Estimating Degree of Market Power and Price-Response Strategies in a Product-Differentiated Oligopoly: The Case of Canned Tuna Industry in a Local Market

This dissertation estimates the degree of market power and strategic-price responses among brands in the canned tuna industry in a local market. Weekly scanner data on the purchases of canned-tuna in Knoxville, Tennessee collected by Information Resources, Incorporated (IRI) were used for the estimation of the degree of market power and strategic-price responses. Four canned tuna brands were investigated including the three leading brands, Starkist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumble Bee, and the competitive small-market share brands aggregated into Allother. There are two empirical parts. The first part focuses on estimation of the degrees of market power and strategic-price responses among canned tuna brands in the market based on a static approach. The second part investigates strategic-price responses based on a dynamic approach. In the first part, the market is assumed to be operated under Bertrand competition such that price is a strategic variable, and brands make their choices simultaneously. Measures of the degree of market power include the Rothschild index ( RI), the O index (OI) and the Chamberlin quotient (CQ). In order to calculate these measures, each firm’s own-and cross-price elasticities and price-response elasticities are needed. These elasticities are estimated by using simultaneous equations, including the linear approximate almost ideal demand system (LA/AIDS) with the corrected Stone price index and price-reaction equations. The static analysis finds evidence of market power in the canned tuna market. Starkist and Chicken of the Sea have high market power derived from both unilateral and coordinated market power, whereas Bumble Bee maintains its market power without coordination. The strategic-price responses among brands are investigated through the estimated price-reaction equations. The results show that Bumble Bee conducts warfare against Starkist and Chicken of the Sea. Starkist and Chicken of the Sea positively respond to each other’s price; however, they do not respond to Bumble Bee’s price. In the second part, the Bertrand-competition assumption is replaced by an assumption that a firm in the market sets its price depending on its own past prices and those of rivals. A vector autoregressive (VAR) model is employed and its applications, including the Granger-causality test, the impulse response function (IRF) analysis, and the forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) analysis, are used to investigate the dynamic price relationships. This study finds that although Starkist and Chicken of the Sea do not respond Bumble Bee’s price strategy during the same time period, they do over time. The findings of the second part offer valuable insights in that the study of strategic-price responses based on both static and dynamic approaches provide significantly better understanding in firms’ pricing behaviors

Types of government and innovative performance of countries

Abstract. The present study endeavours to explain the differences of technological performances among nations. In particular, the paper analyses the relation between type of government of nations, and their technological and socioeconomic performances. Results suggest that high levels of technological performance of nations seem to be associated with executive with parliamentary monarchy and monarchy, whereas nations with mixed executive tend to have lower innovative outputs. A possible reason is that, in general, some typologies of executive (e.g., Monarchy) support the political stability of countries with fruitful socioeconomic developmental paths over the long run. Overall, then, the structure of executives of nations may be one of contributing factors to explain dissimilar patterns of technological performances and economic growth of nations over time and space.Keywords. Technological performance, Innovative outputs, Leadership, Executive, Government, Technology, Socioeconomic performance, Political stability.JEL. O11, P16, P51

Biting the league table that feeds: reflections on managerialism at work within UK university sustainability agendas.

Most proponents of ecological sustainability within universities seem to have found a space where they feel they can more or less shrug off the need for such meaningful critical reflection. There has been a preoccupation with the instrumental and pragmatic task of embedding sustainability in institutions and systems through developing and establishing benchmarks, indicators and checklists; devising skills taxonomies; refining auditing and monitoring tools; drawing up performance league tables. The aim of this paper is to explore the institutional impact of the latter sustainability performance league tables on current university agendas. It focuses on a narrative critique of one such league table, the UKs Green League Table compiled and reported by the student campaigning NGO, People & Planet annually between 2007 and 2013 through the popular and academic press. This paper offers the proposition that such league tables could be acting as an institutional hegemonic mechanism for social legitimacy through the desire by universities to show that environmental issues are effectively under control. It is proposed that these legitimizing, espoused eco-narratives of the carbon targets imperative, engagement, can serve as a form of deception to mislead critics of a university's environmental record by merely embracing the narrative as a rhetorical device, rather than as a reflection of or an impetus to proactive, reflexive action. These narratives may also cloak university managers' ambivalence and uncertainty about how to cope with what they perceive as an increasingly important but highly complex issue. In the context of this CMS theme, it is argued that this managerial overarching focus on sustainability league table position, contributes to the broader ethical, social and political tensions and inequities of universities, whilst satisfying the exclusive self-interests of a growing legion of carbon managers, sustainability managers and environmental managers, in satisfying the neo-liberal institutional drive from their Vice-Chancellors

What’s Happening Around the World? A Survey and Framework on Event Detection Techniques on Twitter

© 2019, Springer Nature B.V. In the last few years, Twitter has become a popular platform for sharing opinions, experiences, news, and views in real-time. Twitter presents an interesting opportunity for detecting events happening around the world. The content (tweets) published on Twitter are short and pose diverse challenges for detecting and interpreting event-related information. This article provides insights into ongoing research and helps in understanding recent research trends and techniques used for event detection using Twitter data. We classify techniques and methodologies according to event types, orientation of content, event detection tasks, their evaluation, and common practices. We highlight the limitations of existing techniques and accordingly propose solutions to address the shortcomings. We propose a framework called EDoT based on the research trends, common practices, and techniques used for detecting events on Twitter. EDoT can serve as a guideline for developing event detection methods, especially for researchers who are new in this area. We also describe and compare data collection techniques, the effectiveness and shortcomings of various Twitter and non-Twitter-based features, and discuss various evaluation measures and benchmarking methodologies. Finally, we discuss the trends, limitations, and future directions for detecting events on Twitter

Dynamic Explanations of Industry Structure and Performance

Industrial Organization,

Continuing Concentration in Food Industries Globally: Strategic Challenges to an Unstable Status Quo

Industrial Organization,