Collusion and the elasticity of demand

The analysis of collusion in infinitely repeated Cournot oligopoly games has generally assumed that demand is linear, but this note uses constant-elasticity demand functions to investigate how the elasticity of demand affects the sustainability of collusion.cartel

State aid to investment and R&D

The prohibition of state aid to investment and R&D in an integrated market such as the European Community is analysed in a Cournot oligopoly model where firms undertake investment or R&D to reduce their costs. Both strategic and non-strategic investment and R&D are considered. Governments in the Member States give subsidies for investment and R&D, which are financed by distortionary taxation so the opportunity cost of government revenue exceeds unity. Prohibiting state aid to investment will always increase aggregate welfare. Prohibiting state aid to R&D will always increase aggregate welfare if spillovers from R&D are small. If spillovers from R&D are moderate then there exists a range of values for opportunity cost where governments give state aid and where the prohibition of state aid will increase aggregate welfare. Prohibiting state aid to R&D will reduce aggregate welfare if spillovers from R&D are large.State aid prohibition, Cournot oligopoly model, R&D spillovers, distortionary taxation, Collie, R&D, research and development

Anti-dumping duties and the Byrd amendment.

The Byrd amendment to US anti-dumping law distributes the revenue from anti-dumping duties imposed on foreign firms to the domestic firms that lodged the complaint of dumping. When the government sets its anti-dumping duty to maximise a welfare function that attaches greater weight to the profits of the domestic industry than to consumer surplus or tax revenue, it is shown that the Byrd amendment will lead to lower duties and higher welfare if the weight on the profits of the domestic industry is sufficiently large. Also, the Byrd amendment makes it less likely that the anti-dumping duty will be prohibitive.Anti dumping; Research; Law; Firms; Domestic; Dumping; Welfare; Industry;

Export Taxes under Bertrand Duopoly

This article analyses export taxes in a Bertrand duopoly with product differentiation, where a home and a foreign firm both export to a third-country market. It is shown that the maximum-revenue export tax always exceeds the optimum-welfare export tax. In a Nash equilibrium in export taxes, the country with the low cost firm imposes the largest export tax. The results under Bertrand duopoly are compared with those under Cournot duopoly. It is shown that the absolute value of the export subsidy or tax under Cournot duopoly exceeds the export tax under Bertrand duopoly.

Product Differentiation and the Gains from Trade under Bertrand Duopoly

In the literature on the welfare effects of free trade under imperfect competition, one important case seems to have been overlooked and that is the Bertrand duopoly model with differentiated products. Although many authors have analysed the welfare effects of free trade under Cournot duopoly, and demonstrated the possibility of losses from trade, there has been no thorough analysis of the welfare effects of free trade under Bertrand duopoly. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the welfare effects of free trade under Bertrand duopoly with differentiated products, and it is shown that there are always gains from trade.gains from trade, Bertrand Oligopoly

New Results on Non-Abelian Vortices - further insights into monopole, vortex and confinement

We discuss some of the latest results concerning the non-Abelian vortices. The first concerns the construction of non-Abelian BPS vortices based on general gauge groups of the form G= G' x U(1). In particular detailed results about the vortex moduli space have been obtained for G'=SO(N) or USp(2N). The second result is about the "fractional vortices", i.e., vortices of the minimum winding but having substructures in the tension (or flux) density in the transverse plane. Thirdly, we discuss briefly the monopole-vortex complex.Comment: Latex 20 page