Multi-product Bertrand Oligopoly with exogenous and endogenous consumer heterogeneity

We develop a spatial model in which consumers receive firm-specific location shocks and firms endogenously determine both franchise/product locations and prices. Remarkably, firms fail to profit from endogenous product-specific heterogeneity alone: while ex-post consumer heterogeneity ensures positive gross profits, competition for market share results in socially excessive product lines and zero net profits. With added exogenous taste heterogeneity, endogenous spatial heterogeneity drives profits below their levels with only taste heterogeneity. Finally, we introduce multiple product lines and show that when product costs differ across lines, firms earn positive profits as long as consumer preferences over lines are imperfectly correlated

Flexibility vs. protection from an unrepresentative legislative majority

We derive the equilibrium institutional design of representative democracy by citizens who first vote on the supermajority required for a new policy to be adopted, and then delegate decision making to a legislature that selects policy given that institutional constraint. A legislature that can freely tailor policy to reflect society’s current preferences is good. However, the views of the median legislator or agenda setter may differ from the median citizen’s, and an unchecked legislature can implement bad policy. We characterize how the primitives describing the preferences of actors and the status quo policy affect the equilibrium degree of legislative flexibility

Patents, Tax Shelters, and the Firm

Since the landmark State Street decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, patentable subject matter has encompassed business methods, including tax investment strategies. Patents provide approximately twenty years of exclusive rights in the claimed method, in return for public disclosure in a published patent. Typically, the efficacy of specialized investment strategies will be diminished as they become generally known and so widely practiced; for this reason, many tax investment methods have been implemented under confidentiality agreements in order to prevent them from becoming widely practiced. However, patenting of such strategies may allow them to be practiced without confidentiality agreements, as the exclusive rights in the patent prevent the method from being generally adopted. We examine the effects of the shift from confidentiality to exclusive rights by drawing upon our previous work regarding intellectual property and the theory of the firm. The theory of the firm predicts several effects of such a shift from use of confidentiality to use of patents, due to the potentially lowered transactions costs associated with the patent. For example, partner firms that are necessarily affiliated with investment transactions formerly had to be prevented from unauthorized use of knowledge gained in the transaction. This could be accomplished by means of confidentiality agreements, but such agreements are cumbersome and difficult to enforce. The high costs of negotiating, policing, and enforcing confidentiality agreements may have created pressure to bring as much of the transaction as possible in house. Patenting of the transactions may lower such costs, allowing more of the transaction to be outsourced. Similarly, patenting may have an effect on the hiring, retention, and mobility of employees involved in such transactions. Employees who were skilled at such transactions formerly may have had difficulty changing firms, as they would be unable to take with them specific transactional skills learned under confidentiality agreements, or even describe such skills to a new employer. Patenting of the transactions removes the veil of confidentiality, allowing employees to discuss their skills with potential employers, even if the specific transactions cannot be used by the new employer. Assuming that tax shelter patents will be with us so long as there are business method patents, and that business method patents are for all practical purposes here to stay, we discuss the likely outcomes that tax shelter patents will have on the structure of investment firms and the mobility of skilled employees between such firms

