'Intellectual property' - patents and copyrights - have become controversial. We witness teenagers being sued for 'pirating' music - and we observe AIDS patients in Africa dying due to lack of ...ability to pay for drugs that are high priced to satisfy patent holders. Are patents and copyrights essential to thriving creation and innovation - do we need them so that we all may enjoy fine music and good health? Across time and space the resounding answer is: No. So-called intellectual property is in fact an 'intellectual monopoly' that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps. This book has broad coverage of both copyrights and patents and is designed for a general audience, focusing on simple examples. The authors conclude that the only sensible policy to follow is to eliminate the patents and copyright systems as they currently exist.
En esta nota, Robert Darnton, renombrado historiador cultural y del libro, comparte unas reflexiones en torno a esta invención y el devenir histórico de su circulación comercial. Comentando la ...piratería de libros de los siglos XVII y XVIII y los intentos contemporáneos de plataformas como Google de crear repositorios virtuales, Darnton pone en debate la tensión que existe entre los derechos de autor y la democratización de la lectura a través de una mayor accesibilidad a los libros.
This study presents an analytical framework for examining how remanufacturing rate, consumer buying behavior, and consumer preferences impact a supply chain's economic and environmental outcomes. An ...original equipment manufacturer and a third‐party remanufacturer make decisions influenced by the competitive leverage of relicensing fees and the maximum available quantity of remanufactured products. We analyze this monopoly scenario in a two‐period model, assuming that consumers are strategic. The remanufacturing rate has a nonmonotonic impact on the economic outcomes of this supply chain system, and excellent environmental improvement is not an inevitable consequence of a high remanufacturing rate.
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We develop a theory of optimal collusive intertemporal price dispersion. Dispersion clouds consumer price awareness, encouraging firms to coordinate on dispersed prices. Our theory generates a ...collusive rationale for price cycles and sales. Patient firms can support optimal collusion at the monopoly price. For less patient firms, monopoly prices must be punctuated with fleeting sales. The most robust structure involves price cycles that resemble Edgeworth cycles. Low consumer attentiveness enhances the effectiveness of price dispersion by reducing the payoff to deviations involving price reductions. However, for sufficiently low attentiveness, price rises are also a concern.
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The Strategic Industry Supply Curve Menezes, Flavio M.; Quiggin, John
The Journal of industrial economics,
September 2020, 2020-09-00, 20200901, Volume:
68, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In this paper, we develop the concept of the strategic industry supply curve, representing the locus of Nash equilibrium outputs and prices arising from additive shocks to demand. We show that the ...standard analysis of partial equilibrium under perfect competition, including the graphical representation of supply and demand, due to Marshall, can be extended to encompass imperfectly competitive markets. Our approach permits a unified treatment of monopoly, oligopoly and competition in linear supply schedules. Further, our model satisfies the five principles of incidence set out by Weyl and Fabinger 2013.
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En las décadas centrales del siglo XIX, España desarrollo un sistema bancario basado en la pluralidad de emisión. Diversos bancos fueron autorizados por el Estado para hacer circular sus billetes en ...sus respectivas provincias. Este proceso dio lugar a un mosaico de bancos emisores. Su existencia facilito la aceptación del billete bancario, a la vez que tales bancos suministraron medios de pago en aquellos territorios en los que actuaron. Los efectos fueron importantes tanto para la extensión del billete como para la economía. En este trabajo se sintetiza la experiencia emisora española que se vio afectada por la crisis de 1866 y termino en 1874 con el monopolio emisor en manos del Banco de España.
When luxury purchases signal the incomes of buyers, a monopoly will deliver signals efficiently. If in contrast competitors sell counterfeit copies of luxury goods at low prices, consumers will have ...to buy larger quantities or higher qualities to transmit the same signals, which wastes resources. Competition does maximal harm when entrants produce indistinguishable replicas of existing luxury goods since prices will fall the furthest. The choice of which goods should deliver signals presents a trade-off: goods with a large gap between marginal cost and the price a monopoly would charge signal efficiently but those large gaps increase the reward to counterfeiting.
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There is a growing body of evidence that customer satisfaction is predictive of firms’ future financial performance. However, studies of this relationship have been limited to competitive markets, ...and monopolistic markets have been largely ignored. This study explores the large and important utilities market and exploits its unique regulatory requirements that generate detailed and reliable operating and accounting data to examine the overall relationship between customer satisfaction and utility profit and establish the causal mechanisms involved. Using data from U.S. public utility firms, the authors show that even when customer satisfaction does not affect future revenues, it does positively predict future profitability by reducing utility firm operating costs. More specifically, they find that higher satisfaction reduces the costs of utility firm distribution, customer service, and sales and general administration expenses. These findings and additional post hoc evidence are consistent with the notion that customer satisfaction (1) generates efficiency-enhancing benefits for utility firms by lowering the direct and employee engagement costs of dealing with dissatisfied customers and (2) fosters greater trust and cooperation from customers. This study has important implications for both managers and regulators and provides important new insights for market-based asset theory and regulatory economic theory.
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