Patent-investment games under asymmetric information

This paper analyzes preemptive patenting in a two-stage real options game where an incumbent firm competes with a potential entrant firm for the patent of a substitute product in a product market with profit flow uncertainty. The incumbent suffers loss of monopoly in the product market if the entrant acquires the patent of a substitute product and later commercializes the product. Our patent-investment game model assumes that the entrant has complete information on the incumbent’s commercialization cost while the incumbent only knows the distribution of the entrant’s cost. We investigate the impact of information asymmetry on the preemption strategies adopted by the two competing firms on patenting the substitute product by comparing the optimal preemption strategies and the real option value functions of the two competing firms under complete information and information asymmetry. Our analysis reveals that the informationally disadvantaged incumbent always suffers from loss in its real option value of investment since it tends to act more aggressively in competing for the patent. On the other hand, the real option value of investment of the informationally advantaged entrant may be undermined or enhanced. The incumbent’s aggressive response under information asymmetry may lead to reversal of winner in the patent race. We also examine how information asymmetry may affect the occurrence of sleeping patent and the corresponding expected duration between the two stages of patenting and product commercialization.     

Bargaining outcomes in patent licensing: Asymptotic results in a general Cournot market

We study asymptotic bargaining outcomes in licensing a patented technology of an external patent holder to firms in a general Cournot market. Our results are as follows: when the number of firms is large, the bargaining set for each permissible coalition structure suggests that the patent holder should extract the entire profits of all licensees. The outcome that the bargaining finally reaches exactly coincides with the non-cooperative outcome, and it cannot be improved upon even by any objections with almost zero cost. Thus, it is strongly stable. The fair allocation represented by the Aumann-Drèze value is, however, not realized as such a stable bargaining outcome.     

Assessing dynamic inefficiency of the Spanish construction sector pre- and post-financial crisis

This paper undertakes the full decomposition of dynamic cost inefficiency into technical, scale and allocative inefficiency based on the dynamic directional distance function. The empirical application estimates dynamic inefficiency in the Spanish construction industry before and during the current financial crisis over the period 2001–2009. Static inefficiency measures are biased in a context of a significant economic crisis with large investments and disinvestments as they do not account for costs in the adjustment of quasi-fixed factors. Allocative inefficiency is smaller, while technical inefficiency is larger when using the dynamic compared to the static framework. Results further indicate that overall dynamic cost inefficiency is very high with technical inefficiency being the largest component, followed by allocative and scale inefficiency. Moreover, overall dynamic cost inefficiency is significantly larger before the beginning of the financial crisis than during the financial crisis. Larger firms are less technically and scale inefficient than smaller firms on average, but have more problems in choosing the mix of inputs that minimizes their long-term costs. Firms that went bankrupt, on average, have a higher overall dynamic cost inefficiency and scale inefficiency than continuing firms.     

The kernel of a patent licensing game: The optimal number of licensees

This paper considers general bargaining outcomes under coalition structures formed by an external patent holder and firms in oligopoly markets, where a coalition structure is eventually determined by the patent holder. Our main proposition is that, for each permissible coalition structure, the kernel is a singleton; thus, the number of licensees that maximizes the patent holder’s revenue can be determined with the kernel. Specifying the upper and lower bounds of the kernel for each coalition structure, we also provide the sufficient conditions for the integer that maximizes the licensees’ total surplus to be the optimal number of licensees for the patent holder. The numerical comparison of the bargaining outcomes to those obtained by non-cooperative licensing by means of fee through take-it-or-leave-it offers is provided for a cost-reducing innovation in a linear Cournot market. Regardless of the ways of licensing, the producer surplus is maximized when the magnitude of cost reduction is large.     

A learning curve model with knowledge depreciation

Empirical studies in several industries have verified that unit costs decline as organizations gain experience or knowledge in production, which is referred to as the learning curve effect. In the past two decades, there has also been analytical work on the relationship between a firm's learning curve effects and its pricing and output decisions. Learning rates differ significantly across firms in the same industry and recent empirical evidence has shown that knowledge depreciation may be an important reason for these differences. We propose and analyze a learning curve model with knowledge depreciation and provide several new insights. First, we show that there exists a steady state where knowledge level and unit cost remain constant over time and there exists an optimal path to this steady state. Many empirical researchers have observed this ‘plateau’ phenomenon, whereby unit costs decline but reach saturation after some time. While this has been traditionally modeled exogenously in the learning curve literature by assuming that cost reduction stops at some level of knowledge through a convex, decreasing unit cost function, we provide an alternative endogenous explanation. We are also able to show that, unlike in the model without knowledge depreciation, the production rate along the optimal path to the steady state may decrease over time. Also, the knowledge level along the optimal path may actually decline over time. Finally, we show that the optimal production rate decreases at higher interest rates and increases at higher knowledge depreciation rates. In turn, this implies that a high interest rate environment discourages firms from achieving high knowledge levels and results in higher prices. On the other hand, higher knowledge depreciation rates result in higher production rates and lower prices.     

