Simplicial-simplicial regression refers to the regression setting where both the responses and predictor variables lie within the simplex space, i.e. they are compositional. For this setting, constrained least squares, where the regression coefficients themselves lie within the simplex, is proposed. The model is transformation-free but the adoption of a power transformation is straightforward, it can treat more than one compositional datasets as predictors and offers the possibility of weights among the simplicial predictors. Among the model’s advantages are its ability to treat zeros in a natural way and a highly computationally efficient algorithm to estimate its coefficients. Resampling based hypothesis testing procedures are employed regarding inference, such as linear independence, and equality of the regression coefficients to some pre-specified values. The performance of the proposed technique and its comparison to an existing methodology that is of the same spirit takes place u
We examine the effects of (passive) cross-holdings in the downstream market on the sustainability of upstream collusion. We consider two competing vertical chains with downstream Cournot and homogeneous goods. Each downstream firm holds a (symmetric) non-controlling share of its rival.
We analyze a novel tax mechanism in imperfectly competitive markets. The government announces an excise tax rate and auctions-off a number of tax exemptions. Namely, it invites the firms in a market to acquire the right to be exempted from the excise tax. The highest bidders are exempted by paying their bids; and all other firms remain subject to it.
We study how overlapping ownership affects the timing and size of capacity investments in duopoly. In addition to standard accommodation and delay strategies, internalization allows a leader to block follower entry. Follower timing and capacity reactions are less aggressive, making outcomes less competitive ex-post. Positional competition is more intense, and entry occurs earlier in equilibrium. Internalization raises a leader's incentive to delay follower entry rather than accommodate, and we show with an example that this strategic shift can benefit consumers.
The present paper develops a novel methodology for measuring the economic losses resulting from the negative health impacts of pesticides while taking into account their role as a damage control agent. To this effect a production model is presented that takes into account both the effect of the health impairment caused by pesticides on labor units and the pest control and crop enhancing properties of pesticides.
This paper develops a theoretical framework for modeling farm households' joint production and consumption decisions in the presence of technical inefficiency. Following Lopez (1984), a household model where farmers display different preferences between on-farm and off-farm labor is adopted while their production activity can be subject to technical inefficiency. The presence of technical inefficiency does not only lead to the inability of farmers to achieve maximal output but it will also affect the consumption allocation and the household's labor supply decisions through its effect on both income and on the shadow price of on-farm labor, leading to overall household inefficiency.
We present a new model for analyzing compositional data with structural zeros. Inspired by \cite{butler2008} who suggested a model in the presence of zero values in the data we propose a model that treats the zero values in a different manner. Instead of projecting every zero value towards a vertex, we project them onto their corresponding edge and fit a zero-censored multivariate model.
In the present paper we develop a two-period unionized mixed duopoly model, furnished with second period- demand shocks, where decentralized firm-specific wage bargains are struck in each period before product market competition is in place.
We study firms’ incentives to offer profit-sharing schemes in a unionized differentiated goods duopoly in which firms bargain with a sector-wide union or firm-specific unions over the selected remuneration schemes.
In many sectors technological conditions of firm production require the use of specific inputs that are at the same time hazardous for firm workers. Safety rules on the application of these health damaging inputs are not always followed. This in turn implies that firms suffer from important productivity losses due to deterioration of their human capital.
We analyze a sequential innovation model and show that narrow patent rights can facilitate a market in which startups’ patents are traded as negotiating assets.
This paper explores how vertical relations influence the timing of new technology adop- tion. It shows that both the bargaining power distribution among the vertically related firms and the contract type through which vertical trading is conducted affect crucially the speed of adoption: the downstream firms can adopt later a new technology when the upstream bargaining power increases as well as when wholesale price contracts, instead of two-part tariffs, are employed.
We investigate the market and societal effects of a socially responsible multinational enterprise’s entry in a host market through exports and through FDI, the determinants of the multinational’s decision between exports and FDI, as well as the respective host country’s policies. We find that the multinational enterprise, seeking for a competitive advantage in the host market, strategically engages in CSR activities and meets the corresponding demand by socially conscious consumers.
