Successive Monopolies with Endogenous Quality

This paper analyzes the impact of vertical integration on product quality. Contrary to previous findings, it is shown that integration decreases quality in many natural situations. In general, the direction of the quality change is governed by three effects that are isolated in the model. This separation allows an analysis of important special cases like the manufacturer/retailer relationship, the intermediate/final good producer relationship, the deregulation of network infrastructure, and the provision of promotional services through independent distributors.Vertical integration, double marginalization, quality

The Optimal Regulation of Product Quality under Monopoly

This paper characterizes the optimal quality regulation of a monopolist when quality is observable. In contrast to Sheshinski (1976) it is shown that a minimum quality standard may be desirable even if it induces the firm to reduce output.Monopoly

Predatory Exclusive Dealing

While the previous literature on exclusive dealing has been concerned with the question of how exclusive dealing can raise static profits, this paper analyzes the question of how exclusive dealing can be used to predate in a dynamic context. It is shown that exclusive dealing may arise even if it reduces static profits. Exclusivity provisions may not only allow excluding efficient competitors, but indeed are often a cheaper exclusionary tool than predatory pricing. This is the case if the prey's access to finance is not too limited. Furthermore, it is more likely that exclusive dealing is preferable compared to predatory pricing the more market power the predator has with respect to the prey

Predatory Exclusive Dealing

While the previous literature on exclusive dealing has been concerned with the question of how exclusive dealing can raise static profits, this paper analyzes the question of how exclusive dealing can be used to predate in a dynamic context. It is shown that exclusive dealing may arise even if it reduces static profits. Exclusivity provisions may not only allow excluding efficient competitors, but indeed are often a cheaper exclusionary tool than predatory pricing. This is the case if the prey's access to finance is not too limited. Furthermore, it is more likely that exclusive dealing is preferable compared to predatory pricing the more market power the predator has with respect to the prey.exclusive dealing; predation

Curriculum Content, Placement, and Alignment: From Textbooks to Education Standards and Assessments

The dominant role of textbooks in curriculum planning and development as well as in content grade placement and alignment goes without question

Interim Leadership: The Professional Life History of Dr. Delbert M. Shankel

x, 209 leaves ; 29 cm. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-207).The study of leadership in higher education has emerged as a field of research that is attracting a great deal of attention. However, very little if any research has been conducted on interim leaders in institutions of higher education. In an effort to fill this gap within the knowledge base, this study of the professional life history of Dr. Delbert M. Shankel was conducted. During Dr. Shankel's thirty-seven year career as a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Kansas, he served in thirteen administrative positions. Seven of these positions were on an interim basis and two others began as interim appointments. It was believed that this study was at the forefront of studying interim leadership and studying the professional life history of an individual who served in interim positions of leadership on a repeated basis provided an information-rich case and an opportunity to gather in-depth data. In an effort to describe interim leadership from Del Shankel's perspective, it was necessary to investigate why and how he became an interim leader, his experiences as an interim leader, his definition of interim leadership, and his style of interim leadership. As the data were analyzed from this vantage point, five themes emerged: career path, institutional fit, professional influences, definition of interim leadership, and style of interim leadership. From these five themes three major implications for the literature were discovered. It was found that Del Shankel was a symbolic leader who represented the institutional culture during times of uncertainty such as periods of interim leadership. It was also found that while his definition of interim leadership was transactional, his practice could be viewed as vigorational. Finally, it was discovered that Shankel evolved into a consensus builder over the course of his thirty-seven year career

Writing American subjects: Race, composition, and the daily themes assignment for English 12 at Harvard, 1886--1887

This study works to develop a way of reading the functions of race in classroom contexts---specifically in the predominantly white contexts in which composition was formed as a university subject. The model of race chosen for this study is based on critical race theories that conceive of race as being socially constructed, but also a force that organizes identity and experience in powerful ways, even when (or perhaps especially when) its presence is apparently silent---or is, in the terminology of Charles Mills, normalized. Primary data for the study is drawn from materials related to the daily theme assignment designed by Barrett Wendell for his English 12 course at Harvard in 1886--87. Sources include the daily themes written by 22 of the 144 students who took the course, Wendell\u27s class notes, and administrative documents from the Harvard Archives. The study situates these course materials in relation to broader cultural contexts. The study argues that the movement to establish English as a subject in schools and universities was motivated by a desire to privilege values thought to be associated with the Anglo Saxon people and their descendants. Philological theories of the mother tongue defined language as a race acquisition, and perceived English to be the repository of particular cultural values, as well as a highly developed set of tools for cognition. Secondly, the study argues that the educational goal of cultivation became racialized in the American context, where Americans identified themselves as people who were fighting the wilderness. A new ideal of the cultivated man was constructed in relation to a racialized concept of wildness. Finally, the study argues that racialized concepts of liberty that understood the love of freedom as a national characteristic of the English, or considered conditions of freedom to apply only to some portions of society influenced the design of the elective curriculum, and fostered a new, more independent model of authority in the classroom

Visuality in Academic Writing: Reading Textual Difference in the Work of Multilingual Student Writers

With the growth of the teaching of English globally and increasing numbers of students in English language medium universities, students in academic English classrooms can be expected to be literate in two or more languages. Multilingual writers in the university engage in high stakes academic writing even as they navigate differences among languages and academic writing systems. While research and pedagogies addressing the question of difference in the writing of multilingual students in English have focused primarily on verbal features, writing has come to be conceptualized in terms of multimodality. Writing is also a visual mode, and multilingual writers draw on their knowledge of different conventions and writing systems as they compose. To reflect on the visuality of writing, this article considers examples of textual difference in the English writing of multilingual university students in Lebanon. Multilingual approaches to teaching writing are developing quickly, but instruction in visual aspects of writing is still predominantly prescriptive. Instructors of academic writing have a responsibility to contextualize visual dimensions of academic writing, especially for multilingual writers. Qualitative studies will help understand the perceptions and experiences of multilingual academic writers as they negotiate all of the modes of writing, including the visual