Cartel Quotas Under Majority Rule

We examine the choice of quotas by legal volume-restricting organizations: domestic and international cartels, commodity organizations, U.S. Federal agricultural marketing boards, and prorationing boards. Unlike their illegal counterparts, legal cartels have published regulations and broader enforcement capabilities. Differences in costs and size among cartel members, however, still make quota selection contentious. Conflicts over quotas are typically resolved by voting. Cartel regulations usually require that quotas be chosen in the following manner: a scalar (depending on context capacity, inventory, historical output or historical exports) is assigned to each entity subject to regulation. Cartel members then vote on the common percentage of each scalar which is the maximum the entity may sell. Sidepayments to influence votes are prohibited. We examine the predicted effects of this real-world institution on prices and welfare and compare the equilibrium outcomes to what would occur if joint profits were instead maximized. We also show the economic consequences of exogenous political charges such as alterations in the foting weights or in the identiy of the voters.Center for Research on Economic and Social Theory, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100661/1/ECON135.pd

Prisoners of our own Device – an evolutionary perspective on lock-in, technology clusters and telecom regulation

Economic analysis of telecom-related issues often takes an essentially static equilibrium perspective, using comparative statics or moment-to-moment sequences of equilibrium behavior to model the development and impacts of technologies, economic behavior and regulation. Of course, much if not all of these developments occur far from equilibrium; this paper argues for resurrecting a more evolutionary perspective – in particular by taking account of dynamic rigidities. The models involved are not new – in the economic literature their formal development dates back at least to the work of David (1974), Desi (1982) Winter (1982), Arthur (1984) and Farrell and Saloner (1985). Taken together, these articles demonstrated the possibility of lock-in (especially to a given technology or supplier) in the presence of complementarities. A related thread in the game-theoretic literature analyses the evolution and stability of conventions, generally in coordination games. The implications for positive analysis are fairly straightforward; change is likely to be discontinuous and path-dependent, and (evolutionary) equilibrium outcomes are not necessarily optimal. This has equally straightforward implications for policy analysis and development; governance and regulation are periodically subject to by intentional or accidental change. Often, the intent of those participating in the change is to initiate, influence or set the seal on technical, economic and/or regulatory developments. Their deliberations are often sophisticated, taking account of the optimal responses of other stakeholders – but in the presence of rigidities, these assumptions about freedom of choice may not hold; the ability to recognize and respond to challenges is strongly path-dependent. This is particularly true in relation to markets with network externalities, which – as Katz and Shapiro (1992, 1994) observed - tend towards ‘tipping’ into monopoly and polarization of responses to innovation between excess inertia (lock-in to incumbent technology) and excess volatility (rushing to the ‘next big thing’). These phenomena are not limited to specific interoperability concerns identified by early authors in the field

Empowering citizens in the development of smart cities: the Cork case

Cities around the world are piloting combinations of technologies to develop smart cities. As an urban management and governance trend, the smart city idea has moved from concept to mainstream within the past decade. As end-users of public services, interactive subjects of physical systems, and generators of data and information, citizens/residents should also be key contributors of ideas for policy-making processes and co-creators of city solutions. However, citizens/residents are not always empowered to engage in the development of smart city initiatives. Greater engagement, with timely input from citizens, can be achieved with the development of more efficient and effective mechanisms for the collection and analysis of stakeholders’ feedback. Gaps around the involvement of citizens in all the steps of smart city initiatives have been identified as key challenges in successful scaling up of the smart city initiatives in pioneering cities Using Cork City, the second largest city in the south-east of Ireland, this thesis establishes the key components and factors in how to effectively engage and empower local citizens in the development of smart city through the Cork Smart Gateway (CSG) initiative. Within the CSG, the researcher generated primary data sets to set up a baseline of Cork citizens/residents’ participation practices and perceptions, digital skills and usage and awareness of the smart city projects and local infrastructure. From city-wide surveys of inclusive citizen/resident groups, the baseline showed that (1) local citizens/residents (N=3600) value a shared and collaborative vision of their participation in public issues; they believe that they have positive impact on their city, but they don’t have many opportunities to participate in the local decision-making. Other findings include (2) two-thirds of the citizens/residents volunteer in community and public activities and those who volunteered in the activities have high willingness to participate in smart city projects; (3) citizens/residents use and want to be contacted via email and mobile text message; and (4) hardware access (i.e. tablet or computer) is still a problem for both urban and rural areas, and the problem can be solved by better investment in public libraries and offices. The research also shows that (5) self-reported digital skills of urban residents are not as proficient as their peers in rural areas and the need for computer/tablet access is high in both areas. A qualitative analysis of the research shows a strong awareness about challenges and solutions to address them among the movers and shakers of the city, including members of the CSG steering group. An experiment carried out during the data collection process shows that crowdsourcing could work as an instrument to activate people’s participation in public good activities. This is replicable, cheaper than using professional services, and effective to engage and raise awareness among local people. Overall, the findings provide Cork City leaders with empirical evidence to develop strategies and tools to stimulate, engage, and maintain citizen engagement in their smart city initiative. Besides the key factors, the research also uncovers some challenging issues around the engagement and empowerment of citizens/residents, some contradicting with the existing literature. The research contributes new learnings for empowering citizens/residents in the development of smart city – new ICT and technologies enabled contexts – while identifying areas for future research such as institutional requirements, data management, and citizens’ data privacy and security for further research

DISCLAIMER

In this study, we analyse the achievements and failures of the European Regulatory Framework for Electronic Communications, with an eye to its impact on the broader EU economy; contrast it with regulatory models in other parts of the world; evaluate the costs and benefits of various interventions such as international mobile roaming; consider the interaction between fixed and mobile networks; assess the European Commission’s proposed Connected Continent proposals of 11 September 2013; and make policy recommendations going forward