In a union-oligopoly framework with differentiated products, this paper endogenizes the mode of product market competition by exploring its strategic role on firms' incentives for collusion.
In a union-oligopoly static framework we study the role of unions regarding the possibility and the effects of endogenous cartel formation.
In the context of a dynamic game-theoretic analysis we investigate the conditions under which firm-level unions may strategically collude, or not, and the impact of their decisions upon the firms’ incentives to individually spend on R&D investments.
This paper investigates unionized oligopolistic markets with differentiated products and quality improvement-R&D investments.
In a union-oligopoly context, we interpret the optimal equilibria may arise from the implementation of any possible policies of a benevolent social planner in the labour market
In a unionized Cournot duopoly under decentralized wage bargaining regime, we analyzed undeclared labour in a matrix game. We reveal the opportunity cost between taxation and contributions for social insurance that firms and unions face, while we examine all relevant possible unilateral deviations from firms and unions.
In a union-oligopoly context, we interpret the optimal equilibria may arise from the implementation of any possible policies of a benevolent social planner in the labour market.
In a duopoly where firms are competing by adjusting their quantities and the wages are exogenously determined, we analyze the undeclared labour phenomenon and its side effects in product market. Our analysis focuses on the opportunity cost between the taxation and the contributions for social security.
Undeclared labour constitutes a complex phenomenon that has not yet been analyzed within I/O framework. In a unionized duopoly under decentralized wage bargaining context, we reveal the opportunity cost that exists between the taxation and the contributions for social insurance.
The present paper examines the firms' incentives to adopt a new cost reducing technology in vertically related markets, as well as, the effects of the vertical relations on the firms' timing of adoption.
The present paper compares the Cournot and Bertrand equilibrium outcomes and social welfare in vertically related markets with upstream monopolistic market structure, where the trade between the upstream monopolist and the downstream firms is conducted via two-part tariffs contracts.
The present paper investigates the firms' incentives to invest in comparative advertising in a spatially differentiated duopoly market characterized by network externalities.
The present paper examines endogenously the firms' incentives to invest in informative and comparative advertising, in an oligopolistic market with horizontally differentiated products where competition take place in quantities.
In this article we first develop a theoretically consistent supply-response model for producers with invariant preferences facing price risk, and then we empirically apply the model for a group of Cretan olive-oil producers. For doing so, we estimate a Generalized Leontief cost function and we use the price distribution historically faced by individual farmers to induce three different representations of price risk corresponding to the second, third and fourth lp norms. These risk measures are combined with the estimated cost-structure to provide three separate representations of the efficient frontier for the representative producer.
We develop a biologically correct cost system for production systems facing invasive pests that allows the estimation of population dynamics without a priori knowledge of their true values. We apply that model to a data set for olive producers in Crete and derive from it predictions about the underlying populations dynamics. Those dynamics are compared to information on population dynamics obtained from pest sampling with extremely favorable results.
This paper analyzes the relationship between tax evasion and the two main policy instruments affecting evasion rates, namely, the announced tax rate and the share of tax revenues allocated to tax monitoring mechanisms.
We study the endogenous formation of upstream R&D networks in a vertically related industry. We find that, when upstream firms set prices, the complete network that includes all firms emerges in equilibrium.
We investigate the impact of alternative certifying institutions on firms' incentives to engage in costly Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as well as their relative market and societal implications.
This paper develops a parametric decomposition framework of labor productivity growth relaxing the assumption of labor-specific efficiency.
In this paper we present an endogenous growth model to analyze the growth maximizing allocation of public investment among N different types of public capital.
Under competing vertical chains, we propose that the downstream mode of competition which in equilibrium emerges is the outcome of independent implicit agreements, between each downstream firm and its exclusive input supplier, in each vertical chain.
We study competing vertical chains where upstream and downstream firms bargain over their form and terms of trading.
A theoretical framework is developed for decomposing partial factor productivity and measuring technical inefficiency when the underlying technology is characterized by factor non-substitution.
