Procurement Contracts under Limited Liability

This paper analyses procurement when contractors have limited liability and when the sponsor cannot commit to any specific form of future negotiation. It shows that introducing limited liability enhances competition and thus the likelihood of bankruptcy. Among efficient auctions in which only the winner gets paid, the commonly used first price auction is shown to give the lowest probability of bankruptcy. Finally, it shows that the characterisation of a mechanism minimising the project’s cost results from trading-off bankruptcy costs with informational rents.

Auctioning Horizontally Differentiated Items

This paper analyses strategic market allocation by two auc- tioneers holding substitutes. It characterizes both the cooperative and com- petitive outcomes. Under cooperation or competition with close substitutes, bidders are allocated according to the expected total surplus each generates. This market division is efficient if and only if the distribution of bidders? tastes is not skewed. If skewed, reserve prices distort participation towards the least preferred item. For greater degrees of product differentiation compe- tition leads to multiple equilibria. Finally, competition with close substitutes sellers leave participation rents to their weakest bidder. They do not in other cases, whether they compete or cooperate.Competition, Auctions, Reserve prices, Efficiency

Optimal Initial Public O¤ering design with aftermarket trading.

We characterize the optimal pricing and allocation of shares in the presence of distinct adverse selection problems. Some investors have private information at the time of the IPO and sell their shares in the after-market upon facing liquidity needs. Others learn their private interest in the after-market, and sell their shares strategically. The optimal mechanism trades-o¤ informational rents and rents to strategic traders. Flipping facilitates truthful information revelation. When liquidity needs are likely, it is optimal to allocate all shares to investors informed at the IPO stage. Otherwise, some shares are allocated to those who trade strategically in the after-market.

Decentralized licensing of complementary patents: Comparing the royalty, fixed-fee and two-part tariff regimes

This paper explores the decentralized licensing of complementary patents reading on a technology standard. We develop a model in which manufacturers must buy licenses from different patent owners in order to enter the market for differentiated standard-compliant products. We consider three different types of licensing, namely, the fixed-fee, per-unit royalty and two-part tariff regimes, and compare their performances in terms of licensing revenue, price, product variety and welfare. We show that each regime entails different types of coordination failures. We establish that each of them may maximize the licensing revenue depending on the number of licensors, number of potential entrants and product differentiation.Standard; Licence; Patent; Royalty; License; Complementary innovations

After McCahon at Auckland City Art Gallery: Canonisation and the Market in the 1980s

Can New Zealand postmodernism be described as a post-McCahon condition? Curator Christina Barton’s exhibition after McCahon: some recent configurations in art (1989), at Auckland City Art Gallery, was a critical response to McCahon’s canonisation, registering internal diversity within an institution deeply invested in this status. Strategically invoking McCahon’s name enabled Barton to smuggle a group of younger artists into ACAG’s exhibition programme. The artists in After McCahon explored poststructuralist theory, an expansion of institutional critique, post-punk practices and decolonial politics. These discourses of the 1980s supported the production of works dripping with postmodern irony and acutely conscious of the institutional authority amplifying McCahon’s voice and certifying his blue-chip status

Decentralized licensing of complementary patents: Comparing the royalty, fixed-fee and two-part tariff regimes

The authors are grateful to the publisher, Elsevier, for letting the manuscript being archived in this Open Access repository.International audienceThis paper explores the decentralized licensing of complementary patents reading on a technology standard. We develop a model in which manufacturers must buy licenses from different patent owners in order to enter the market for differentiated standard-compliant products. We consider three different types of licensing, namely, the fixed-fee, per-unit royalty and two-part tariff regimes, and compare their performances in terms of licensing revenue, price, product variety and welfare. We show that each regime entails different types of coordination failures. We establish that each of them may maximize the licensing revenue depending on the number of licensors, number of potential entrants and product differentiation

Decentralized of licensing of complementary patents: comparing royalty, fixed fee and two part tariff

This paper analyzes how an inventor should fix the licensing terms to license a standard in complying with a non-discrimination requirement. Using a model incorporating imperfect competition between a finite number of users and product differentiation, we compare three different regimes: fixed fee (also known as royalty free), per unit royalty and two-part tariff. We highlight the different effects of each design on prices and number of varieties. We identify which one dominates with respect to the licensor's profit and total welfare. Finally we extend our model to a setting where the standard is protected by several licenses owned by non-cooperating owners.

Display of antigens on polyester inclusions lowers the antigen concentration required for a bovine tuberculosis skin test

The tuberculin skin test is the primary screening test for the diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis (TB), and use of this test has been very valuable in the control of this disease in many countries. However, the test lacks specificity when cattle have been exposed to environmental mycobacteria or vaccinated with Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Recent studies showed that the use of three or four recombinant mycobacterial proteins, including 6-kDa early secretory antigenic target (ESAT6), 10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP10), Rv3615c, and Rv3020c, or a peptide cocktail derived from those proteins, in the skin test greatly enhanced test specificity, with minimal loss of test sensitivity. The proteins are present in members of the pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex but are absent in or not expressed by the majority of environmental mycobacteria and the BCG vaccine strain. To produce a low-cost skin test reagent, the proteins were displayed at high density on polyester beads through translational fusion to a polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase that mediates the formation of antigen-displaying inclusions in recombinant Escherichia coli. Display of the proteins on the polyester beads greatly increased their immunogenicity, allowing for the use of very low concentrations of proteins (0.1 to 3 μg of mycobacterial protein/inoculum) in the skin test. Polyester beads simultaneously displaying all four proteins were produced in a single fermentation process. The polyester beads displaying three or four mycobacterial proteins were shown to have high sensitivity for detection of M. bovis-infected cattle and induced minimal responses in animals exposed to environmental mycobacteria or vaccinated with BCG.Full Tex