Hold-up Problem in Price Cap Regulation with Limited Ability of Commitment in High Inflation

In this study, we examine the hold-up problem under price cap regulation in developing economies characterised by high inflation that have a limited ability to commit. The governments of developing countries are unable to modify the exact inflation rate. If high inflation is brought about by unexpected monetary expansion after the initial average price is fixed, the insufficient ability to show exact inflation causes a lack of commitment to adjust the initial fixed price to the modified price. The study’s findings show that those that have a limited ability to commit cause a hold-up problem if inflation is sufficiently high for a firm to stop production at the initial price, while the hold-up problem does not occur if inflation is lower and the initial fixed price generates a sufficient profit for the first-best investment for the firm. JEL Classification: D86, L14, L43,L51 Keywords: Price Cap Regulation, Hold-up Problem, Limited Ability of Commitment, Inflation Adjustmen

"Impacts of Information Technology on Society: Information, Intellectual Property and Coordination Mechanism"(in Japanese)

We analyzed the effects of the progress and propagation of information technology on economic activity and the form of economic organizations from three different viewpoints. First, drastic reduction of information production and information processing costs produced the bursts of information, the rapid change of economy activity, and the globalization of economy. Second is the digitalization of goods and services, which made unbundling of information written in digital signal from the medium possible. With such technology, one can duplicate information perfectly with nominal cost only. This makes information pure public good and creates the serious problem of appropriation. The last and the most importantly, we discuss the digitalization of coordination. Progress of the informational and communication technology makes coordination more accurate and inexpensive. This makes the electronic coordination between parts and organization easier and less costly. This promotes the unbundling of parts or elements that had been bundled because of technical reason and rebundle them in much more natural way. We argue that this brings about the phenomena often described as modularization and open-architecture.

Impacts of Information Technology on Society : Information, Intellectual Property and Coordination Mechanism

本論文では、情報技術の発展と拡大が経済活動や経済組織に与える影響について、３点に分類して整理した。第一に、情報技術の発展と拡大という意味での「IT化」の一つの側面は、情報量の爆発、経済のスピード化・グローバル化であり、既に奥野［1999］で「情報化」として提起されている。第二に、情報技術の発展の重要な側面として、財・サービスの「ディジタル財」化、「ディジタルサービス」化があげられる。情報がディジタル信号化されたことにより、完壁に近い複製が殆ど無コストで作成可能となった。最後に、情報技術の発展と拡大という意味での「ＩＴ化」の鍵概念と思われるにもかかわらず、情報化から抜け落ちている論点として、「電子的プログラムによるコーディネーションの補完」があげられる。情報通信技術の進歩は、人、物、組織のコーディネーションを電子的プログラムに「補完」させることによって、コーディネーションコストを著しく低下させ、より正確なコーディネーションが可能になった。この結果、従来、無理な形でバンドルされていた要素や部品がアンバンドルされ、より自然な形でリバンドルされ、モジュール化やオープン化が促進されていると考えられる。奥野正寛, 池田信夫編著. 情報化と経済システムの転換. 東洋経済新報社, 2001, p. 3-40.本文フィルはリンク先を参照のこ