A Price is a signal: on intrinsic motivation and crowding-out

If a previously unpaid activity (donating blood) is paid then we often observe that this activity is reduced. In this paper, it is hypothesised that the price offered is taken as a proxy for the "market value" of the activity. Depending on how the actor valued the activity previously, crowding-out or crowding-in, as well as persistence (or not) of the effect after the abandoning of payment is implied. This "naive" explanation is confronted with Bénabou and Tirole´s (2003) priciple-agent model where the opposite signalling effect is hypothesised: a higher price is taken as an indication for a lower value. --Intrinsic Motivation,Crowding-out,Signaling

Over- and under-investment according to different benchmarks

In a two-stage oligopoly, with investment in the first stage and quantity or price competition in the second stage, there is a kind of Folk Theorem: We find (i) over-investment if the goods are substitutes and competition is in strategic substitutes, (ii) under-investment if we have either complements instead of substitutes or strategic complements instead of strategic substitutes, and (iii) again over-investment if both attributes change. The existing literature, however, lacks a proof of this theorem and, in particular, it lacks a systematic comparison of the different benchmarks for over-and under-investment. A "naive" benchmark is the efficient investment with respect to the subgame perfect (closed loop) equilibrium quantities. Alternative benchmarks (which are more often proposed) are the open loop equilibrium investment or the welfare maximizing investment. The chosen benchmark is critical because the Folk Theorem applies (under certain conventional conditions) only for the naïve benchmark. The other two benchmarks require additional assumptions or the distinction of subcases. --Oligopoly,technology choice,efficiency,under-investment,overinvestment

Competition and Security of Supply: Let Russia Buy into the European Gas Market!

We propose a model of the European gas market where the risk that Russian deliveries are interrupted is endogenized. While Russia's attempts to buy considerable parts of the European downstream industry have faced strong political opposition, we argue that Russian participation in the downstream market would decrease consumer prices and increase the security of supply. --Gas,Security of supply,competition

Are gas release auctions effective?

European and national cartel authorities have required dominant national gas pipelines to auction off certain quantities (typically about 10 % of their sales) to competitors. Do such auctions really improve the competitiveness of the wholesale market? Based on a model where oligopolistic pipelines could voluntarily auction gas to competitors (or precommit on certain sales otherwise) we conclude that such release auctions often have no effect because the additional obligations will simply crowd out voluntary sales. --

On the Allocative Efficiency of Ownership Unbundling

We analyze vertical structures where a regulated network operator serves n network users, and the network users compete in quantities for customers. We distinguish two cases: (i) none of the network users are related to the network operator (ownership unbundling), (ii) one of the network users is partially integrated with the operator and the others are disintegrated (legal unbundling). We seek to understand when ownership unbundling leads to lower customer prices, and formalize necessary conditions. In general, legal unbundling implies a less effective regulation, but it reduces the degree of market distortion caused by the difference between marginal costs and average costs (= regulated prices of network usage). We find that the necessary condition is not satisfied for realistic values of the relevant parameters, i.e. legal unbundling leads to lower costumer prices than ownership unbundling in most relevant markets. --Unbundling,vertical integration,Cournot competition

Cyclical price fluctuations caused by information inertia : evidence from the German call-by-call telephone market

The 2002 prices of suppliers in German call-by-call telephone market are rather dispersed, out-of-phase (uncorrelated), and show systematic down-up movements. In 2004, these prices are less dispersed, more in-phase and show more upwards runs than downs-ups. In both years, we clearly do not observe Edgeworth cycles where prices move in parallel (in-phase). We present a model with demand inertia, caused by incomplete information about prices, where (out-of-phase and in-phase) cycles as well as competitive equilibria and tacit collusion equilibria exist. The transition from the 2002 cycles in the German call-by-call market to more constant prices in 2004 may be due to parameter changes, such as customers possessing improved information. --Price cycles,incomplete information,telephone market

A Difficulty with Oaths: On Trust, Trustworthiness, and Signalling

In the wake of the Enron and Worldcom financial scandals that rocked Wall Street in 2002, the US government’s financial regulatory body, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) took the unprecedented step in June 2002 of requiring that the chief executives and chief financial officers of America’s 947 biggest companies to swear on oath that their company results and financial reports were to the best of their knowledge accurate. The one-off order was quickly followed by the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxely act, which will require many more CEOs and CFOs to certify their company reports and financial statements at regular intervals. In this paper we apply a simple signalling model to examine whether or not this type of institutional signal of trustworthiness is always efficient. We find that in the presence of signalling costs, the separating equilibrium can be socially inefficient as well as causing a general loss of trust.asymmetric information, institutional signals, oaths, risk, trust,

Small numbers matching markets: Unstable and inefficient due to over-competition?

The extant literature on matching markets assumes ordinal preferences for matches, while bargaining within matches is mostly excluded. Central for this paper, however, is the bargaining over joint profits from potential matches. We investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, a seemingly simple allocation task in a 2x2 market with repeated negotiations. More than 75% of the experimental allocations are unstable, and 40% of the matches are inefficient (in cases where inefficiency is possible). By defining the novel concept 'altruistic core', we can explain the occurrence of inefficient matches as well as the significant behavioral differences among our six treatments. --matching market,price negotiation,optimal allocation,altruism

Altruistic Behavior Under Incomplete Information

Models to the issue of altruism which rely on externalities of well-being are rarely used explicitly. In this paper we compare such utility-based approaches with the standard approach on altruism which is based on externalities of income. Testable differences of both types of models are derived in the case of incomplete information. More specifically, applied to the Dictator Game and the Impunity Game both played under incomplete information, the utility-based based approach predicts dictators to change their behavior in comparison to Dictator Games under complete information. Under the income-based approach, behavior should not differ in the three versions of the Dictator Game. --Altruism,Incomplete Information,Consistent Expectations

Utility versus Income-Based Altruism

In Dictator Game experiments where the information status of the participants varies we find that a certain type of proposer tends to reduce his offers when the recipient has incomplete information about the pie size. We also find that a certain type of recipient tends to reject too small offers in the Impunity Game when the proposer has incomplete information about the recipient type. To explain these puzzling results we reconsider Becker's [1974] theory of altruism, which assumes that externalities are caused by other people's utility. When incomplete information about the other person is introduced, it turns out that his approach predicts – in contrast to other theories of altruism - that some altruistic persons will change their behavior as observed in our experiments. Thus, a kind of utility based altruism (and spite as its opposite form) can be assumed as the main principle governing behavior in this class of games. --