Countercyclical markups and news-driven business cycles

The standard one-sector real business cycle model is unable to generate expectations-driven fluctuations. The addition of countercyclical mark-ups and modest investment adjustment costs offers an easy fix to this conundrum. The simulated model replicates the regular features of U.S. aggregate fluctuations.

Effects of capital structure on markups and competitive performance : evidence from Portugal

Este estudo avalia os efeitos da estrutura de capital nas margens de lucro e no desempenho competitivo. Aplica teorias relativas à contra ciclicidade das margens de lucro, e aos resultados do mercado do produto de Chevalier e Scharfstein (1996), a dados portugueses, seguindo a metodologia de Campello (2001). Utilizando dados de painel de empresas pertencentes à indústria transformadora Portuguesa, a análise fornece evidencia para a contra-ciclicidade de margens de lucro e de um efeito conjunto de dívida e recessão económica nas margens de lucro. Tendo por base o recenseamento de empresas Portuguesas, a análise não fornece evidência de uma relação significativa entre a estrutura de capital e o desempenho competitivo.

Consideration of miscellaneous bills and resolutions : markups before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, second session, on H. Con. Res. 239, H.J. Res. 414, H. Con. Res. 293 ....

"H. Con. Res. 239, H.J. Res. 414, H. Con. Res. 293, H. Con. Res. 292, H. Con. Res. 306, H. Con. Res. 311, H. Con. Res. 305, H. Con. Res. 156, H. Con. Res. 297, H. Con. Res. 299, H. Con. Res. 461, H. Con. Res. 232, H.R. 4761, H.R. 994, H.R. 5412, H. Con. Res. 179, H.R. 5360, S.J. Res. 310, H. Con. Res. 348, H.R. 3215, H.R. 4537, H.R. 4483, H.R. 4059, H. Con. Res. 352, H. Res. 497, H.R. 5751, and H.R. 5360."

Variety matters

Countercyclical markups are a key transmission mechanism in many endogenous business cycle models. Yet, recent findings suggest that aggregate markups in the US are procyclical. The current model addresses this issue. It extends Galí's (1994) composition of aggregate demand model by endogenous entry and exit of firms and by product variety effects. Endogenous business cycles emerge with procyclical markups that are within empirically plausible ranges.

Is it time for standards and a common data exchange format for digital image analysis?

Digital image analysis is at a crossroads. While the technology has made great strides over the past few decades, there is an urgent need for image analysis to inform the next wave of large scale tissue biomarker discovery studies in cancer. Drawing parallels from the growth of next generation sequencing, this presentation will consider the case for a common language or standard format for storing and communicating digital image analysis data. In this context, image analysis data comprises more than simply an image with markups and attached key-value pair metrics. The desire to objectively benchmark competing platforms or a push for data to be deposited to public repositories much like genomics data may drive the need for a standard that also encompasses granular, cell-by-cell data.

Manufacturing 'authenticity' : a case study of the Niagara wine cluster

In this thesis, I use "Fabricating Authenticity," a model developed in the Production of Culture Perspective, to explore the evolving criteria for judging what constitute "real" and authentic Niagara wines, along with the naturalization of these criteria, as the Canadian Niagara wine cluster has come under increasing stress from globalization. Authenticity has been identified as a hallmark of contemporary marketing and important to cultural industries, which can use it for creating meaningful differentiation; making it a renewable resource for securing consumers, increasing market value; and for relationships with key brokers. This is important as free trade and international treaties are making traditional protective barriers, like trade tariffs and markups, obsolete and as governments increasingly allocate industry support via promotion and marketing policies that are directly linked to objectives of city and regional development, which in turn carry real implications for what gets to be judged authentic and inauthentic local culture. This research uses a mixed methods research strategy, drawing upon ethnographic observation, marketing materials, newspaper reports, and secondary data to provide insight into the processes and conflicts over efforts to fabricate authenticity, comparing the periods before and after the passage of NAFT A to the present period. The Niagara wine cluster is a good case in point because it has little natural advantage nor was there a tradition of quality table wine making to facilitate the naturalization of authenticity. Geographic industrial clusters have been found particularly competitive in the global economy and the exploratory case study contributes to our understanding of the dynamic of '1abricating authenticity," building on various theoretical propositions to attempt to derive explanations of how global processes affect strategies to create "authenticity," how these strategies affect cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity at the local level, and how the concept of "cluster" contributes to the process of managing authenticity.

