Product Innovation Incentives: Monopoly vs. Competition

Arrow (1962) showed that a secure monopolist (unconcerned with preemption) has a weaker incentive than would a competitive firm to invest in a patentable process innovation. This paper shows that the ranking can be reversed for product innovations. Only the innovator sells the new product, a differentiated substitute for the old. Under alternative market structures considered, the old product is sold only by that same firm (two-product monopoly), only by a different firm (post-innovation duopoly), or in perfect competition. In an asymmetric Hotelling model, the innovation incentive under monopoly is greater than under duopoly if and only if the new product has the higher quality, and is always greater than under perfect competition.

Fourier transform and rigidity of certain distributions

Let $E$ be a finite dimensional vector space over a local field, and $F$ be its dual. For a closed subset $X$ of $E$, and $Y$ of $F$, consider the space $D^{-\xi}(E;X,Y)$ of tempered distributions on $E$ whose support are contained in $X$ and support of whose Fourier transform are contained in $Y$. We show that $D^{-\xi}(E;X,Y)$ possesses a certain rigidity property, for $X$, $Y$ which are some finite unions of affine subspaces.Comment: 10 page

Liinnaqumalghiit: A web-based tool for addressing orthographic transparency in St. Lawrence Island/Central Siberian Yupik

We present an initial web-based tool for St. Lawrence Island/Central Siberian Yupik, an endangered language of Alaska and Russia. This work is supported by the local language community on St. Lawrence Island, and includes an orthographic utility to convert from standard Latin orthography into a fully transparent representation, a preliminary spell checker, a Latin-to-Cyrillic transliteration tool, and a preliminary Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration tool. Also included is a utility to convert from standard Latin orthography into both IPA and Americanist phonetic notation. Our utility is also capable of explicitly marking syllable boundaries and stress in the standard Latin orthography using the conventions of Jacobson (2001), as well as in Cyrillic and in standard IPA notation. These tools are designed to facilitate the digitization of existing Yupik resources, facilitate additional linguistic field work, and most importantly, bolster efforts by the local Yupik communities in the U.S. and in Russia to promote Yupik usage and literacy, especially among Yupik youth

Filtering and forecasting commodity futures prices under an HMM framework

We propose a model for the evolution of arbitrage-free futures prices under a regime-switching framework. The estimation of model parameters is carried out using the hidden Markov filtering algorithms. Comprehensive numerical experiments on real financial market data are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm. In particular, the model is calibrated with data from heating oil futures and its forecasting performance as well as statistical validity is investigated. The proposed model is parsimonious, self-calibrating and can be very useful in predicting futures prices. © 2013 Elsevier B.V

The Impact of hedonic and utilitarian motivations on the hotel customers\u27 risk perception

The study proposes that deal-seeking travelers\u27 perception of risk may have a dual and contradicting impact on Expected Utility and, consequently, on their propensity to search for a better deal and book the travel product. According to a traditionally utilitarian motivation, a high level of risk and the prospect of negative results reduce Expected Utility, and they are therefore likely to reduce search activities and increase booking. This study argues that, due to hedonic motivations, consumers may enjoy the risk elements of their search for a better deal and, consequently, may respond to higher levels of induced risk perception by increasing search activities and reducing booking. The study explains how this finding impacts the way revenue-managing hotels, which seek to impact their customers\u27 behavior by inducing risk perceptions, should adapt their strategies

The complex Kohn variational method applied to N-d scattering

The three-nucleon ground state and the N--d scattering states are obtained using variational principles. The wave function of the system is decomposed into angular-spin-isospin channels and the corresponding two dimensional spatial amplitudes are expanded in a correlated polynomial basis. For the scattering states, the complex form of the Kohn variational principle is used to determine the $S$--matrix. Special attention is given to the convergence pattern of the phase-shift and mixing parameters. The calculations have been performed using realistic local NN potentials and three-nucleon forces. Important features of the method are anomaly-free solutions and the low dimensionality of the matrices involved allowing for the inclusion of a large number of states. Very precise and stable numerical results have been obtained.Comment: Latex, 22 pages; 5 figure