"Assessing the Consequences of a Horizontal Merger and its Remedies in a Dynamic Environment"

This paper estimates a dynamic oligopoly model to assess the economic consequences of a horizontal merger that took place in 1970 to create the second largest global producer of steel. The paper solves a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium for the model and simulates the welfare effects of the horizontal merger. Estimates reveal that the merger enhanced the production efficiency of the merging party by a magnitude of 4.1 %, while the exercise of market power was restrained primarily by the presence of fringe competitors. Our simulation result also indicates that structural remedies endorsed by the competition authority failed to promote competition. model.

On Asymptotic Properties of the Parameters of Differentiated Product Demand and Supply Systems When Demographically-Categorized Purchasing Pattern Data are Available

In this paper, we derive asymptotic theorems for the Petrin (2002) extension of the Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (BLP, 1995) framework to estimate demand-supply models with micro moments. The micro moments contain the information relating the consumer demographics to the characteristics of the products they purchase. With additional assumptions, the extended estimator is shown to be CAN and more efficient than the BLP estimator. We discuss the conditions under which these asymptotic theorems hold for the random coefficient logit model. We implement extensive simulation studies and confirm the benefit of the micro moments in estimating the random coefficient logit model.

インドネシア南スラウェシの船大工社会における技術継承と実践コミュニティ

J. Lave and E. Wenger (1991) proposed the concept of a “community of practice” (CP) in which people share ideas and practice skills together to achieve the same goals. In a globalized society, experts from various fields have explored ideal models of CPs because many CPs, including ones engaged in primary industries and craft production, are facing the possibility of disappearance. Iida (2010) suggested a new model called a “community of bricolage practice” (CBP) in which people practice bricolage skills to adapt to fluid conditions, and CBPs have been proposed as a way to survive in a globalized era. This paper examines the features of the CP(s) of a boat-builders’ society in South Sulawesi based on an analysis of the transmission of the skills of boatbuilding, boat-builders’ career patterns, and their attitudes toward making boats.　The boat-builders acquire the skills during actual practice at the boatyard, and they improve their skills by working in several workshops. The philosophy that boat-builders hold, in which boats are regarded as humans, promotes harmony and a tolerant attitude toward others and fluid situations. This attitude enables boat-builders to work flexibly according to changing circumstances and develop their careers at several boatyards. In addition, their flexible attitude when faced with fluid conditions demonstrates a new ideal model of CBP in which people have bricolage skills for not only actual practices but also adaptation within the community itself, enabling them to cooperate with various people who have different skills or backgrounds and employ a new management system. The study reveals the crucial factors in maintaining CP(s) and their activity as an ideal model of community within a globalized society

"Empirical Assessment of Merger and its Remedies: the Yawata-Fuji Case (1970)" " (in Japanese)

This paper estimates a dynamic oligopoly model to assess the economic consequences of a horizontal merger that took place in 1970 to create the second largest global producer of steel. The paper solves a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium for the model and simulates the welfare effects of the horizontal merger. Estimates reveal that the merger enhanced the production efficiency of the merging party by a magnitude of 4.1 %, while the exercise of market power was restrained primarily by the presence of fringe competitors. Our simulation result also indicates that structural remedies endorsed by the competition authority failed to promote competition.

Animal-borne video systems provide insight into the reproductive behavior of the Asian black bear

Previous studies on the mating system of the Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) have been limited to observations of captive populations and estimations of multiple paternities. Hence, the mating system of wild bears remains poorly understood. Animal-borne camera systems (i.e., cameras mounted on animals) provide novel tools to study the behavior of elusive animals. Here, we used an animal-borne video system to record the activities of wild bears during the mating season. Video camera collars were attached to four adult Asian black bears (male “A” and “B,” and female “A” and “B”) captured in Tokyo, central Japan, in May and June 2018. The collars were retrieved in July 2018, after which the video data were downloaded and analyzed in terms of bear activity and mating behavior. All the bears were found to interact with other uniquely identifiable bears for some of the time (range 9–22 days) during the deployment period (range 36–45 days), and multiple mating in males was documented. Both males and females exhibited different behaviors on social days (i.e., days when the bear interacted with conspecifics) compared with solitary days (i.e., days with no observed interactions with conspecifics). Compared with solitary days, the bears spent a lower proportion of time on foraging activities and higher proportion of time on resting activities on social days. Our results suggest that Asian black bears have a polygamous mating system, as both sexes consort and potentially mate with multiple partners during a given mating season. Furthermore, bears appeared to reduce their foraging activities on social days and engaged more in social interactions.publishedVersio

Evaluating the Merger and its Remedies in a Dynamic Environment: Revisiting the 1970 Yawata-Fuji steel merger (Japanese)

This paper estimates a dynamic oligopoly model to assess the economic consequences of a horizontal merger that took place between Yawata Steel and Fuji Steel in 1970 to create the second largest global producer of steel. The paper solves a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium for the model and simulates the welfare effects of the horizontal merger. Estimates reveal that the merger enhanced the production efficiency of the merging party by a magnitude of 4.1 %, while the exercise of market power was restrained primarily by the presence of fringe competitors. Our simulation result also indicates that structural remedies endorsed by the competition authority failed to promote competition.

Do consumers understand TCO? : an empirical study of consumer decision making in the U.S. automobile market

At the beginnig of the 1980\u27s,there was a gap in quality between cars made by the U.S."Big Three" and those made by the Japanese.Since then,the Big Three have adopted Japanese production techiniques,parts prucurement practices,and lavor relations,dramatically improving the quality of their automobiles.During the period,the Japanses manufactures kept their automobiles more expensive than the comparable models made by the Big Three to slow their sales,thereby blunting trade frictions,and preventing possible dumping complaints by the Big Three.Yet the Big Three seem to be losing overall U.S. market share,dipping to 68.3% in 1999 after fluctuating between 70-74% for the precedeing two decades,while that of the Japanses automobiles increased from 19.8% in 1985 to 24.0% in 1999.To find an economic rationale underlying this trend,we formulated a hypothesis that U.S. consumers\u27 automobile purchase decisions were influenced not by the initial purchasing prices,but by the total cost of ownership(TCO).We first proposed and illustrated a method to convert the automobiles\u27 reliability scores in Consumer Repots into monetary maintenance and repair expenditure.We then calcuated those expenditures,and incorporated them into the TCO calculation for the twenty-six most popular 1996-model-year vehicles.The proposed statisical model takes care of the bias introduced by partially missing reliability data.We found that the market shares of vehicles generally reflected their TCO differential when U.S. consumers chose from U.S automobiles.In medium passenger car market where the Japanese had already been offering credible alternatives by 1996,however U.S automobiles seem to have been given "buy American" TCO premium of about $2,000.Includes bibliographical reference