Aspectos concorrenciais no mercado de leite fluido: um teste empírico no município de São Paulo

O objetivo deste trabalho é caracterizar o padrão de concorrência no mercado de leite fluido (longa vida e pasteurizado) na cidade de São Paulo a partir de evidências sobre os movimentos de preços no varejo e do comportamento das margens de mercado. Utilizou-se o modelo originalmente proposto por Houck (1977) acrescido das observações feitas por Carman e Sexton (2005). Essa abordagem separa as variáveis explicativas entre aumentos e diminuições de preços pagos ao produtor. Além de maior clareza na sua estrutura, essa construção permite comparar a defasagem entre esses dois movimentos e estudar a estratégia de preços dos agentes a partir das margens dos intermediários. O período analisado foi de dezembro de 1999 à dezembro de 2005, com dados de preços ao consumidor da FIPE e dados de preços ao produtor da CEPEA/ USP. Identificou-se que o padrão de concorrência do leite longa vida é bastante diverso do encontrado para o leite pasteurizado. Enquanto para o longa vida o padrão de concorrência é mais próximo do modelo competitivo, para o leite pasteurizado o padrão encontrado foi de pouca concorrência. Para compreender essas diferenças, foi discutido o aspecto locacional do varejo e a importância do mercado relevante geográfico. Os resultados permitem algumas inferências para análises setoriais e de políticas públicas voltadas à produção leiteira. O vertiginoso crescimento das vendas de leite longa vida, absorvendo grande parte do mercado antes abastecido pelo leite pasteurizado, trouxe maior concorrência nos segmentos de indústria e distribuição, assim como maior velocidade de transmissão de preços ao longo da cadeia produtiva. Entretanto, a precificação com markups com percentual fixo, observada no leite longa vida, indica que indústria e distribuição gozam de algum poder de mercado e que variações de custo da matéria-prima são repassadas mais que proporcionalmente, em termos absolutos, ao consumidor final.

Three essays on prices and selection

Competitive Market Segmentation Abstract In a two-firm model where each firm sells a high-quality and a low-quality version of a product, customers differ with respect to their brand preferences and their attitudes towards quality. We show that the standard result of quality-independent markups crucially depends on the assumption that the customers' valuation of quality is identical across firms. Once we relax this assumption, competition across qualities leads to second-degree price discrimination. We find that markups on low-quality products are higher if consuming a low-quality product involves a firm-specific disutility. Likewise, markups on high-quality products are higher if consuming a high-quality product creates a firm-specific surplus. Selection upon Wage Posting Abstract We discuss a model of a job market where firms announce salaries. Thereupon, they decide through the evaluation of a productivity test whether to hire applicants. Candidates for a job are locked in once they have applied at a given employer. Hence, such a market exhibits a specific form of the bargain-then-ripoff principle. With a single firm, the outcome is efficient. Under competition, what might be called "positive selection" leads to market failure. Thus our model provides a rationale for very small employment probabilities in some sectors. Exclusivity Clauses: Enhancing Competition, Raising Prices Abstract In a setting where retailers and suppliers compete for each other by offering binding contracts, exclusivity clauses serve as a competitive device. As a result of these clauses, firms addressed by contracts only accept the most favorable deal. Thus the contract-issuing parties have to squeeze their final customers and transfer the surplus within the vertical supply chain. We elaborate to what extent the resulting allocation depends on the sequence of play and discuss the implications of a ban on exclusivity clauses.