive advantage with the long linked technology and the corresponding value chain configuration model as benchmark the paper reviews the distinctive logic and develops models of the value shop and the value network in terms of primary activity categories drivers of cost and value and strategic positioning options 1998 john wiley sons ltd

to segregate or to integrate education politics and democracy how is the quality of public education affected by the presence of private schools for the rich theory and evidence suggest that the link depends crucially on the political system we develop a theory that integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public schooling expenditures we find that the presence of a large private education sector benefits public schools in a broad based democracy where politicians are responsive to low income families but crowds out public education spending in a society that is politically dominated by the rich the main predictions of the theory are consistent with state level data and micro data from the u s as well as cross country evidence from the programme for international student assessment study

modelling socio economic and energy data to generate business as usual scenarios for carbon emissions abstract the uk government is legally committed to achieving an 80 reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with 1990 by 2050 the use of scenarios is wide ranging to inform policy development and forming a business as usual scenario helps to understand possible effects of different policy interventions however the term business as usual is frequently misused we show how econo physical business as usual scenarios can be developed by examining the historical behaviour of coefficients which manifest the relationship between components of an economy we endogenise economic growth by mimicking national level policies that focus on a target level of unemployment our case study demonstrates the trendability of coefficients which for one example coefficient is replicated for australia colombia taiwan and the usa we manifest a gross domestic product growth of 2 falling to 1 which contrasts with an exogenous growth of 2 3 of a comparator business as usual scenario we suggest that it may be possible to achieve a greater reduction in the business as usual carbon dioxide emissions in the uk fifth carbon budget than currently projected

relation between inflation and relative price variability in the united states evidence from data for the 1980s abstract monthly cpi data for 1967 1986 in respect of 10 major categories are utilized the most significant result is a strongly negative association between relative price variability and inflation as well as its expected and unexpected components during the 1980s variations in the estimated coefficients for the three subperiods studied also seem interesting

inflation and relative price variability effect of temporal aggregation abstract the effect of temporal aggregation on the relation between inflation and variability of relative price changes in the united states is studied by using monthly consumer price index cpi data as well as quarterly observations derived by averaging the monthly series estimates from monthly and quarterly data show major differences for the periods 1973 1986 and 1980 1986

relative price variability and inflation in an equilibrium price misperceptions model evidence for the uk in this paper we investigate the relationship between relative price variability and inflation in the united kingdom using the equilibrium price misperceptions model of lucas american economic review 1973 63 526 534 we obtain a data consistent version of the equilibrium price misperceptions model linking relative price variability inflation and a small set of key macroeconomic variables we find a significant positive role for inflation in explaining relative price variability and suggest that this may be due to a positive relation between the variance of sector specific shocks and inflation

the city network paradigm measuring urban network externalities in recent years network behaviour has been analysed extensively as the emerging model for economic growth by network behaviour a metaphor for co operative behaviour among individuals corporate

theorizing path dependence a review of positive feedback mechanisms in technology markets regional clusters and organizations the concept of path dependence has often been criticized as vague and only narrowly applicable although we can find some very refined definitions of the concept we also find a wide range of empirical phenomena being described as path dependent we argue that more detailed accounts of the positive feedback mechanisms that form paths can take path dependence beyond this state of being overdetermined but under specified reviewing three well described cases of path dependent dynamics in technology markets regional clustering and organizations we define a core set of positive feedback mechanisms that constitute path dependence at different analysis levels and clarify the relationship between positive feedback and increasing returns we show that path dependent processes that is processes driven by positive feedback that veer toward rigidity or lock in can be but do not have to be found under many labels including structural inertia coevolution or institutional persistence we conclude that a precise definition of path dependence does not need to be at odds with the concept s widespread use in understanding organizational and industrial development processes copyright 2013 the author 2012 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

modelling the diffusion and operation of anaerobic digestions in great britain under future scenarios within the scope of water energy food nexus abstract the paper aims to understand the impacts of the spatial and temporal diffusion of anaerobic digestion ad on the water energy food wef nexus and to quantify the associated environmental social and economic benefits contemporary tight carbon reduction targets urge the need to deploy renewable energy technologies however due to interdependencies across the wef nexus various technologies are beneficial for some but not all sectors this paper quantifies the impacts of future possible ad technology diffusion choices on the environment society and economy this can aid decision makers to identify the potential consequences of various ad alternatives within the next three decades the study considers an integrated wef nexus approach and accounts for the interdependencies within the nexus this was done by developing an agent based model abm and simulating the relations between the main players within the nexus thus examining the upscaling of ad diffusion and its consequences for water consumption energy production transportation landfill use food waste processing and digestate generation three future wef nexus scenarios that reflect potential alternatives of society and technology in great britain up to 2050 were utilised by the abm implementation to test the sensitivity of ad diffusion choices these scenarios describe possible changes to lifestyle governance technologies climate and social structures accounting for the uncertainty associated with such future simulations the monte carlo method was employed to estimate the potential variations in scenario outputs results suggest that decentralisation results in the largest carbon reduction but can incur more costs centralisation consumes 35 more water but produces 37 more energy biogas the paper has visualised the scenario outputs graphically to highlight the consequences of neglecting the inter relationships between environmental social and economic aspects of ad

network effects market structure and industry performance abstract this paper analyzes oligopolistic markets with network externalities exploiting a minimal complementarity structure on the model primitives that allows for pure network goods we prove existence of non trivial fulfilled expectations equilibrium we formalize the concept of industry viability investigate its determinants and show that it improves with more firms in the market and or by technological progress these results enlighten some well known conclusions from case studies in the management strategy literature we also characterize the effects of market structure on industry performance which depart substantially from ordinary markets the approach relies on lattice theoretic methods supplemented with basic insights from nonsmooth analysis

technology choice and timing with positive network effects abstract when two competing and incompatible products coexist in a market potential users face a choice between the two products and the alternative of deferring the decision this paper examines the choice between the two substitutes where each one is subject to a positive network effect that is a user of one of the products experiences an increase in the value for each additional person using the same product we examine this buy or wait problem either for an individual or a manager making the investment on behalf of a firm by formulating and analyzing a decision theoretic model to model the stochastic evolution of market share we build on the generalized polya urn of arthur et al arthur w b ermoliev y m kaniovski y m 1987 path dependent processes and the emergence of macro structure european journal of operational research 30 3 294 303 allowing for composition of the market to affect not just the relative market shares but also the absolute growth rate of the market we show that the optimal strategy is defined by a pair of market penetration thresholds that depend on the market composition looking at the effect of the network effects on the optimal strategy we find that more pronounced network effects can either raise or lower the penetration thresholds

inflation and relative price variability the effect of commodity aggregation using quarterly us data for 1948 89 we study the effect of the level of commodity aggregation on the relation between inflation and relative price variability the effect is assessed for the full period and the subperiods 1948 73 and 1974 89 the relationship is investigated for actual inflation as well as its expected and unexpected components although the parameter estimates show sizeable differences across the two aggregation levels the qualitative picture is the same for both levels in all cases one of the by products of the exercise is the observation that unexpected inflation shows a much stronger positive covariation with relative price variability than the expected component

a positive theory of flexibility in accounting standards abstract we develop a positive theory of accounting standards when standards generate network externalities and differ in the amount of reporting discretion or flexibility they provide firms we evaluate expected value maximizing firms preferences between two standards regimes rigid and flexible as the number of firms subject to each standard varies as the organization of the securities market varies and as the mapping from the underlying economics of the firms transactions to the accounting reports produced under the two standards vary we also compare firms preferences between the two regimes to the preferences of profit maximizing traders in the firms securities

the economics of convention c onventions regulate much of economic and social life yet they have received surprisingly little attention from economists by a convention we mean a pattern of behavior that is customary expected and self enforcing everyone conforms everyone expects others to conform and everyone has good reason to conform because conforming is in each person s best interest when everyone else plans to conform lewis 1969 familiar examples include following rules of the road adhering to conventional codes of dress and using words with their conventional meanings conventions with direct economic implications include species of money and credit industrial and technological standards accounting rules and forms of economic contracts indeed it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that almost all economic and social institutions are governed to some extent by convention the main feature of a convention is that out of a host of conceivable choices only one is actually used this fact also explains why conventions are needed they resolve problems of indeterminacy in interactions that have multiple equilibria indeed from a formal point of view we may define a convention as an equilibrium that everyone expects in interactions that have more than one equilibrium the economic significance of conventions is that they reduce transaction costs imagine the inconvenience if whenever two vehicles approached one another the important exceptions are sugden 1986 and ullman margalit 1977 the interested reader might also refer to the symposium on social norms that appeared in the fall 1989 issue of this journal with articles by sugden 1989 and elster 1989

strategic investments with spillovers vertical integration and foreclosure in the broadband access market abstract we analyse competition between two retailers of broadband access when they differ in their ability to offer value added services one retailer is vertically integrated and controls the input market for local access this firm invests to increase the input quality upgrading to broadband before an access price regulation is set we first show that access price regulation may lower consumer surplus and welfare if retailers do not differ too much second if the integrated firm s ability to offer value added services is much higher than that of the rival the integrated firm uses overinvestment as an alternative foreclosure tool

