Fordeling av verdier med konkurrerende krav

Min hensikt er å studere problemstillingen som oppstår når man må fordele begrensede ressurser mellom individer som har eksogene og konkurrerende krav. Jeg vil analytisk beskrive noen populære fordelingsmetoder som har en rekke ønskede egenskaper i denne typen problemstilling. I hovedsak vil jeg ta for meg den aksiomatiske måten å beskrive disse på. I forbindelse med denne analysen har jeg også vært delaktig i et eksperiment der deltakerne møter en analog problemstilling gjennom et produksjonsspill med simulerte konkurser. Observasjonene fra dette eksperimentet danner grunnlag for en analyse av hvordan individer faktisk ønsker å fordele resterende midler i en konkurssituasjon

Local Bank Competition, Loan Rates and Risk

This paper investigates the effect of competition on the relation between borrowers’ risk and interest rates in the market for business loans. I estimate the relationship between the loan rates and risk of closure conditional on the local market structure using detailed data on loan payments between individual firms and banks from Norway. The findings show that increased competition is associated with lower rates for less risky and higher rates for more risky loans. Comparing markets with three competing banks compared to a single bank, rates for loans to firms that closed down during the loan period were approximately 50 basis points higher, while loans to firms that did not close down were approximately 20 basis points lower

Rent Sharing with Footloose Production. Foreign Ownership and Wages Revisited

We present a bargaining model of wage and employment determina- tion, where we show that foreign acquisitions might hurt the bargaining outcome of powerful unions by giving the firm a credible threat to move production abroad. Using detailed data on firms and workers in manufac- turing, including information on union membership and foreign ownership, we find, in line with the predictions of our model, that foreign acquisitions negatively impact the outcome of workers in highly unionized plants

Fordeling av verdier med konkurrerende krav

Min hensikt er å studere problemstillingen som oppstår når man må fordele begrensede ressurser mellom individer som har eksogene og konkurrerende krav. Jeg vil analytisk beskrive noen populære fordelingsmetoder som har en rekke ønskede egenskaper i denne typen problemstilling. I hovedsak vil jeg ta for meg den aksiomatiske måten å beskrive disse på. I forbindelse med denne analysen har jeg også vært delaktig i et eksperiment der deltakerne møter en analog problemstilling gjennom et produksjonsspill med simulerte konkurser. Observasjonene fra dette eksperimentet danner grunnlag for en analyse av hvordan individer faktisk ønsker å fordele resterende midler i en konkurssituasjon

On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers’ and Retailers’ Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector.

Differences in regulated pharmaceutical prices within the European Economic Area create arbitrage opportunities that pharmacy retailers can use through parallel imports. For prescription drugs under patent, such provision decisions affect the sharing of profits among an innovating pharmaceutical company, retailers, and parallel traders. We develop a structural model of demand and supply in which retailers can choose the set of goods to sell to consumers, thus foreclosing the consumers’ access to some less-profitable drugs, which allows retailers to bargain and obtain lower wholesale prices with the manufacturer and parallel trader. With detailed transaction data, we identify a demand model with unobserved choice sets using supply-side conditions for optimal assortment decisions of pharmacies. Estimating our model, we find that retailer incentives play a significant role in fostering parallel trade penetration. Our counterfactual simulations show that parallel imports of drugs allows retailers to gain profits at the expense of the manufacturer, whereas parallel traders also gain but earn more modest profits. Finally, a policy preventing pharmacies from foreclosing the manufacturer’s product is demonstrated to partially shift profits from pharmacists to both the parallel trader and the manufacturer, and a reduction in the regulated retail price favors the manufacturer even more

The Poking Effect: Price Changes, Information, and Inertia in the Market for Mobile Subscriptions

We study consumer inertia in the mobile subscription market, focusing on the decision of whether to switch to a competing provider. To identify the extent of inertia, we exploit price changes faced by 270,000 consumers of a large telecom provider. We document that the propensity to switch provider after the price change increases among consumers whose costs decrease with the new prices. Furthermore, we find that the increase is largest right after consumers are informed of the upcoming change—during the two months prior to the tariff change—as opposed to when the price change is implemented. From these findings, we infer what we call a poking effect; the information of an upcoming price change causes consumers to engage in searches for alternative offers, leading to increased switching.We supplement the analysis with a survey and find indications that the poking effect is due to consumer inattention. To separate the effect on attention from the reaction to the actual price change, we estimate a model of consumer choice with limited attention. We find that when consumers are poked, it increases the share of consumers becoming attentive to competing offers. This leads many consumers to switch providers earlier than they would otherwise, explaining why they leave even though their terms with their current company improve

On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers’ and Retailers’ Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector

National audienceDifferences in regulated pharmaceutical prices within the European Economic Area create arbitrage opportunities that pharmacy retailers can access through parallel imports. For prescription drugs under patent, parallel trade affects the sharing of profits among an innovating pharmaceutical company, retailers, and parallel traders. We develop a structural model of demand and supply in which retailers can choose the set of goods to sell, thus foreclosing consumers’ access to less profitable drugs. This allows retailers to bargain and obtain lower wholesale prices from the manufacturer and parallel trader. With detailed transaction data from Norway, we identify a demand model with unobserved choice sets using retailside conditions for optimal assortment decisions of pharmacies. We find that retailer incentives play a significant role in fostering parallel trade penetration and that banning parallel imports would benefit manufacturers as well as prevent pharmacies from foreclosing the manufacturer’s product. Finally, in the case of the statin market in Norway, we show that it would be possible to decrease spending and increase profits of the original manufacturer through lump sum transfers associated with a lower reimbursement price, thus decreasing price differentiation across countries

Quality Regulation and Competition: Evidence from Pharmaceutical Markets

We study the effects of quality regulation on market outcomes by exploiting the staggered phase-in of bioequivalence requirements for generic drugs in Chile. We estimate that the number of drugs in the market decreased by 25%, average paid prices increased by 10%, and total sales decreased by 20%. These adverse effects were concentrated among small markets. Our results suggest that the intended effects of quality regulation on price competition through increased (perceived) quality of generics—and therefore reduced vertical differentiation—were overturned by adverse competitive effects arising from the costs of complying with the regulation

Dynamics of Debt Structure and Credit Ratings

Using a comprehensive dataset comprising 1 863 unique U.S. firms as well as 100unique Norwegian companies in the period 2006 - 2011, we examine the dynamicsbetween corporate debt structure and credit ratings. We address especially threeconcerns related to credit ratings and their effects on debt structure decisions: Wefirst identify the effects of bond market participation, measured by having a creditrating, before we emphasize the effects of being near a change in credit rating.Last, we address how credit ratings affect corporate debt maturity structure. Theseconsiderations form the foundation for understanding what drives corporate capitalstructure.Our main findings indicate that rated firms are to a greater extent characterized bydebt heterogeneity relative to unrated firms. The difference become more apparentas credit ratings exacerbates. We find evidence that firms adjust leverage ratiosin concern of a rating change with the boundary between investment grade andnon-investment grade as most important. Finally, we observe an inverse u-shapedrelationship between credit ratings and public debt issues, with BBB rated firmshaving the longest maturities.The two markets are compared in order to capture possible similarities in debtstructure behavior. We find that U.S. and Norwegian companies behave similar interms of the priority structure of bank and bond debt. Furthermore, we identifycredit ratings as highly prominent for management of firms? debt structure and findthat regulation effects and enhanced incentives to monitor are mainly the reasonswhy debt structure decisions vary between investment grade and speculative gradedfirms

A 12-month randomized controlled trial evaluating erythritol air-polishing versus curette/ultrasonic debridement of mandibular furcations in supportive periodontal therapy

Background Due to complex morphology and limited access, the cleaning of the furcation area is extremely challenging. Therefore, novel therapeutic approaches need to be tested to potentially overcome debridement limitations. The aim of the present prospective 12-month study was to compare clinical and microbiological effects following erythritol air-polishing versus conventional mechanical debridement of furcation defects in a cohort of periodontal maintenance patients. Methods Twenty patients with grade II mandibular molar furcation defects volunteered to enroll in this single-centre, examiner masked, randomized controlled trial. In a split-mouth study design, two furcation sites in each patient were randomly assigned to either receive subgingival debridement using erythritol air-polishing (test) or conventional ultrasonic/curette debridement (control) at baseline, and at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. Probing depth, clinical attachment level and bleeding on probing were recorded at 3-month intervals. Subgingival microbiological samples obtained at baseline, 6 and 12 months were analyzed using checkerboard DNA–DNA hybridization. Discomfort from treatment was scored at 12 months using a visual analogue scale. The differences between treatments, and time-points, were tested using multilevel analysis (mixed effect models and robust variance estimates). Results A significant reduction in probing depth took place following both treatments (p < 0.001). Control sites experienced a significant mean gain in clinical attachment level of 0.5 mm (± 0.2) (p = 0.004), whereas a non-significant gain of 0.4 mm (± 0.3) was observed at test sites (p = 0.119). At 6 months, a significant between-treatment difference of 0.8 mm (± 0.4) was observed in favor of the control (p = 0.032). No significant between-treatment differences were observed in microbial load or composition. Notably, at 12 months patients experienced significantly less discomfort following air-polishing compared with control (p = 0.001). Conclusions The 12-month observations indicate that erythritol air-polishing and conventional mechanical debridement both support clinical improvements. A significant between-treatment difference in clinical attachment level was, however, detected in favour of control debridement at 6 months. In terms of patient comfort, erythritol air-polishing is superior. Trial Registration: The clinical trial was retrospectively registered in ClinicalTrial.gov with registration NCT04493398 (07/28/2020)