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

Technology diffusion in a differentiated industry

This paper investigates the adoption timing pattern of a cost-reducing innovation in a differentiated oligopolistic industry. It compares price and quantity market competition with the second-best optimal adoption rule. The diffusion pattern typically depends on the degree of product differentiation, and on the ability of firms to precommit, or not, to a certain adoption date. When goods are imperfect substitutes, market competition leads always to later adoption dates than it is socially optimal. When goods are sufficiently close substitutesı the last adoption occurs always earlier than in the optimum; the first adoption might also occur earlier but only if preemption is a credible threat

Vintage-Differentiated Environmental Regulation

Vintage-differentiated regulation (VDR) is a common feature of many environmental and other regulatory policies in the United States. Under VDR, standards for regulated units are fixed in terms of the units’ respective dates of entry, or “vintage,” with later entrants facing more stringent regulation. In the most common application, often referred to as “grandfathering,” units produced prior to a specific date are exempted from new regulation or face less stringent requirements. The vintage-differentiated approach has long appealed to many participants in the policy community, for reasons associated with efficiency, equity, and simple politics. First, it is frequently more cost-effective—in the short-term—to introduce new pollutionabatement technologies at the time that new plants are constructed than to retrofit older facilities with such technologies. Second, it seems more fair to avoid changing the rules of the game in mid-stream, and hence to apply new standards only to new plants. Third, political pressures tend to favor easily-identified existing facilities rather than undefined potential facilities. On the other hand, VDRs can be expected—on the basis of standard investment theory—to retard turnover in the capital stock (of durable plants and equipment), and thereby to reduce the cost-effectiveness of regulation in the long-term, compared with equivalent undifferentiated regulations.1 A further irony is that, when this slower turnover results in delayed adoption of new, cleaner technology, VDR can result in higher levels of pollutant emissions than would occur in the absence of regulation. In this Article, I survey previous applications and synthesize current thinking regarding VDRs in the environmental realm, and develop lessons for public policy and for future research. In Part 2, I describe the ubiquitous nature of VDRs in U.S. regulatory policy, and examine the reasons why VDRs are so common. In Part 3, I establish a theoretical framework for analysis of the cost-effectiveness of alternative types of environmental policy instruments to provide a context for the analysis of VDRs. In Part 4, I focus on the effects of VDRs, and describe a general theory of the impacts of these instruments in terms of their effects on technology adoption, capital turnover, pollution abatement costs, and environmental performance. In Parts 5 and 6, I examine empirical analyses of the impacts of VDRs in two significant sectors: Part 5 focuses on the effects of VDRs in the U.S. auto industry, and Part 6 on the effects of new source review, which is a form of VDR, in power generation and other sectors. In Part 7, I examine implications for policy and research, and recommend avenues for improvements in both.

Differential Targeting of Stem Cells and Differentiated Glioblastomas by NK Cells.

We have recently shown that Natural Killer (NK) cells control survival and differentiation of Cancer Stem-like Cells (CSCs) through two distinct phenotypes of cytotoxic and anergic NK cells, respectively. In this report, brain CSCs and their serum and NK cell differentiated counterparts were studied. Serum-differentiated brain CSCs were significantly less susceptible to NK cells and CTL direct cytotoxicity as well as NK cell mediated Antibody Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC), whereas their CSCs were highly susceptible. The levels of CD44 and EGFR were higher in brain tumor CSCs when compared to the serum-differentiated tumors. No differences could be observed for the expression of MHC class I between brain tumor stem cells and their serum-differentiated counterparts. Moreover, supernatants from the combination of IL-2 and anti-CD16mAb treated NK cells (anergized NK cells) induced resistance of brain tumor CSCs to NK cell mediated cytotoxicity. Unlike serum-differentiated CSCs, NK supernatant induced differentiation and resistance to cytotoxicity in brain CSCs correlated with the increased expression of CD54 and MHC class I. The addition of anti-MHC class I antibody moderately inhibited NK mediated cytotoxicity against untreated or serum-differentiated CSCs, whereas it increased cytotoxicity against NK supernatant differentiated tumors. Therefore, two distinct mechanisms govern serum and NK supernatant mediated differentiation of brain tumors

