Vertical Contracting When Competition for Orders Precedes Procurement

This paper reverses the standard order between input supply negotiations and downstream competition and assumes that competition for orders takes place prior to procurement of inputs in a vertical chain. In an environment where procurement negotiations involve no private information and no restrictions on the form of pricing, it is found that oligopolistically competitive outcomes will result despite the presence of an upstream monopolist. It is demonstrated that vertical integration is a means by which the monopolist can leverage its market power downstream to the detriment of consumers. However, it does so, not by foreclosing on independent downstream firms, but by softening the competitive behaviour of its own integrated units. Thus, the paper provides a simple rationale for anti-competitive vertical integration in an environment that respects the usual Chicago school assumptionsvertical contracting, vertical integration, monopolisation, bargaining, competition

Bargaining Over Labor: Do Patients have any Power?

Using data on births from Australia, we estimate the level of patient bargaining power in negotiations over birth timing. In doing so, we exploit the fact that parents do not like to have children born on the “inauspicious” dates of February 29 and April 1. We show that, in general, the birth rate is lower on these dates, and argue that this reflects parent preferences. When these inauspicious dates abut a weekend, this creates a potential conflict between avoiding the inauspicious date, and avoiding the weekend. We find that in approximately three-quarters of cases, this conflict is resolved in favor of the physician. This suggests that while doctors have more power than patients, patients are sometimes able to influence medical decisions for non-medical reasons.timing of births, weekend effect, bargaining power

How Partisan is the Press? Multiple Measures of Media Slant

We employ several different approaches to estimate the political position of Australian media outlets, relative to federal parliamentarians. First, we use parliamentary mentions to code over 100 public intellectuals on a left-right scale. We then estimate slant by using the number of mentions that each public intellectual receives in each media outlet. Second, we have independent raters separately code front-page election stories and headlines. Third, we tabulate the number of electoral endorsements that newspapers give to each side of politics in federal elections. Overall, we find that the Australian media are quite centrist, with very few outlets being statistically distinguishable from the middle of Australian politics. It is possible that this is due to the lack of competition in the Australian media market. To the extent that we can separate content slant from editorial slant, we find some evidence that editors are more partisan than journalists.competition, media bias, media slant, economics of elections

Does the Lunar Cycle Affect Birth and Deaths?

There is a commonplace notion that full moons affect natality and mortality. To test this theory, we obtain daily births and deaths data from Australia, covering all 10,592 days from 1 January 1975 to 31 December 2003. We find that full moons are not associated with any significant change in the number of conceptions, births, or deaths. Moreover, our standard errors are sufficiently tight to make it possible to rule out even modest positive or negative effects of the lunar cycle.conceptions, births, deaths, timing, lunar cycle, full moon

Entrepreneurial Commercialization Choices and the Interaction between IPR and Competition Policy

This paper examines the interaction between intellectual property protection and competition policy on the choice of entrepreneurs with respect to commercialization as well as the rate of innovation. We find that stronger intellectual property protection makes it more likely that entrepreneurs will commercialize by cooperating with incumbents rather than competing with them. Consequently, we demonstrate that competition policy has a clearer role in promoting a higher rate of innovation in that event. Hence, we identify one reason why the strength of the two policies may be complements from the perspective of increasing the rate of entrepreneurial innovation.Entrepreneurs; Innovation; Commercialization; Intellectual property law; Competition law

Did the Death of Australian Inheritance Taxes Affect Deaths?

In 1979, Australia abolished federal inheritance taxes. Using daily deaths data, we show that approximately 50 deaths were shifted from the week before the abolition to the week after (amounting to over half of those who would have been eligible to pay the tax). Our results imply that over the very short run, the death rate is highly elastic with respect to the inheritance tax rate.behavioural responses to taxation, timing of deaths, estate tax

The Millennium Bub

How much do non-medical factors affect the timing of conceptions, births and deaths? To test this, we estimate the effect of the millennium on conceptions, births and deaths. With a highly flexible empirical specification, we find large and significant increases in conceptions and births, and suggestive evidence of an effect on deaths.conceptions, births, deaths, timing, millennium

Born on the First of July: An (Un)natural Experiment in Birth Timing

It is well understood that government policies can distort behaviour. But what is less often recognized is the anticipated introduction of a policy can introduce its own distortions. We study one such “introduction effect”, using evidence from a unique policy change in Australia. In 2004, the Australian government announced that children born on or after July 1, 2004 would receive a $3000 “Baby Bonus.” Although the policy was only announced a few months before its introduction, parents appear to have behaved strategically in order to receive this benefit, with the number of births dipping sharply in the days before the policy commenced. On July 1, 2004, more Australian children were born than on any other single date in the past thirty years. We estimate that over 1000 births were “moved” so as to ensure that their parents were eligible for the Baby Bonus, with about one quarter being moved by more than two weeks. Most of the effect was due to changes in the timing of inducement and caesarean section procedures. This birth-timing event represents a considerable opportunity for health researchers to study the impact of planned birthdays and hospital management issues.introduction effect, timing of births, policy distortion

Minding the Shop: The Case of Obstetrics Conferences

We estimate the impact of annual obstetricians and gynecologists’ conferences on births in Australia and the United States. In both countries, the number of births drops by 1 to 4 percent during the days on which these conferences are held. We argue that for this reason professional obstetrics societies should reconsider the timing of their annual conferences to accommodate the lowest natural birth rate in the year.timing of births, medical care, obstetrics, conference scheduling.