9,946 research outputs found
Resale Price Maintenance under Asymmetric Information
We study Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) in a successive monopolies framework with adverse selection and moral hazard. The analysis compares both the private and the wel- fare properties of vertical contracts based on retail price restrictions with those derived under quantity .xing arrangements (QF). With information asymmetries, both types of vertical contracts entail a double marginalization driven by the presence of information rents, distributed to a privately informed downstream retailer, which forces the upstream producer to sell above its marginal costs. When .rms behave non-cooperatively, the up- stream producer always prefers RPM to QF, and the impact of RPM on consumers. surplus is ambiguous. With joint-pro.ts maximizing contracts, instead, whenever RPM maximizes constrained joint-pro.ts it also raises consumers.surplus, thereby producing a Pareto improvement relative to QF contracts.
The Strategic Value of Incomplete Contracting in a Competing Hierarchies Environment
We explore the strategic value of quantity forcing contracts in a competing manufacturer-retailer hierarchies environment under both adverse selection and moral hazard. Manufacturers dealing with (exclusive) competing retailers may prefer to leave contracts silent on retail prices, whenever other aspects of the retailersâ activity remain nonveri.able. Two effects are at play once one moves from retail price maintenance to quantity forcing. First, restricting the number of screening instruments available to manufacturers has a detrimental effect on their pro.ts as it leaves more possibilities to retailer for getting information rents. Second, such restriction may provide manufacturers with strategic power in that it affects downstream competition. Under some conditions related to the severity of the adverse selection problem and the nature of externalities across retailers, the latter effect may rationalize the use of quantity forcing contracts in a game of competing hierarchies. RPM may be either detrimental or bene.cial to welfare depending upon the type of non-market externalities that retailers impose on each other.Asymmetric Information, Competing Hierarchies, Incomplete Contracts, Quantity Forcing, Resale Price Maintenance, Vertical Contracting
Behavior and Breakdown of Higher-Order Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou Recurrences
We investigate numerically the existence and stability of higher-order
recurrences (HoRs), including super-recurrences, super-super-recurrences, etc.,
in the alpha and beta Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) lattices for initial
conditions in the fundamental normal mode. Our results represent a considerable
extension of the pioneering work of Tuck and Menzel on super-recurrences. For
fixed lattice sizes, we observe and study apparent singularities in the periods
of these HoRs, speculated to be caused by nonlinear resonances. Interestingly,
these singularities depend very sensitively on the initial energy and the
respective nonlinear parameters. Furthermore, we compare the mechanisms by
which the super-recurrences in the two model's breakdown as the initial energy
and respective nonlinear parameters are increased. The breakdown of
super-recurrences in the beta-FPUT lattice is associated with the destruction
of the so-called metastable state and hence is associated with relaxation
towards equilibrium. For the alpha-FPUT lattice, we find this is not the case
and show that the super-recurrences break down while the lattice is still
metastable. We close with comments on the generality of our results for
different lattice sizes
Delegation and R&D Spending: Evidence from Italy
We use data from the Italian manufacturing industry to document a positive relation- ship between delegation of decisions within organizations and involvement in research and development. This positive correlation is robust to controlling for the determi- nants of R&D within firms such as the level of human capital, capital intensity, sec- toral and regional effects and to using different measures of R&D. We also investigate the determinants of delegation in our sample. We find a positive correlation between ownership concentration and delegation, which goes against the findings of Shleifer and Vishny (1986). We also find that variables found as important determinants of delegation in French manufacturing by Acemoglu, Aghion, Lelarge, Van Reenen and Zilibotti (2007) do not appear important in our sample, and some even exhibit qualita- tively opposite effect. These disparities can perhaps be explained by differences in the studied samples and observed variables, and call for further studies of cross-country differences.R&D, Delegation, Ownership Concentration, Asymmetric Information
"When Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade?": New Insights from Asymmetric Information
We study a specific model of competing manufacturer-retailer pairs where adverse selection and moral hazard are coupled with non-market externalities at the downstream level. In this simple framework we show that a âlaissez- faire" approach towards vertical price control might harm consumers as long as privately informed retailers impose non-market externalities on each other. Giving manufacturers freedom to control retail prices harms consumers when retailers impose positive non-market externalities on each other, and the converse is true otherwise. Moreover, in contrast to previous work, we show that, in these instances, consumers' and suppliers' preferences over contractual choices are not necessarily aligned.Competing hierarchies, resale price maintenance, retail externalities
Breaking the Vainshtein screening in clusters of galaxies
In this work we will test an alternative model of gravity belonging to the
large family of galileon models. It is characterized by an intrinsic breaking
of the Vainshtein mechanism inside large astrophysical objects, thus having
possibly detectable observational signatures. We will compare theoretical
predictions from this model with the observed total mass profile for a sample
of clusters of galaxies. The profiles are derived using two complementary
tools: X-ray hot intra-cluster gas dynamics, and strong and weak gravitational
lensing. We find that a dependence with the dynamical internal status of each
cluster is possible; for those clusters which are very close to be relaxed, and
thus less perturbed by possible astrophysical local processes, the galileon
model gives a quite good fit to both X-ray and lensing observations. Both
masses and concentrations for the dark matter halos are consistent with earlier
results found in numerical simulations and in the literature, and no compelling
statistical evidence for a deviation from general relativity is detectable from
the present observational state. Actually, the characteristic galileon
parameter is always consistent with zero, and only an upper limit
( at , at , and
at ) can be established. Some interesting distinctive deviations might
be operative, but the statistical validity of the results is far from strong,
and better data would be needed in order to either confirm or reject a
potential tension with general relativity.Comment: 26 pages, 3 tables, 4 figures. Accepted for publication on Phys. Rev.
Greenidea Ficicola : is it an example of rapid colonization due to climatic changes?
In recent years, several species of aphids of tropical or subtropical origins are being found outside their native
range. The reasons for the accidental introduction and subsequent establishment of these aphids in new territories
remain obscure. In most cases the accidental introduction of these rather small and cryptic species are often linked to
human activities (such as international trade of plants and plant products) but other factors such as global warming
may aid in the dispersal of such organisms.
In the present work, the rapid colonization of Greenidea ficicola Takahashi, an aphid native to the Oriental
Region, in different regions of the world (Afrotropics, Nearctic, Neotropics and Southern Europe) is documented.peer-reviewe
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