product compatibility as a signal of quality in a market with network externalities abstract in this paper i consider the compatibility decision as a signaling device of the quality of a newly introduced technology of which users are not informed provided that firms are located sufficiently far apart in hotelling s 0 1 interval i find separating equilibria where low compatibility signals high quality this possible separation is due to the fact that low compatibility is more advantageous to the high quality entrant than to the low quality entrant since it can prevent users of the established technology from enjoying network benefits from the new technology very much

dynamic access pricing and investment in alternative infrastructures abstract we analyze the impact of access price regulation on the entrants investment in network quality we consider a dynamic framework where developing an alternative infrastructure requires both time and a captive customer base we show that a multi period schedule where regulated access charges rise over time is critical to foster efficient infrastructure investment nonetheless a sunset clause on regulation dilutes investment incentives we also show that in the absence of regulatory commitment the time dependent schedule may not be robust to sequential entry hence to preserve investment by early entrants access charges should depend both on time and the entry period in such a way that each entrant is provided with the same dynamic access conditions the relevance of these issues carries over to the prospective deployment of new access infrastructures the so called next generation access networks

obtaining strategic advantage from being imitated when can encouraging clones pay an important business strategy research theme concerns finding ways to minimize competition faced by the firm this paper however focuses on a different set of situations the model developed suggests that an innovator s best strategy may be to encourage clones of its product when a network externality is present key factors to consider in assessing whether encouraging cloning is the innovator s best strategy are 1 the benefit to be derived in terms of added user base contributed by the clone sales traded off against 2 the unit sales that will be lost to the clones these factors in turn depend upon the strength of the network effect and the degree to which the innovator s product quality is perceived by consumers to be superior to the clone s the model further suggests that both the innovator and clone earn their highest payoffs when the clone takes the lead in price setting i e when the clone establishes its own price by considering for each price it might set how the innovator will react to that price and the innovator as price follower responds to the price the clone chooses the paper demonstrates that the clone leader innovator follower situation represents the unique nash equilibrium in price setting strategies a central implication is that when operating in a network externality environment instead of a problem to be avoided clones may be valuable assets to an innovating firm building up the user base for the innovator s technology by bringing lower valuing consumers into the market which in turn makes the innovator s product more attractive to high and medium valuing purchasers thus when the above described conditions hold being cloned can be more profitable for an innovating firm than dominating the market alone

technical compatibility and the mode of foreign entry with network externalities we examine the preferences of a foreign firm and a local government over two modes of foreign direct investment de novo entry and acquisition of the domestic incumbent two crucial features of the model are network externalities and partial incompatibility between the domestic and the foreign technology the relative welfare impact of the two entry modes depends on the degree of market competition and the strength of the network externality the clash between the foreign firm s choice and the local government s ranking of the two entry modes can motivate limits on the degree of foreign ownership of the local firm ce texte examine les preferences d une firme etrangere et d un gouvernement du pays hote quant a deux modes d investissement direct de l etranger entree de novo de la firme etrangere versus acquisition d une firme domestique en place deux facteurs pris en compte sont la presence d externalites de reseau et d incompatibilite partielle entre la technologie locale et celle introduite par la firme etrangere l impact relatif des modes d entree sur le mieux etre local depend du degre de concurrence sur le marche et de l importance des externalites de reseau le conflit entre les preferences de l entreprise etrangere et les preferences du gouvernement local peuvent etre a la source de politiques qui limitent le degre de proprieteetrangere permis

do energy scenarios pay sufficient attention to the environment lessons from the uk to support improved policy outcomes scenario development is widely used to support the formation of energy policy but many energy scenarios consider environmental interactions only in terms of climate change we suggest that efforts to develop more holistic energy pathways going beyond post hoc analysis of environmental and social implications can usefully draw on environmental scenarios a detailed content analysis of uk energy and environmental scenarios was therefore undertaken with energy scenarios selected on the basis that they were recent had a direct link to energy policy and covered a range of scenario types the energy scenarios rarely considered societal drivers beyond decarbonisation and focused on quantifiable parameters such as gdp while the environmental scenarios provided a richer narrative on human behaviour and social change as socio economic issues remain fundamental to the success of energy policies this is a key area which should be better addressed within energy scenarios the environmental impacts of energy scenarios were rarely considered but could have a significant bearing on the likelihood of pathway outcomes being realised fuller evaluation of the environmental interactions of energy systems is therefore required although the analysis focuses on the uk some international scenarios show similar limitations suggesting that the conclusions are more widely applicable