Essays on Firm Strategies and Market Outcomes

Essays on Firm Strategies and Market Outcomes PDF Author: Brady Thomas Vaughan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
In the first chapter of my dissertation, Aleksandr Yankelevich and I examine the effects of price matching guarantees on duopoly markets. We find that a commitment to price-match raises prices by altering consumer search behavior in three ways. First, price-matching diminishes firms' incentives to lower prices to attract consumers who have no search costs. Second, for consumers with positive search costs, price-matching lowers the marginal benefit of search, inducing them to accept higher prices. Finally, price-matching can lead to asymmetric equilibria where one firm runs fewer sales and both firms tend to offer smaller discounts than in a symmetric equilibrium. These price increases grow with the proportion of consumers who invoke price-matching guarantees and also in the level of equilibrium asymmetry. The second chapter studies the effect of the complexity of consumers' preferences over a product on that product's market structure. I relate complexity of preferences to the number of dimensions of a Lancasterian characteristic space. Using a novel higher dimensional Hotelling model, I find that a fixed number of firms are likely to be better off competing over products with more complex preferences. Although firms face more intense competition in higher dimensional markets, the greater product differentiation afforded to them allows them to charge higher prices and earn higher profits. This result provides a clear theoretical foundation for the observation that goods associated with more complex preferences typically display a greater variety of products sold. Additionally, I show that the behavior of more than two firms competing in more than one dimension differs wildly from that of firms typically studied in models of spatial competition. The final chapter will examine firms' motives for implementing grandfather clauses that allow certain consumers to continue to access a service at a favorable, but no longer available price. Grandfather clauses permit firms to price discriminate between early adopters and new consumers in exchange for forfeiting the right to optimally set prices for early adopters. They may be used to thwart competition following a structural change, to respond to cost shocks, or to retain customers who consume another good from a multiproduct firm. We analyze under what conditions firms might choose to offer grandfather clauses and what effects they have on welfare.

Essays on Firm Strategies and Market Outcomes

Essays on Firm Strategies and Market Outcomes PDF Author: Brady Thomas Vaughan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the first chapter of my dissertation, Aleksandr Yankelevich and I examine the effects of price matching guarantees on duopoly markets. We find that a commitment to price-match raises prices by altering consumer search behavior in three ways. First, price-matching diminishes firms' incentives to lower prices to attract consumers who have no search costs. Second, for consumers with positive search costs, price-matching lowers the marginal benefit of search, inducing them to accept higher prices. Finally, price-matching can lead to asymmetric equilibria where one firm runs fewer sales and both firms tend to offer smaller discounts than in a symmetric equilibrium. These price increases grow with the proportion of consumers who invoke price-matching guarantees and also in the level of equilibrium asymmetry. The second chapter studies the effect of the complexity of consumers' preferences over a product on that product's market structure. I relate complexity of preferences to the number of dimensions of a Lancasterian characteristic space. Using a novel higher dimensional Hotelling model, I find that a fixed number of firms are likely to be better off competing over products with more complex preferences. Although firms face more intense competition in higher dimensional markets, the greater product differentiation afforded to them allows them to charge higher prices and earn higher profits. This result provides a clear theoretical foundation for the observation that goods associated with more complex preferences typically display a greater variety of products sold. Additionally, I show that the behavior of more than two firms competing in more than one dimension differs wildly from that of firms typically studied in models of spatial competition. The final chapter will examine firms' motives for implementing grandfather clauses that allow certain consumers to continue to access a service at a favorable, but no longer available price. Grandfather clauses permit firms to price discriminate between early adopters and new consumers in exchange for forfeiting the right to optimally set prices for early adopters. They may be used to thwart competition following a structural change, to respond to cost shocks, or to retain customers who consume another good from a multiproduct firm. We analyze under what conditions firms might choose to offer grandfather clauses and what effects they have on welfare.

Essays on Market Design and Experimental Economics

Essays on Market Design and Experimental Economics PDF Author: Eric Samuel Mayefsky
Publisher: Stanford University
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
I explore fundamental behavioral aspects of several market design environments in a variety of projects using both theoretical models and laboratory experiments. I show that human tendencies can drastically shift potential outcomes away from those which would result if individuals were fully 'rational' and unbiased in decision problems similar to those found frequently in the field. I explore two common classes of centralized matching mechanisms--Deferred Acceptance and Priority--which have wildly different success rates in practice despite both being open to manipulation by agents who have incomplete information about the other participants in the match. For this reason, theory predicts both mechanisms in equilibrium will yield match outcomes which are unstable, meaning some agents will desire to renegotiate with one another after receiving their match assignments, and thus reduce participants' confidence in using the match. I provide laboratory evidence that out-of-equilibrium truth telling by agents is substantially more frequent in the Deferred Acceptance environment and thus Deferred Acceptance matches will generally be more stable in practice than matches using a Priority mechanism. This may explain why Deferred Acceptance mechanisms appear to be more viable in the field. I also explore two different models of decentralized two-sided matching environments where establishing scarce signaling methods can improve market outcomes. In a laboratory experiment, I show that allowing potential receiving job offers to send a single signal to their favorite potential employer before job offers are made increases overall match rates in the market, but is potentially damaging to the firms making offers when compared to the market without such a signal. Then, in a theoretical model where pre-offer communication takes the form of an interview process where workers have natural limits on the number of interviews in which they can participate, I show that in many cases firms can benefit themselves and the market as a whole by voluntarily restricting the number of interviews they offer to participate in. While not traditionally thought of as market design problems, voting mechanisms are fundamentally goods allocation problems as well and have many of the same issues as traditional markets do. I explore the effects of voter bias on outcomes in an otherwise standard voting model and find that even slight external pressure on individuals in a committee tasked with coming to a collective decision can destroy the ability of that committee to arrive at the correct result, even when individuals have good information about the best decision to make. Furthermore, the quality of the decision made by such a committee can actually degrade as the committee size increases, in contrast with the canonical Condorcet Jury Theorem which predicts that a committee's ability to choose the right outcome increases quickly as more members are added.

