DO U.S. MARKETING ORDERS HAVE MUCH MARKET POWER? AN EXAMINATION OF THE ALMOND BOARD OF CALIFORNIA

This paper tests the conventional wisdom that U.S. marketing orders act as profit-maximizing cartels. The paper analyzes the marketing order for U.S. almonds in both the domestic and export markets. Such a case study is relevant to all U.S. marketing orders because the size and scope of the U.S. almond industry on the world market, and the legal authority of the almond marketing order makes it a likely prospect for exhibiting true cartel behavior. The authors find that the market power exerted by the Almond Board of California's reserve setting is significantly less than would be expected from a profit-maximizing cartel.Marketing,

On LpL^p--LqL^q trace inequalities

We give necessary and sufficient conditions in order that inequalities of the type $$\| T_K f\|_{L^q(d\mu)}\leq C \|f\|_{L^p(d\sigma)}, \qquad f \in L^p(d\sigma),$$ hold for a class of integral operators $T_K f(x) = \int_{R^n} K(x, y) f(y) d \sigma(y)$ with nonnegative kernels, and measures $d \mu$ and $d\sigma$ on $\R^n$, in the case where $p>q>0$ and $p>1$. An important model is provided by the dyadic integral operator with kernel $K_{\mathcal D}(x, y) \sum_{Q\in{\mathcal D}} K(Q) \chi_Q(x) \chi_Q(y)$, where $\mathcal D=\{Q\}$ is the family of all dyadic cubes in $\R^n$, and $K(Q)$ are arbitrary nonnegative constants associated with $Q \in{\mathcal D}$. The corresponding continuous versions are deduced from their dyadic counterparts. In particular, we show that, for the convolution operator $T_k f = k\star f$ with positive radially decreasing kernel $k(|x-y|)$, the trace inequality $$\| T_k f\|_{L^q(d\mu)}\leq C \|f\|_{L^p(d x)}, \qquad f \in L^p(dx),$$ holds if and only if ${\mathcal W}_{k}[\mu] \in L^s (d\mu)$, where $s = {\frac{q(p-1)}{p-q}}$. Here ${\mathcal W}_{k}[\mu]$ is a nonlinear Wolff potential defined by ${\mathcal W}_{k}[\mu](x)=\int_0^{+\infty} k(r) \bar{k}(r)^{\frac 1 {p-1}} \mu (B(x,r))^{\frac 1{p-1}} r^{n-1} dr,$ and $\bar{k}(r)=\frac1{r^n}\int_0^r k(t) t^{n-1} dt$. Analogous inequalities for $1\le q < p$ were characterized earlier by the authors using a different method which is not applicable when $q<1$

Import demand of Bananas in the European Union

The EU banana market has been of enormous interest for researchers for a long time, especially after the import policy unification brought by the Common Market Organization for Bananas (CMOB) in 1993. Empirical evidence suggests that the CMOB and its subsequent modifications have been highly distorting. However, the quantifications made of those distortions by different authors vary a lot, not only in magnitude but also in direction. The reason is that for each evaluation, a different system of demand equations has been estimated. However, besides the different models used, there is one common denominator to all models. They do not incorporate the general restrictions (homogeneity, symmetry and adding up) necessary to make the demand estimations consistent with economic theory. In this paper we estimate the almost ideal demand system (AIDS) to calculate more reliable elasticities to facilitate future welfare analysis of the EU banana market. The inverse almost ideal demand system (IAIDS) was also estimated under the alternative assumption that import prices adjust to quantities instead to quantities adjusting to price variations as it has usually assumed. However, the results are not reported because due to the upcoming import policy and its subsequent quota elimination, quantities will not longer be predetermined. Preliminary results show that demand elasticities are different depending on the region of origin of the imported bananas. Latin American bananas are substitutes of bananas from preferred suppliers and complements of others while imports from the ACP are substitutes of all regions. EU bananas behave similar to Latin American in the sense that they are substitutes of all by other suppliers. Preliminary welfare analysis of the proposed policy shows that both Latin American producers and EU consumers of Latin American bananas will lost from the quota elimination and increase in the tariff level.International Relations/Trade,

Bilinear forms on non-homogeneous Sobolev spaces

In this paper we show that if $b\in L^2(\R^n)$, then the bilinear form defined on the product of the non-homogeneous Sobolev spaces $H_s^2(\R^n)\times H_s^2(\R^n)$, $0<s<1$ by $$(f,g)\in H_s^2(\R^n)\times H_s^2(\R^n) \to \int_{\R^n} (Id-\Delta)^{s/2}(fg)({\bf x}) b({\bf x})d{\bf x},$$ is continuous if and only if the positive measure $|b({\bf x})|^2d{\bf x}$ is a trace measure for $H_s^2(\R^n)$

Bilinear forms on potential spaces in the unit circle

In this paper we characterize the boundedness on the product of Sobolev spaces $H^s(\mathbb{T}) \times H^s(\mathbb{T})$ on the unit circle $\mathbb{T}$, of the bilinear form $\Lambda_b$ with symbol $b \in H^s(\mathbb{T})$ given by $$ \Lambda_b(\varphi, \psi):=\int_{\mathbb{T}}\left((-\Delta)^s+I\right)(\varphi \psi)(\eta) b(\eta) d \sigma(\eta)$