11,519 research outputs found
Cartel damages claims and the passing-on defense.
We develop a general economic framework for computing cartel damages claims by purchaser plaintiffs. We decompose the lost profits from the cartel in three parts: the direct cost effect (or anticompetitive price overcharge), the pass-on effect and the usually neglected output effect. The pass-on effect is the extent to which the plaintiff passes on the price overcharge by raising its own price, and the output effect is the lost business resulting from this passing-on. We subsequently introduce various models of imperfect competition for the plaintiffs industry. This enables us to evaluate the relative importance of the cost, pass-on and output effects. We show that an adjusted passing-on defense (i.e. accounting for the output effect) is justified under a wide variety of circumstances, provided that sufficiently many .firms in the plaintiffâs market are affected by the cartel. We derive exact discounts to the direct cost effect, which depend on relatively easy-to-observe variables, such as the pass-on rate, the number of firms, the number of firms affected by the cartel, and/or the market shares. We finally extend our framework to assess the cartelâs total harm, further demonstrating the crucial importance of the output effect. Our results are particularly relevant in light of the recent developments by U.S. and European antitrust authorities to make cartel damages claims more in line with actually lost profits.Investment; Pricing; Decisions; Decision; Transport; Economy; Claim;
An evaluation of the environmental care orientation of deciduous fruit producers in the Western Cape
A classification system developed to evaluate the environmental care orientation of companies and, more specifically, their strategies to deal with the environmental care requirements prescribed by the market was applied to the deciduous fruit sector in the Western Cape. A survey was done to determine the attitude towards and status of, environmental care activities amongst deciduous fruit producers who have already obtained Eurepgap certification or who are busy preparing for the certification audit. A questionnaire was used and the responses were judged in terms of the guidelines of the classification system. The nature of the typical South African - European deciduous fruit export supply chain is that South African producers desire to supply the retail market at higher prices than that of the wholesale market. The producers are then confronted with the stringent environmental care requirements of the retail chains, who use the environmental care product image aggressively as a selling point in the retail market, acting like typical Class III market oriented institutions. The classification shows that the majority of producers try to comply with these requirements with minimum effort (Class I). The more progressive producers accept them as good agricultural practices to increase their production efficiency. (Class II). Some farmers participate in a comprehensive Integrated Crop Management (ICM) system to establish a culture of environmental care at farm level in a more efficient way. ICM implementation also helps to prepare proactively for possible changes in the environmental care requirements of individual retail chains. This seems to be the more effective strategy for the primary producer.Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy,
Bertrand Competition with an Asymmetric No-Discrimination Constraint
Abstract: We study the competitive and welfare consequences when only one firm must commit to uniform pricing while the competitorâs pricing policy is left unconstrained. The asymmetric no-discrimination constraint prohibits both behaviour-based price discrimination within the competitive segment and third-degree price discrimination across the monopolistic and competitive segments. We find that an asymmetric no-discrimination constraint only leads to higher profits for the unconstrained firm if the monopolistic segment is large enough. Therefore, a regulatory policy objective of encouraging entry is not served by an asymmetric no-discrimination constraint if the monopolistic segment is small. Only when the monopolistic segment is small and rivalry exists in the competitive segment does the asymmetric no-discrimination constraint enhance welfare.Dominant firms;price discrimination;competition policy;regulation
Price Discrimination Bans on Dominant Firms
Competition authorities and regulatory agencies sometimes impose pricing restrictions on firms with substantial market power â the âdominantâ firms. We analyze the welfare effects of a ban on behaviour-based price discrimination in a two-period setting where the market displays a competitive and a sheltered segment. A ban on âhigher-prices-to-shelteredconsumersâ decreases prices in the sheltered segment, relaxes competition in the competitive segment, increases the rivalâs profits, and may harm the dominant firmâs profits. We show that a ban on âhigher-prices-to-sheltered-consumersâ increases the dominant firmâs share of the first-period market. A ban on âlower-prices-to-rivalâs-customersâ decreases prices in the competitive segment, lowers the rivalâs profits, and augments the consumer surplus. In particular, while second-period competition is relaxed by a ban on âlower-prices-to-rivalâscustomersâ, first-period competition is intensified substantially, which leads to lower prices âon-averageâ over the two periods. Our findings indicate that a dynamic two-period analysis may lead to conclusions opposite to those drawn from a static one-period analysis.dominant firms;price discrimination;competition policy;regulation
Iminophosphanes: Synthesis and Coordination Chemistry:Reviving the art of nitrilium ion chemistry
Lammertsma, K. [Promotor]Slootweg, J.C. [Copromotor]Ehlers, A.W. [Copromotor
Experimental and Theoretical Studies in Optical Coherence Theory
Visser, T.D. [Promotor]Ubachs, W.M.G. [Promotor
The Misprediction of emotions in Track Athletics.: Is experience the teacher of all things?
People commonly overestimate the intensity of their emotions toward future events. In other words, they display an impact bias. This research addresses the question whether people learn from their experiences and correct for the impact bias. We hypothesize that athletes display an impact bias and, counterintuitively, that increased experience with an event increases this impact bias. A field study in the context of competitive track athletics supported our hypotheses by showing that athletes clearly overestimated their emotions toward the outcome of a track event and that this impact bias was more pronounced for negative events than for positive events. Moreover, with increased athletic experience this impact bias became larger. This effect could not be explained by athletesâ forecasted emotions, but it could be explained by the emotions they actually felt following the race. The more experience athletes had with athletics, the less they felt negative emotions after unsuccessful goal attainment. These findings are discussed in relation to possible underlying emotion regulation processes
The social cognition of medical knowledge, with special reference to childhood epilepsy
This paper arose out of an engagement in medical communication courses at a Gulf university. It deploys a theoretical framework derived from a (critical) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis in order to investigate three aspects of medical discourse relating to childhood epilepsy: the cognitive processes that are entailed in relating different types of medical knowledge to their communicative context; the types of medical knowledge that are constituted in the three different text types analysed; and the relationship between these different types of medical knowledge and the discursive features of each text type. The paper argues that there is a cognitive dimension to the human experience of understanding and talking about one specialized from of medical knowledge. It recommends that texts be studied in medical communication courses not just in terms of their discrete formal features but also critically, in terms of the knowledge which they produce, transmit and reproduce
Structure and conductivity of pyrochlore and fluorite type solid solutions
High oxygen conductivities can be achieved in cation ordered LnxZrl-x=xO2-l/2x (Ln=Gd, Nd) solid solutions with pyrochlore (P) structure. High values of the pre-exponential factor Ďo are correlated with the degree of anion disorder in the 8b oxygen sublattice (neutron diffraction). The activation energy ÎH is lowered by cation ordering (F-P transition; effect of ) due to the occurence of a preferential diffusion path. Maximum oxygen conductivity is achieved in (1âx)Bi2O3âx Ln2O3 solid solutions with fluorite related δ-Bi2O3 structure for Ln=Er and x=0.20. Neutron diffraction measurements indicate the occurence of short range ordering in âEr-O unitsâ with relative small interatomic distances at T < 820 K. This leads to an increased activation energy
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