Asymmetric Collusion and Merger Policy

In their merger control, EU and the US have considered symmetric size distribution (cost structure) of firms to be a factor potentially leading to collusion. We show that forbidding mergers leading to symmetric market structures can induce mergers leading to asymmetric market structures with higher risk of collusion, when firms face indivisible costs of collusion. In particular, we show that if the rule determining the collusive outcome has the property that the large (efficient) firm benefits sufficiently more from collusion when industry asymmetries increase, collusion can become more likely when firms are moderately asymmetric.Collusion; Cost Asymmetries; Merger Policy

Asymmetric Collusion and Merger Policy

In their merger control, EU and the US have considered symmetric size distribution (cost structure) of firms to be a factor potentially leading to collusion. We show that forbidding mergers leading to symmetric market structures can induce mergers leading to asymmetric market structures with higher risk of collusion, when firms face indivisible costs of collusion. In particular, we show that if the rule determining the collusive outcome has the property that the large (efficient) firm benefits sufficiently more from collusion when industry asymmetries increase, collusion can become more likely when firms are moderately asymmetric.Collusion; Cost Asymmetries; Merger Policy

Overlapping ownership, endogenous quality, and welfare

This paper investigates how overlapping ownership affects quality levels, consumer surplus, firms' profits and welfare when the industry is a vertically differentiated duopoly and quality choice is endogenous. This issue is particularly relevant since recent empirical evidence suggests that overlapping ownership constitutes an important feature of a multitude of vertically differentiated industries. We show that overlapping ownership while detrimental for welfare, may increase or decrease the quality gap, consumer surplus and firms' profits. In particular, when the overlapping ownership structure is such that the high quality firm places a positive weight on the low quality firm's profits, the incentives of the high quality firm to compete aggressively reduce. This may increase the equilibrium quality of the low quality firm, which in turn may lead to higher consumer surplus, despite higher prices.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Quantifying the Coordinated Effects of Partial Horizontal Acquisitions

The growth of private-equity investment strategies in which rms often hold partial ownership interests in competing rms has led competition agencies to take an increased interest in as- sessing the competitive e¤ects of partial horizontal acquisitions. We propose a methodology to evaluate the coordinated e¤ects of such acquisitions on di¤erentiated products industries. The acquisitions may be direct and indirect, and may or not correspond to control. The method- ology, that nests full mergers, evaluates the impact on the range of discount factors for which coordination can be sustained. We provide an empirical application to several acquisitions in the wet shaving industry.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reference pricing in the presence of pseudo-generics

We build on the analysis of Rodrigues et al. (2011) and look at the market impact of pseudo- generics under two possible reimbursement mechanisms: reference pricing and xed percentage reimbursement. Reference pricing emerges as a preferable reimbursement mechanism, both from a consumer s perspective as well as from a welfare perspective, particularly when a pseudo- generic is present. JEL Classi cation: I18, L13info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Modelling the objective function of managers in the presence of overlapping shareholding

The objective function of managers in the presence of overlapping shareholding may differ from the traditional own-firm profit maximization, as they may internalize the externalities their strategies impose on other firms. The dominant formulation of the objective function in such cases has, however, been critiqued for yielding counter-intuitive profit weights when the ownership of non-overlapping shareholders is highly dispersed. In this paper, we examine this issue. First, we make use of a probabilistic voting model (in which shareholders vote to elect the manager) to microfound an alternative formulation of the objective function of managers, which solves the above-mentioned criticism. Second, we apply the two formulations to the set of S&P 500 firms. We show that ownership dispersion of non-overlapping shareholders is, in fact, a relevant empirical issue, which may induce an over-quantification of the profit weights computed from the dominant formulation, particularly under a proportional control assumption.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modeling horizontal shareholding with ownership dispersion