Non-market Strategies and Firm Performance

Non-market Strategies and Firm Performance PDF Author: Asli Kozan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This dissertation looks into performance implications of firms' non-market strategies. It draws attention to the double-blade nature of firms' non-market strategies, as well as the importance for the firm of forming a right portfolio of such strategies. Using insights from social exchange theory and resource dependence theory, it first outlines the conditions under which firms will be subject to rent extraction by politicians. It then looks into the impact of political linkages on firms' financial performance, differentiating between different types of political linkages; which expose a firm to different levels of uncertainty regarding the continuity of exchange with the politician, and different levels of ex-post dependency on the politician. Finally it investigates how community engagement might act as a complement to firms' political linkages, and how such complementarity may help to achieve improved financial returns from those political linkages. The predictions of the essays are empirically tested using a unique longitudinal dataset covering various types of linkages between all politicians and all publicly listed companies in the UK, for the period from 2002 to 2011. Taking a critical stand on the value to be drawn from firms' non-market strategies, this dissertation contributes to strategic management literature, particularly the literature on firms' non-market strategies and their implications on financial performance.

Essays on Strategic Behavior of Firms with Market Power

Essays on Strategic Behavior of Firms with Market Power PDF Author: Artak Meloyan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This dissertation consists of two chapters that try to examine the structural behaviour of firms with market power in two contexts: implicit collusion and merger. In the first chapter, we examine the implicit collusion in the U.S. corn seed market where several firms dominate the market and try to grasp consumer welfare. In these types of markets, firms can implicitly divide the market among each other and in each of these submarkets gain market power by offering different products than their competitors. Thus, the implicit collusion can potentially increase their market power. We show the difference in SPNE of implicit collusion between duopoly and oligopoly and examine whether or not there is evidence of implicit collusion in setting prices or product lines in the case of oligopoly. Results indicate that there is significant collusion in not only price setting stage, but also in product line choosing stage. The second chapter evaluates the impact of mergers on market prices through two different channels: efficiency gain vs. market concentration. We develop a theoretical model for firm's merger behavior, derive the equilibrium market prices both before and after the merger and decompose the total price change into two components: those due to the efficiency gain and those due to the market concentration. Then we apply the model to the case of a merger in mayonnaise market in 2015 to conduct empirical analyses using price-quantity data in the U.S. mayo market from 2013 to 2017. Results show a negative relationship between efficiency gain and market prices and positive relationship between market concentration and market prices. However, the efficiency gain effect outweighs the market concentration effect in the mayonnaise industry which leads to price decrease as a result of the merger.

Essays on Firm Innovation and Operational Performance

Essays on Firm Innovation and Operational Performance PDF Author: Senali Amarasuriya
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Author's abstract: The majority of the OSCM literature suggests that firm innovation is positively associated with firm performance. However, as evidenced by some of the innovation failures in the real world, this seemingly intuitive relationship between innovation and firm performance has the potential to be quite nuanced and counterintuitive. Hence in this dissertation, I seek further understanding related to (1) extant OSCM research regarding the innovation-performance relationship and (2) types of firm innovation strategies- being a leader or a laggard- which will financially benefit a firm according to the market they operate in, essentially informing the management how the industry will determine whether they need to innovate or not. Essay 1 systematically reviews the extant OSCM literature on innovation focusing on research utilizing Patent and R&D data. Based on a total population of 176 Patent and R&D data-based empirical papers, I develop a novel framework based on patent measurement class data and R&D operationalization method, to guide the consistent application of patent and R&D data in future OSCM research. I also identify fifteen measurement issues falling under three classes categorized by the magnitude of their impact (high/medium or low impact) on data analysis that can impair the inferences drawn from interpreting the results. In Essay 2 I explore the conditions under which firm innovation could benefit (impede) firm performance. This specifically involves investigating the financial and operational implications of a firm’s choosing to be leading (lagging) innovators within the context of innovative (non-innovative) industries. Using generalized structural equation modeling on a sample of 18,870 firm-quarter observations belonging to the manufacturing organizations of the United States for the period from 2000 to 2020 obtained from Compustat, I find out that a firm playing in a highly innovative market will be financially better off by opting to be a laggard instead of a leader, and that being a leader or a laggard doesn’t essentially make a difference for a firm operating in a non-innovative market. Accordingly, contrary to the conventional belief that being innovative is always associated with superior firm performance, management should choose their innovation strategy based on how innovative the industry is.