Consumer returns reduction and information revelation mechanism for a supply chain

In this paper, we develop two revelation mechanism models of a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer under asymmetric information, where the retailer provides store assistance (SA) to reduce consumer returns rate and increase demand. Under full information, we find that a higher returns rate or returns handling cost increases the SA level if the market scale is sufficiently high. In the demand information asymmetry model, we find that: (i) the low-type retailer (facing a low demand) has no incentive to distort demand information while the high-type retailer may report wrong information; (ii) the manufacturer would like to design a menu of wholesale price-order quantity contract to induce truthful demand information and the manufacturer pays an information rent to the high-type retailer if the returns rate or returns handling cost for the retailer is sufficiently low; (iii) asymmetry of information does not change the monotonicity of the unit wholesale price in the retailer’s type, and information asymmetry decreases the retail price but increases the SA level. Unlike the demand information asymmetry model, a higher retailer’s returns handling cost expands the effects of information asymmetry on the retail price and the SA level, and using revelation mechanism decreases the channel profit if the retailer’s returns handling cost is sufficiently high under the returns rate information asymmetry model.     

FORECASTING MINERAL SUPPLY FROM MINERAL RENT DATA

An optimal control model of exhaustible resources is used to clarify the long run relationship between mineral rent and depletion cost at the industry level. A standard first order condition of the time rate of change of rents is reformulated to reveal that rent data may be used to help forecast the rise in extraction costs resulting from resource depletion. This application of the theory of exhaustible resources is illustrated using historical mineral industry rent and extraction cost data. A forecast of U.S. coal extraction costs, following the method proposed in this paper, suggests that future rates of extraction cost increases will be similar to rates experienced in the past.     

考虑专利许可的制造商与再制造商竞争策略

研究了在专利完善市场受专利保护的原制造商面对再制造商竞争所采取得两种策略:无许可再制造与许可再制造。在再制造成本差异及消费者异质的情况下,分别建立了无回收数量限制的单周期模型和受回收数量限制的两周期模型,利用博弈理论求解原制造商和再制造商竞争情况下的最优决策。通过比较分析和数值仿真,讨论了不同参数对新产品和再制造品定价策略及双方利润的影响,并给出了相关结论。结果表明,原制造商倾向于采用许可再制造策略,这是在于原制造商可以通过收取专利许可费来分享再制造所带来的收益;而对再制造商而言,只有许可再制造所带来的节省成本足够高时,才有意愿接受原制造商的专利技术支持。     

搜索成本对B2B交易的影响研究——基于上游企业主导搜索的分析

搜索交易伙伴是企业开展B2B交易流程中的首要一环。当下,信息通讯技术的扩散简化了企业搜索交易伙伴的程序,搜索成本得到极大降低,交易效率得以极大提升。本文考虑B2B交易由上游企业主导搜索实现的情况下,搜索成本降低对B2B交易规模及产业竞争的影响。企业搜索成本降低对企业的交易行为将产生两种效应:进入效应和匹配效应。进入效应促使更多企业进入市场参与交易;匹配效应促使企业持续搜寻最优的交易伙伴。理论分析结果与一般直观认识相悖,具体而言,若交易由上游企业主导完成,两种效应叠加导致B2B交易并非总是随着搜索成本的降低而持续增长,而是呈现出增中有降的态势;同时,搜索成本的降低对主导搜索企业所在产业发展有利亦有弊,并不必然导致一个竞争更加剧烈的产业格局。     

Coalition formation of oligopolistic firms for information exchange

This paper investigates the coalition formation of oligopolistic firms for exchanges of information about their cost functions in a game-theoretical framework. An oligopolistic market under uncertainty is considered in which each firm knows its own cost function but not those of all the others. The following results are shown. It is profitable for each firm to exchange the information about cost functions with other firms. When the uncertainty levels of the cost functions of all firms are symmetric. it is common interest for them to exchange their information by forming the grand coalition. On the other hand, when their uncertainty levels are highly asymmetric, firms possessing less uncertain cost functions come into conflict with one another when exchanging information exclusively with the most uncertain firms. As a result, more than one coalition may be formed among firms.     