DEMAND FOR DIFFERENTIATED VEGETABLES

To obtain a healthier diet, Americans need to consume not only more vegetables, but also a healthier mix of vegetables. Household demands for eight categories of vegetables are investigated, using ACNielsen's Homescan data. A maximum simulated likelihood estimation procedure results in elasticity estimates which are somewhat larger than those obtained from both time-series and cross-section data in the literature. Even these larger elasticities are not large enough to bridge the dietary consumption gap without, and possibly even with, substantial price or food expenditure subsidies. Furthermore, Homescan data do indicate some significant differences in preferences for types of vegetables by household characteristics, such as race and ethnicity. This information could be used in designing more effective public interventions for boosting vegetable consumption in the United States.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Horizontally Differentiated Market Makers

I present a model of competition between two market makers who are horizontally differentiated. I first show that absent a search market for buyers and sellers, there is a continuum of symmetric equilibria. These equilibria are payoff equivalent for market makers, but affect buyers' and sellers' welfare in opposite ways. Second, I analyze the model when buyers and sellers can also exchange the good in search markets. The model with search markets shares many features with existing models, yet allows competing intermediaries to net a profit in equilibrium. Interestingly, the model exhibits a complementarity between intermediaries' profits in the presence of search markets. Third, I show that every equilibrium in a game with market makers is also an equilibrium in an appropriately defined game with matchmakersMarket making; intermediation and search; horizontal differentiation; market microstructure

Exclusive contracts with vertically differentiated products

In this paper we develop a simple model to analyze the effects of exclusive contracts in vertically integrated markets where both the upstream and the downstream market are characterized as oligopolies and manufacturers produce vertically differentiated products. We find that firms prefer to deal exclusively with retailers. If the extent of consumers' heterogeneity is small, manufacturers offer exclusive contracts unilaterally. On the other hand, if consumers' valuations differ significantly both manufacturers engage in exclusive contracting

Recent advances in managing differentiated thyroid cancer

The main clinical challenge in the management of thyroid cancer is to avoid over-treatment and over-diagnosis in patients with lower-risk disease while promptly identifying those patients with more advanced or high-risk disease requiring aggressive treatment. In recent years, novel clinical and molecular data have emerged, allowing the development of new staging systems, predictive and prognostic tools, and treatment approaches. There has been a notable shift toward more conservative management of low- and intermediate-risk patients, characterized by less extensive surgery, more selective use of radioisotopes (for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes), and less intensive follow-up. Furthermore, the histologic classification; tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) staging; and American Thyroid Association risk stratification systems have been refined, and this has increased the number of patients in the low- and intermediate-risk categories. There is now a need for new, prospective data to clarify how these changing practices will impact long-term outcomes of patients with thyroid cancer, and new follow-up strategies and biomarkers are still under investigation. On the other hand, patients with more advanced or high-risk disease have a broader portfolio of options in terms of treatments and therapeutic agents, including multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitors, more selective BRAF or MEK inhibitors, combination therapies, and immunotherapy

Ordered Search in Differentiated Markets

This paper presents an ordered search model in which consumers search both for price and product fitness. We show that there is price dispersion in equilibrium and prices rise in the order of search. The top firms in consumer search order, though charge lower prices, earn higher profits due to their larger market shares.non-random search, price dispersion, product differentiation

Differentiated Standards and Patent Pools

We consider patent pool formation by owners of essential patents for differentiated standards that may be complements or substitutes in use. Pooling improves coordination in terms of royalty setting within a standard but provokes a strategic response from licensors in the competing standard. We characterise the incentives to form and defect from pools within standards and show how pool formation and stability depend on competition between standards. We also examine strategic patent pool formation by consortium standards and show that policies promoting compatibility of standards may increase or decrease welfare depending on the effects on the incentives to form pools.Patent pools, competing standards, consortium standards