The dominantformulationformodelingtheobjectivefunctionofmanagersofcompeting rms withhorizontalshareholdinghasbeencritiquedforproducingtheresultthat,ifnon-horizontal shareholdersarehighlydispersed,managerswouldmimictheinterestsofhorizontalsharehold- ers eveniftheyownashareofthe rmthatdoesnotinducefullcontrol.Weshowthatthis issuecanbeavoided(whilemaintainingtheremainingfeaturesofthedominantapproach) withanalternativeformulationthatisderivedfromaprobabilisticvotingmodelthatassumes shareholderswithhigher nancialstakeswilltakegreaterinterestinthemanagerialactions, whichyieldstheresultthatmanagersmaximizeacontrol-weightedsumoftheshareholders relativereturns.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Antena inteligente para aplicações RFID

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e TelecomunicaçõesThe adoption and proliferation of information systems in many business and personal activities leads to the need of tagging and tracking items and services. Radio frequency identi cation (RFID) systems were developed as an e ort to answer the increasing needs of particulars and enterprises alike for wireless identi cation of objects and data exchange services, enabling a large number of businesses to reduce costs and increase revenue. As to further develop the e ciency provided by businesses worldwide, smart antenna systems were introduced as core component in their production and service providing lines, opening the path for innovative and robust wireless RFID based communication schemes, providing advanced signal capturing, processing characteristics and enhanced tracking and process automation. Smart antennas can be installed within RFID readers, enabling them to more e ciently process returned echoes by the tags and therefore improving the identi cation mechanism. RFID reader architectures with an embedded smart antenna network reliably improve the throughput, the reading speed and position detection of tagged items. A smart antenna based circuit is proposed here for RFID assisted localization and for beam steering applications using a uniform linear array of microstrip directional antennas. Several beamforming and direction of arrival estimation methods were employed in order to analyze their performance and resolution based on the computational load, modulation, and the overall environment in which the smart anetnna system may be deployed.A adoção e proliferação de sistemas de informação em várias indústrias e atividades pessoais são responsáveis pela crescente necessidade de identifcar e rastrear itens e serviços. Sistemas de identificação por rádiofrequência (RFID) foram desenvolvidos de modo a responder às crescentes necessidades tanto de particulares como de empresas quanto à utilização de sistemas de identificaçao e de transmissão de dados sem _os, permitindo a redução de despesas e o aumento de receitas a várias empresas. De modo a melhorar a eficiência de empresas a uma escala global, sistemas de antenas inteligentes foram introduzidos nas suas linhas de manufatura e de prestação de serviços como um componente central, abrirando o caminho para esquemas de comunicação sem _os inovadores e robustos, baseados em RFID, facultando processos de captura e processamento de sinal avançados capazes de fornecer melhorias em aplicações de rastreamento e automação de processos. Antenas inteligentes podem ser instaladas em leitores RFID, permitindo um melhor processamento de sinais transmitidos pelas etiquetas, dando origem a um método de identificação mais eficiente. A arquitectura de leitores RFID com uma rede de antenas inteligentes embutida garante melhorias na taxa de transferência e na rapidez de leitura de informação assim como na deteção de itens etiquetados. Um circuito baseado em sistemas de antenas inteligentes é proposto neste trabalho para localização assistida dispositivos RFID e para direccionamento de feixe através da utilizaçao de um agregado linear e uniforme de antenas microstrip diretivas. Várias técnicas de direcionamento de feixe e de estimativa de angulo de chegada foram utilizados, de modo a analisar o desempenho e a resolução de cada algoritmo de acordo com a carga computacional, modulação utilizada e o ambiente em que o sistema de antenas inteligentes poderá ser implementado

Why Entrepreneurs Choose Risky R&D Projects - But Still Not Risky Enough

Entrepreneurs face higher commercialization costs than incumbents. We show that this implies that entrepreneurs will choose more risky projects than incumbents, aiming to reduce their high expected marginal commercialization cost. However, entrepreneurs may select too safe projects from a social point of view, since they do not internalize the business stealing effect. We also show that commercialization support induces entrepreneurship but may lead to mediocre entrepreneurship by inducing entrepreneurs to choose less risky projects, whereas R&D support encourages entrepreneurship without affecting the type of entrepreneurship. Using Swedish patent citation data, we find empirical support for predictions of the model