Dokument: Competition Among Heterogenous Firms
| Titel: | Competition Among Heterogenous Firms | |||||||
| URL für Lesezeichen: | https://docserv.uni-duesseldorf.de/servlets/DocumentServlet?id=20463 | |||||||
| URN (NBN): | urn:nbn:de:hbz:061-20120214-144713-8 | |||||||
| Kollektion: | Dissertationen | |||||||
| Sprache: | Englisch | |||||||
| Dokumententyp: | Wissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeiten » Dissertation | |||||||
| Medientyp: | Text | |||||||
| Autor: | Bonsiepen, Stephan [Autor] | |||||||
| Dateien: |
| |||||||
| Beitragende: | Prof. Dr. Haucap, Justus [Gutachter] Prof. Dr. Wey, Christian [Gutachter] | |||||||
| Stichwörter: | Competition Policy, Industrial Organization, Regulation, Innovation, Mergers, Market Structure, Divestitures | |||||||
| Dewey Dezimal-Klassifikation: | 300 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie » 330 Wirtschaft | |||||||
| Beschreibung: | This thesis covers competition among heterogenous firms. The majority of papers in industrial organization build on models characterized by homogenous firms. The main reason is twofold.
Firstly, specific effects can easier be isolated in a simplified model like one with homogenous firms. Secondly, the computational complexity significantly increases when introducing heterogenous firms and therefore tackling specific problems gets more difficult. However, firms are different, i.e. heterogenous, in real world markets. A model with homogenous firms builds on the unrealistic assumption that firms are duplications of each other. For that reason, this thesis accounts for heterogeneity of firms and therefore allows to present models that can much better derive statements regarding real world behavior and its implications. This thesis has three main chapters that each considers different questions in industrial organization regarding competition among heterogenous firms. Chapter 2 entitled "Competition between Pay-TV and Public Service Broadcasting: A Two-Sided Market Analysis" investigates the behavior of two competing TV channels - Pay-TV and public service broadcasting (PSB) that coexist in most EU countries. While Pay-TV channels have to finance themselves by advertising and subscription revenue generated from viewers, public service broadcasters are financed by advertising income and public funds. TV channels both bring together advertisers and viewers in a situation in which advertisers are interested in many viewers watching their adverts but viewers dislike advertising and may switch to the competing channel. The economic literature has not explored the consequences caused by the coexistence of a Pay-TV channel and a public service broadcaster (PSB) in a setting where both channels receive payments from viewers directly so far. Additionally, we assume that consumers engage in mental accounting and propose a model applying a portfolio approach, which, until now has not yet been used for modeling television markets. The model analyzes how the level of the broadcasting fee and the 'nuisance factor' associated with advertising from the viewer's point of view affect the behavior of the channels and market outcomes. It turns out that the Pay-TV channel decides to show no adverts altogether if viewers display a strong aversion to advertising. If the broadcasting fee is sufficiently high, the Pay-TV channel switches to a free-to-air channel and the PSB does not show any adverts at all. Chapter 3 entitled "Endogenous Merger Formation and Incentives to Invest in Cost Reducing Innovations" analyzes how process innovations affect merger incentives, using an endogenous horizontal merger model of three firms. Firms are heterogenous in their process innovation technologies, i.e. they differ in the cost of conducting R&D that leads to a reduction in production cost. The theoretical literature does not analyze the relationship between mergers and innovation where the merger decision is endogenized. We apply a cooperative bargaining approach to analyze the merger pattern. We find that the two most efficient firms merge if innovation is not too expensive, while the least efficient firm remains independent. For high innovation cost levels no merger will take place. Accounting for endogenous merger formation R&D subsidies are not necessarily positive depending on the R&D efficiency in the industry. Chapter 4 entitled "Horizontal Divestitures and R&D Incentives in Asymmetric Duopoly" analyzes how a threat of horizontal divestiture affects R&D incentives and welfare in an asymmetric Cournot duopoly where an efficient low-cost firm competes against a less efficient high-cost firm. Firms account for a possible divestiture of the low-cost firm. In our 2-stage model, both firms can not only choose output, but also decrease their marginal cost via process innovations (stage 1). Without innovation, firms face different (constant) marginal cost of production. Between stages 1 and 2, there might be a divestiture of the low-cost firm. In case of divestiture firms face a third low-cost competitor and again compete in Cournot fashion. While there is a broad literature on the relationship between market structure and R&D incentives, there is no literature that endogenizes R&D investments and potential divestitures. We find that an actual divestiture measure harms both the high- and low-cost firm and it only improves welfare if the low-cost firm sufficiently dominates the high-cost firm. The industry-wide rate of innovation is lowered if a divestiture becomes more likely. | |||||||
| Lizenz: |  Urheberrechtsschutz | |||||||
| Fachbereich / Einrichtung: | Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät » Volkswirtschaftslehre | |||||||
| Dokument erstellt am: | 14.02.2012 | |||||||
| Dateien geändert am: | 14.02.2012 | |||||||
| Promotionsantrag am: | 28.01.2011 | |||||||
| Datum der Promotion: | 24.11.2011 |
