Antonio Sampayo

A Vintage Model of Trade in Secondhand Markets and the Lifetime of Durable Goods

How is the replacement of durable goods affected by the existence of a secondhand market? To answer this question, a vintage model of durable goods replacement is specified where efficient trade in used goods arises by assuming the existence of two types of consumers differentiated by income. The resulting steady state optimal replacement decision and secondhand market price are characterized, stressing the influence of economic depreciation. Compared to autarky, the consideration of an efficient secondhand market between high and low income people modifies the age profile of prices, increasing and decreasing for durable goods owned by high and low income people, respectively. Moreover, at the age at which used durable goods are traded, not only ask and bid prices are equal but also their age derivatives.

On the Number of Licenses with Signalling

We analyse a two‐period licensing game in which a non‐producing upstream patent holder licenses an innovation that lasts for two periods to either one or two downstream users. Licensing is made through a payment based on a two‐part tariff, namely a fixed fee plus a royalty per output unit. Regarding the innovation value when commercialized by each user (high or low), we compare a symmetric information context where such value is publicly known with a situation in which users have private information about the value, but with their period‐1 output signalling that value. We find that the patent holder is more likely to prefer to grant two licenses under signalling than under symmetric information, which highlights the benefits of resorting to market competition between users to reduce the amount of informational rents.

Complementarity, Linkages between Firms, and the Effect of Entry Costs on Productivity

In a general equilibrium model where firms are heterogeneous in terms of productivity, we introduce differentiated goods in production that are not perfect substitutes, as well as intermediate inputs needed to produce those goods. We show that an increase in either the complementarity of differentiated goods or the share of intermediate inputs in gross output, significantly increases the negative effect of entry costs on total factor productivity (TFP) and output per worker. We also find that the effect of complementarity is quantitatively stronger. If we assume an empirically plausible value for the elasticity of substitution between differentiated goods, then the model considerably improves its ability to reproduce the observed negative relationship between entry costs and TFP or output per worker.