Patents, Tax Shelters, and the Firm

Since the landmark State Street decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, patentable subject matter has encompassed business methods, including tax investment strategies. Patents provide approximately twenty years of exclusive rights in the claimed method, in return for public disclosure in a published patent. Typically, the efficacy of specialized investment strategies will be diminished as they become generally known and so widely practiced; for this reason, many tax investment methods have been implemented under confidentiality agreements in order to prevent them from becoming widely practiced. However, patenting of such strategies may allow them to be practiced without confidentiality agreements, as the exclusive rights in the patent prevent the method from being generally adopted. We examine the effects of the shift from confidentiality to exclusive rights by drawing upon our previous work regarding intellectual property and the theory of the firm. The theory of the firm predicts several effects of such a shift from use of confidentiality to use of patents, due to the potentially lowered transactions costs associated with the patent. For example, partner firms that are necessarily affiliated with investment transactions formerly had to be prevented from unauthorized use of knowledge gained in the transaction. This could be accomplished by means of confidentiality agreements, but such agreements are cumbersome and difficult to enforce. The high costs of negotiating, policing, and enforcing confidentiality agreements may have created pressure to bring as much of the transaction as possible in house. Patenting of the transactions may lower such costs, allowing more of the transaction to be outsourced. Similarly, patenting may have an effect on the hiring, retention, and mobility of employees involved in such transactions. Employees who were skilled at such transactions formerly may have had difficulty changing firms, as they would be unable to take with them specific transactional skills learned under confidentiality agreements, or even describe such skills to a new employer. Patenting of the transactions removes the veil of confidentiality, allowing employees to discuss their skills with potential employers, even if the specific transactions cannot be used by the new employer. Assuming that tax shelter patents will be with us so long as there are business method patents, and that business method patents are for all practical purposes here to stay, we discuss the likely outcomes that tax shelter patents will have on the structure of investment firms and the mobility of skilled employees between such firms

Electrochemical Study of Biotin-Modified Self-Assembled Monolayers: Recommendations for Robust Preparation

The development of the underpinning methodology for the production of robust, well-formed, and densely packed biotin-HPDP functionalised gold surfaces, the crucial first step in immobilising bimolecules on surfaces, is described. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) with biotin end-groups were prepared on polycrystalline gold surfaces according to a published method. The layers formed were studied using cyclic voltammetry to determine the composition of the layer and its quality. Crystal impedance spectroscopy was also applied as a complimentary indicator of the composition of the layer.For the first time, the effect of assembly time on the properties of the layer was studied along with the composition of the layer and the ability of the precursor molecule to self-assemble by oxidative addition

ANALIZING WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE IMPACTS USING A MULTINOMIAL LOGIT LAND USE MODEL

We develop a two-stage, multinomial logit model of UK land use to investigate the impact of policy changes upon agriculture. The model utilizes a large panel database covering the entirety of England and Wales for 14 years between 1969 and 2004 integrated with the economic and physical environment determinants of all major agricultural land use types. Our model performs well in out-of-sample prediction of current land use and we use it to assess a proposed implementation of the Water Framework Directive via a tax on fertilizer. Results indicate that such policy change would generate substantial switching from arable to grassland systems, reducing significantly the amount of nitrate leaching into UK water-bodies.Water Framework Directive, Land use models, Discrete choice models, Multinomial logit, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Structural change of fluid catalytic cracking catalysts study incorporate with coke characterization formed in heavy oil volatilization/decomposition

Porous structure change of catalyst and coke formation from feedstock on fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst have studied by a more comprehensive set of analyses, include 2D, 3D analyses incorporate with carbon/coke characterization teniques. Carbon/coke formed from a heavy oil volatilization/decomposition with different oil-to-FCC catalyst ratio (1:3, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1) to simulate the aging of FCC catalyst in a continuous oil refinery. Carbon/coke was formed for all used FCC catalyst samples that is generally increases with the increase of oil-to-FCC catalyst ratio. Coke formation has been correlated with the porosity change of the FCC catalyst, that more carbon/coke formed on the FCC catalyst due to the increment of oil-to-FCC catalyst ratio leads to the decrease of total pore volume and surface area. Zeolite is evenly distributed from the FCC catalyst particle centre to the exterior for all pristine and used FCC catalyst particles. The interior porous structure of single FCC catalyst particle is not affected by the coking. However, the exterior porous structure is completely disappear for all used FCC catalyst, that could cause by porous frame collapse and the coking clog the surface pores. The more comprehensive study of the structural change incorporate with the carbon/coke characterisation, which helps to understand the progressive degredation of FCC catalyst caused by porous structure change more in depth. Figure 1 is an example of 3 D tomogram and the radial distribution profiles of pristine FCC catalyst. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract