Joshua S. Gans

Majority voting with single-crossing preferences

We clarify and extend a number of sufficient conditions for the existence of a majority voting equilibrium on one-dimensional choice domains. These conditions, variously stated in the previous literature, all impose order restrictions on voter preferences (for instance, monotone marginal rates of substitution) which we show to imply or be equivalent to a general, ordinal version of the single-crossing condition. This simple property is economically intuitive and easily checked in applications. This ease of application is demonstrated through an examination of voting models of redistributive income taxation and trade union bargaining behaviour.

The Neutrality of Interchange Fees in Payment Systems

There has been considerable public debate over the effect of interchange fees on credit card transactions. Regulators in Australia and Europe have argued that these fees can be set by banks to have an anticompetitive effect. In the US, it has been argued that these fees, together with a rule that prevents a surcharge for credit purchases, might create a cross subsidy between cash and credit customers. Academics have noted that, in particular circumstances, interchange fees have no real effects in the absence of such a no-surcharge rule. This paper demonstrates that the potential neutrality of interchange fees is a general result. We show that in the absence of a no surcharge rule or, alternatively, if there is perfect competition at the merchant level, interchange fees can be changed without leading to any real effects. This result does not depend on the degree or nature of competition at either the bank or the merchant level. We conclude that the elimination of no surcharge rules may provide practical policy solutions for authorities concerned about the level of interchange fees.

Regulating Private Infrastructure Investment: Optimal Pricing for Access to Essential Facilities

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for access to essential facilities in a competitive environment. The focus is on investment incentive issues arising from regulation under complete information. To that end, examining the provision of a natural monopoly infrastructure with unlimited capacity, it is shown that the fixed component of a regulated access price can be structured so as to induce a “race” between market participants to provide the infrastructure. An appropriate pricing formula can ensure that a single firm chooses to invest at the socially optimal time (taking into account producer and consumer surplus) despite the immediate access granted to rivals and the non-existence of government subsidies. Under the optimal pricing formula, firms choose their investment timing based on their desire to pre-empt their rivals. This pricing formula is efficient (a two part tariff), implementable ex post, and robust to alternative methods of asset valuation (replacement or historical cost). When firms are not identical, the access pricing formula resembles, in equilibrium, a fully distributed cost methodology.

PAYING FOR LOYALTY: PRODUCT BUNDLING IN OLIGOPOLY

In recent times, pairs of retailers such as supermarket and retail gasoline chains have offered bundled discounts to customers who buy their respective product brands. These discounts are a fixed amount off the headline prices that allied brands continue to set independently. We show that a pair of firms can profit from offering a bundled discount to the detriment of other firms and consumers whose preferences are farther removed from the bundled brands. Indeed, when both pairs of firms negotiate bundling arrangements, there are no beneficiaries and consumers simply find themselves consuming a sub-optimal brand mix.

First Author Conditions

This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the persistent use of alphabetical name-orderings on academic papers in economics. In a context where market participants are interested in evaluating the relative individual contribution of authors, it is an equilibrium for papers to use alphabetical ordering. Moreover, it is never an equilibrium for authors always to be listed in order of relative contribution. In fact, we show via an example that the alphabetical name-ordering norm may be the unique equilibrium, although, multiple equilibria are also possible. Finally, we characterize the welfare properties of the noncooperative equilibrium and show it to produce research of lower quality than is optimal and than would be achieved if co-authors were forced to use name-ordering to signal relative contribution.

When does funding research by smaller firms bear fruit?: Evidence from the SBIR program

This paper evaluates whether the relative concentration of funding for small, research-oriented firms in a small number of high-technology industries is related to differences across industries in the appropriability level facing small firms. We exploit a novel test based on the relationship between industry-level private venture financing and the performance of government-subsidized R&D projects. If industries differ in their appropriability level, then private funding and subsidized project performance should be positively correlated. Our principal finding is that subsidized project performance is higher in industrial segments with higher rates of private venture capital investment. Industrial sectors therefore seem to differ in the degree of appropriability and this variation helps explain why venture capital is concentrated. * The latest version of this paper is available at http://www.mbs.edu/home//jgans/research.htm

The Impact of the Internet on Advertising Markets for News Media

We develop a model of advertising markets in an environment where consumers may switch (or “multi-home�?) across publishers. Consumer switching generates inefficiency in the process of matching advertisers to consumers, because advertisers may not reach some consumers and may impress others too many times. We find that when advertisers are heterogeneous in their valuations for reaching consumers, the switching-induced inefficiency leads lower-value advertisers to advertise on a limited set of publishers, reducing the effective demand for advertising and thus depressing prices. As the share of switching consumers expands (e.g., when consumers adopt the internet for news or increase their use of aggregators), ad prices fall. We demonstrate that increased switching creates an incentive for publishers to invest in quality as well as extend the number of unique users, because larger publishers are favored by advertisers seeking broader “reach�? (more unique users) while avoiding inefficient duplication.

A Bargaining Perspective on Strategic Outsourcing and Supply Competition

This paper considers the outsourcing choice of a downstream firm with its own upstream production assets. Using both a standard linear pricing model and a bilateral bargaining approach we examine the equilibrium pricing outcomes that emerge if there are two downstream and two upstream assets. We then characterise the downstream firm’s decision as to whether to outsource to an independent or established upstream firm. In so doing, it faces a trade-off between lower prices afforded by independent competition and higher asset value associated with the consolidation of upstream assets. We show that, while under a standard approach, this choice is resolved in favour of independent upstream production, when efficient, non-linear pricing is feasible, outsourcing is to an established firm. This suggests the importance of pricing structure in evaluating the nature of strategic outsourcing behaviour. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: L42This paper considers the outsourcing choice of a downstream firm with its own upstream production assets. Using both a standard linear pricing model and a bilateral bargaining approach, we examine the equilibrium pricing outcomes that emerge if there are two downstream and two upstream assets. We then characterize the downstream firms decision as to whether to outsource to an independent or established upstream firm. In so doing, it faces a trade-off between lower prices afforded by independent competition and higher asset value associated with the consolidation of upstream assets. We show that, while under a standard approach, this choice is resolved in favor of independent upstream production, when efficient, non-linear pricing is feasible, outsourcing is to an established firm. This suggests the importance of pricing structure in evaluating the nature of strategic outsourcing behavior.

Innovation and Climate Change Policy

This paper examines whether climate change policies will induce innovation in environmentally friendly technologies. The model demonstrates that a tighter emissions cap will reduce the scale of fossil fuel usage and that this will diminish incentives to improve fossil fuel efficiencies. In addition, such policies may stimulate the relative demand for innovations that improve the efficiency of alternative energy but carbon scarcity may diminish innovation incentives overall. Only for technologies that directly abate carbon pollution will there be an unambiguously positive impact on innovation. These results have implications for climate change targets and the design of climate change policy. (JEL O31, Q54, Q55, Q58)

Mobile Application Pricing

This paper examines the pricing of mobile applications when application providers can either supply consumers directly or through a mobile platform (such as a smart phone or tablet). It is demonstrated that when platform access (i.e., purchasing a device) takes place in advance of application pricing, a non-trivial unravelling problem exists that rules out selling platform access at a positive price. Consequently, all platform revenues come from sharing application provider revenues. It is demonstrated that several restrictive conditions on application providers, such as most favoured customer clauses, can allow the platform provider to earn more profits and charge a positive access price increasing the likelihood the platform is provided.