In standard consumer demand analysis, it is implicitly assumed that consumers behave optimally and, thus, efficiently. However, optimality is a restrictive assumption to make for consumers’ actual behaviour. This study moves away from this restrictive assumption and develops a theoretical model for the analysis of consumer’s inefficiency in price-quantity space.
Using the Lichtenberg-Zilberman-Fox-Weersink damage specification, we develop a short-run, supply-response framework based on rational producer behavior in the presence of damage agents.
In a differentiated Cournot duopoly, we examine the contracts that firms’ owners use to compensate their managers and the resulting output levels, profits and social welfare.
The European labour markets are characterized by the existence of trade unions with extensive coverage whereas wage contracts are typically determined through decentralized firm-union bargaining. On the other hand, as it particularly refers to migrant and ethnic minority groups, equally-skilled workers often face lower reservation wages. We argue that these facts may lead unions to opt for discriminatory wage contracts across groups of employees.
We examine how the strategic long-run decisions, such as cost-reducing R&D invest- ments, prior to the decision for integration; create endogenous efficiency gains that make a horizontal integration profitable.
The present paper examines the conditions under which the regulator can complement the provision of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities by private firms in an oligopolistic market.
The present paper explores the scope of strategic delegation, to the firms' R&D investments and market competition in a Cournot Oligopoly.
Farming activity is modeled under an intervention policy regime, combining the environmental requirements of the Council Nitrates Directive and the compensatory provisions of the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy
We study the endogenous emergence of incentive contracts used by firm owners to delegate the strategic decisions of the firm
This paper claims that technical progress induces early retirement of older workers. Technical progress erodes technology specific human capital. Since older workers have shorter career horizons, there is less incentive for them or for their employers to invest in learning how to use the new technologies. Consequently, they are more likely to stop working.
This paper extends a well-known macroeconomic stabilization game between monetary and fiscal authorities introduced by Dixit and Lambertini (American Economic Review, 93: 1522-1542) to multiplicative (policy) uncertainty.
In this paper we are interested in the problem of comparisons with the best population. One case where comparisons with the best arise naturally is the measurement of productive efficiency.
This paper studies the problem of a company which expands its stochastic production capacity in irreversible investments by purchasing capital and faces both fixed and proportional costs.
We study the construction of confidence intervals for efficiency levels of individual firms in stochastic frontier models with panel data.
We propose a generalized methods of moments procedure by which both the number of factors and the regression coefficients can be consistently estimated. Some important identification issues are also discussed. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed methods produce reliable estimates.
Many low skilled jobs have been substituted away for machines in Europe, or eliminated, much more so than in the US, while technological progress at the “top”, i.e. at the high-tech sector, is faster in the US than in Europe. This paper suggests that the main difference between Europe and the US in this respect is their different labor market policies
This paper develops a tractable theoretical framework for analyzing the substitutability between different advertising media, the extent of marketing spillovers in the market, the allocative efficiency of advertising spending, and the sources of total advertising productivity and sales growth.
This paper investigates the impact of alternative unionization structures on firms' incentives to spend on cost-reducing R&D activities as well as to form a Research Joint Venture, in the presence of R&D spillovers.
This paper studies the endogenous structure of incentive contracts that firms' owners offer to their managers, when these contracts are linear combinations either of own profits and own revenues, or of own profits and competitor's profits or, finally, of own profits and own market share.
Our study sheds light on the issue of volatility forecasting under risk management environment and on the evaluation procedure of various risk models.
We examine whether the use of the environment, proxied by CO2 emissions, as a factor of production contributes, in addition to conventional factors of production to output growth, and thus it should be accounted for in total factor productivity growth (TFPG) measurement and deducted from the "residual".
This paper proposes a tractable approach for analyzing the sources of TFP changes (i.e., technical change, changes in technical and allocative inefficiency, and the scale effect) in a multi-output setting, while retaining the single-equation nature of the econometric procedure used to estimate the parameters of the underlying technology.
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