Technology selection and capacity investment under uncertainty

We analyze the problem of technology selection and capacity investment for electricity generation in a competitive environment under uncertainty. Adopting a Nash-Cournot competition model, we consider the marginal cost as the uncertain parameter, although the results can be easily generalized to other sources of uncertainty such as a load curve. In the model, firms make three different decisions: (i) the portfolio of technologies, (ii) each technology’s capacity and (iii) the technology’s production level for every scenario. The decisions related to the portfolio and capacity are ex-ante and the production level is ex-post to the realization of uncertainty. We discuss open and closed-loop models, with the aim to understand the relationship between different technologies’ cost structures and the portfolio of generation technologies adopted by firms in equilibrium. For a competitive setting, to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first not only to explicitly discuss the relation between costs and generation portfolio but also to allow firms to choose a portfolio of technologies. We show that portfolio diversification arises even with risk-neutral firms and technologies with different cost expectations. We also investigate conditions on the probability and cost under which different equilibria of the game arise.     

Modeling and analysis of the multiperiod effects of social relationship on supply chain networks

In this paper, we analyze the effects of levels of social relationship on a multiperiod supply chain network with multiple decision-makers (suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers) associated at different tiers. The model incorporates the individual attitudes towards disruption and opportunism risks and allows us to investigate the interplay of the heterogeneous decision-makers and to compute the resultant network equilibrium pattern of production, transactions, prices, and levels of social relationship over the multiperiod planning horizon. In our analysis, we focus on the following questions: (1) how do the evolving relationships affect the profitability and risks of supply chain firms as well as the prices and demands of the product in the market? (2) how do the relationships with the upstream supply chain firms affect the relationships with the downstream firms, and how these relationships influence the profitability and risks of the supply chain firms? (3) how do the supply disruption risks interact with the opportunism risks through supply chain relationships, and how these risks influence the profitability of the firms? The results show that high levels of relationship can lead to lower supply chain overall cost, lower risk, lower prices, higher product transaction and therefore higher profit.     

Stable bargaining outcomes in patent licensing: A cooperative game approach without side payments

By formulating negotiations about licensing payments as cooperative games without side payments, we investigate stable bargaining outcomes in licensing a cost-reducing technology of an external patent holder to oligopolistic firms producing a homogeneous product under two policies: fee and royalty. The final bargaining outcome in fee licensing is uniquely determined, because the bargaining set for a coalition structure in which the patent holder can gain the maximum profit is a singleton. Under the royalty policy, the non-empty core for a coalition structure suggests that the patent holder should license his patented technology to all firms. Moreover, royalty licensing may be superior to fee licensing for the patent holder, when licensing is carried out through bargaining.     

存在空箱调运的非对称运输市场定价策略研究

考虑空箱调运成本,本文对垄断和双寡头市场分别研究运输企业在两条相向路径上的定价问题。对于垄断市场,建立了运输企业最优定价策略,并刻画出无空箱调运的潜在需求不平衡区间。对于双寡头市场,考虑同一路径上不同企业潜在运输需求不等的现实情境,求解了非对称企业的伯川德纳什均衡,给出最优定价策略。研究发现,无空箱调运并不意味着较高利润,运输企业没有必要刻意消除空箱调运现象。另外,增加单位载货运输成本和竞争强度会降低企业利润,而提升单位空箱重置成本、价格敏感度和市场不对称程度都会增大企业利润。     

专利池形成中的厂商数量门槛值因素分析

专利池的主要功能在于降低专利许可的交易成本, 而该成本随着专利持有厂商数量增加而递增。针对这种专利持有厂商数量与专利池形成之间的关系, 在博弈论框架内, 分是否形成专利池、决定对外授权规模和产品市场竞争三个博弈阶段, 分析了交易成本、专利许可费率对专利池形成所要求的最低专利持有厂商数量的影响。研究结论表明专利池的形成对专利持有厂商数量有一个门槛值要求, 该门槛值随交易成本和专利许可费率反向变化。同时, 专利许可费率存在一个与专利持有厂商数量相关的边界值, 低于该边界值, 专利池最佳对外授权规模随着许可费率而递增, 高于该边界值, 最佳对外授权规模随着许可费率而下降, 在边界值处最佳对外授权规模达到最大值。     