New Perspectives in Service Research

New Perspectives in Service Research PDF Author: Christoph Thiesbrummel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783832536930
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Scholars and managers alike view service-based strategies as an effective instrument in establishing and sustaining competitive advantage. Particularly, in product-driven firms service-based strategies are associated with a variety of benefits such as increased differentiation of a firm's market offerings and generation of additional revenues as well as profits. However, service-based strategies do not lead to increased company performance per se. Instead, many firms find it difficult to reap the fruits of the service business and successfully exploit its full financial potential. Based on the concept of strategic fit, Christoph Thiesbrummel examines whether and under which conditions service-based strategies, such as service innovation, promote superior performance. The focus of the investigation is on product-driven firms, whose core market offering typically is a physical good. The author employs different methodologies (e.g., configuration analysis) in order to examine the financial outcomes of service-based strategies. The dissertation encompasses five research projects, four empirical studies and one conceptual study, which collectively show that the success of service-based strategies is contingent on contextual factors. Firms thus need to orchestra various company and market characteristics for turning service-based strategies into superior company performance.

Essays on Firm Strategy and Performance in Emerging Economies

Essays on Firm Strategy and Performance in Emerging Economies PDF Author: Markus D. Taussig
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business planning
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
"The papers that make up this dissertation aim to marry two extensive academic literatures: i.) the strategy literature, a key tenet of which is that market inefficiencies can be taken advantage of by firms with the right resources; and ii.) the law and finance literature, which shows that strong, predictable government institutions encourage competition and efficient allocation of scarce resources in emerging economies."--Leaf iii.

Three Essays on Firm Strategy and Public Policy

Three Essays on Firm Strategy and Public Policy PDF Author: Byung-Cheol Kim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumer protection
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description


Essays on Timing of Firm Actions in Industrial Economics

Essays on Timing of Firm Actions in Industrial Economics PDF Author: Youping Li
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
The timing of actions by firms plays an important role in industrial economics. It is key to strategic advantage in oligopoly models whether firms compete on quantity or on price. In a vertical relationship between input suppliers and final-good manufacturers, a firm which chooses a strategy first will take into account the response by those firms moving second and different sequence of play leads to different market outcomes. In my dissertation, I study the determinants and implications of the timing of firm actions in a variety of scenarios. In my first two essays, I examine how market leadership may arise endogenously in oligopoly models and focus on the effect of information about uncertain market demand. My first essay studies a quantity game and I identify the circumstance under which a perishable information asymmetry regarding stochastic demand causes market leadership. In an information acquisition game, I show that Stackelberg equilibrium in the full game is supported only when firms have different costs of information. My second essay considers a duopoly in which firms supply a differentiated product and compete on price. I find that different equilibrium outcomes arise under different information structures. Under asymmetric information, a firm's information advantage leads to a strategic disadvantage of leading in the price game. The time value of information may well be negative, contrasting with results in the first essay. In my third essay, I consider a vertical relationship in which a supplier sets the price of an input and the firm that produces the final good must choose how much to invest in some complementary input or process. Two models with different sequence of firm actions are studied and yield different pricing strategies for the upstream monopolist. Interestingly, a change of the sequence from one model (the upstream firm commits to input prices first) to the other (the upstream firm sets input prices after investments are made) benefits all parties including the upstream monopolist, the downstream firms and the consumers.

Two Essays on Designing Marketing Strategies to Improve Firm Performance

Two Essays on Designing Marketing Strategies to Improve Firm Performance PDF Author: Ashutosh Singh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
My dissertation focuses on designing marketing strategies to improve firm performance. My dissertation’s first essay focuses on designing a competitive strategy for digital media platforms for tackling AdBlock. Online advertising is a major source of revenue for digital media firms but increasing ad-blocking software usage has a negative impact on such revenues. To avoid losses from AdBlock usage, digital publishers mainly use two strategies. First, publishers can use the whitelisting strategy, which blocks AdBlock users from viewing the publishers’ content. Second, publishers can use the sophisticated ad recovery (SAR) strategy that bypasses AdBlock and only shows relevant ads to readers. With an analytical model and duopolistic framework, I identify the conditions under which digital publishers might adopt the whitelisting strategy over SAR strategy and those in which two ex-ante symmetric firms might prefer asymmetric strategies to combat ad-blocking usage. My second essay of the dissertation focuses on developing an empirical strategy to design a Chief Marketing Officer’s (CMO’s) job, which positively affects firm value. Prior empirical research on the design of a CMO’s job and its impact on firm value is scarce. My research focuses on the conceptualization and finds empirical support on this issue. I find that variations in describing the design of a CMO’s job can affect the contribution of a CMO to the firm value. I use announcement data for 227 publicly traded firms over the 11-years (2005-2016) to show that the design of a CMO’s job when focused on the decisional role creates more firm value. The results of the two essays fill the gap that exists in the digital media platforms and top management and have several theoretical and managerial contributions.