规模效应下产品具有可替代性的竞争企业的外包决策

针对产品具有一定替代性的两个竞争企业(分别为企业1和企业2)和存在规模效应的上游供应商的外包决策问题, 构建了企业1 外包前后各方的利润模型,求解了下游企业的外包和自产的最优策略以及供应商的最佳批发价格,分析了企业1 的外包策略对企业2 和供应商的外包决策的影响,比较了产品替代性对外包前后各决策变量的影响。研究发现:当企业的单位生产成本高于外包成本时,企业也可能选择自产;而当企业的单位生产成本低于外包成本时,企业也可能选择产品外包。并对模型进行进一步的拓展,比较了下游企业作顺序和同时外包决策两种情景的异同。     

Individual transferable vessel quotas and efficient restructuring of the primary harvesting sector

Over the last three decades most of the world's fisheries have been subject to management programs that have tried to limit the use of key fishing inputs. Inevitably, these restrictions have proven ineffective at preventing rent dissipation and stock depletion. More noteworthy is that fishers have subverted the intentions of these restrictions by adjusting the primary harvesting technology. This has led to an inefficient industrial structure characterized by capital stuffing on the part of each vessel, excess employment, an inefficient mix of vessels in the fleet, and too many vessels altogether.A promising means of encouraging more efficient primary harvesting is the individual transferable vessel quota that allocates a given catch to each vessel, thereby giving an incentive to catch the quota at least cost. This paper examines efficiency gains and potential industry restructuring from the introduction of an ITVQ into a fishery that was previously subject to input restrictions.Using data from the British Columbia salmon fishery, this paper estimates restricted cost functions for each of four different vessel types and simulates the operations of a market for ITVQs. The demand for quota comes from individual vessels and is found by differentiating the cost function with respect to the shadow price of quota. The market for quota is in equilibrium when the total demand for quota is equal to the fixed supply of quota set by the government. This implicitly defines the equilibrium quota rental price. Results show that the ITVQ could generate unit rental prices for quota between 31 and 93 cents per pound (18–53% of the average landed price).Using this simulated price, each vessel's costminimizing strategy is defined and both low cost vessels (those that will buy quota) and high cost vessels (those that will sell quota and exit the fishery) are identified. Quota trades between the two groups result in efficiency gains. These include reduced capital stuffing, exit of less efficient vessel types, attainment of economies of scale, and an efficient composition of vessel types in the fleet. In aggregate these gains lead to an estimate of annual resource rent that is approximately equal to one third of the value of the catch.     

基于演化博弈的发电侧电力市场长期均衡模型

研究包含生产同质电力产品的两组 (种群 )企业——低成本发电企业和高成本发电企业的发电侧电力市场的长期均衡问题 .应用演化博弈论的有限种群演化稳定战略概念 ,证明了有限种群的演化稳定战略产量分别等于两组 (种群 )企业的竞争产量 .通过建立基于企业战略模仿和试验的随机演化模型 ,分析了发电侧电力市场长期均衡的演化过程 .     

Economic inefficiency measurement of input spending when decision-making units face different input prices

In a recent paper, Kaoru Tone (J Opl Res Soc (2002) 2: 429–444) showed that when the Farrell measure of cost efficiency is estimated for two firms that have different input prices, a firm with higher costs can be deemed more efficient than a firm with lower costs. As an alternative approach, Tone proposed a radial cost efficiency measure that is estimated using levels of spending on each input, rather than input quantities. Thus, firms with higher costs are less efficient than firms with lower costs. In this paper, we extend Tone's approach by allowing for non-radial changes in spending. Our approach builds on earlier work by Luenberger (J Math Econ (1992) 21: 461–481) and Chambers et al (J Econ Theo (1996) 70: 407–419) who use directional distance functions to measure inefficiency. We provide an example and illustration of our approach using Japanese bank data.     

PRODUCTION COST UNCERTAINTY AND INDUSTRY EQUILIBRIUM FOR NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCE EXTRACTION

In this paper we examine production cost uncertainty in a non-renewable resource industry model. A rational expectations, m-firms industry equilibrium is characterized, and the effects of production cost uncertainty on industry rent and firms' profits are examined.