Publications
This paper investigates duopoly competition when horizontally differentiated firms are able to make personalized product-price offers to returning customers, within a behavior-based discrimination model. In the second period, firms can profile old customers according to their preferences, selling them targeted products at personalized prices. Product-price personalization (PP) allows firms to retain all old customers, eliminating second-period customer poaching. The overall profit effects of PP are shown to be ambiguous. In the second period, PP improves the matching between customers’ preferences and firms’ offers, but firms do not make any revenues in the rival’s turf. In the Bertrand outcome, second-period profits only increase for both firms if the size of their old turfs are not too different or initial products are not too differentiated. However, the additional second-period profits may be offset by lower first-period profits. PP is likely to increase firms’ overall discounted profits when consumers’ (firms’) discount factor is low (high) and firms’ initial products are exogenous and sufficiently different. When the location of initial products is endogenous, profits are hurt because of an additional location (strategic) effect aggravating head-to-head competition in the first period. Likewise, when a fraction of active consumers conceals their identity, PP increases second-period profits at the cost of aggressive first-period price competition. Finally, we show that the room for profitable PP enlarges considerably if firms rely on PP as an effective device to sustain tacit collusive outcomes, with firms credibly threatening to respond to first-period price deviations with second-period aggressive relocations of their standard products.
This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.
This paper examines the impact of exchange-rate regime change on the price disparity of China’s dual-listed stocks. We use four years of synchronous intraday data of 26 pairs of dual-listed RMB-denominated A-shares and their corresponding HKD-denominated H-shares. The sample period covers the 2005 and 2008 changes in the exchange rate regime. During that time, the Chinese authorities strictly prohibited short selling of stocks and tightly regulated capital flows. In contrast to the existing general findings, we find that the law of one price can be strengthened for dual-listed stocks (DLSs) in segmented capital markets under a flexible exchange rate regime; the disparity between the DLSs is reduced under the managed float compared to the pegged regime. Moreover, we find that the magnitude of the H-share discount is positively related to the expected RMB appreciation under managed float; however, under the pegged regime the relationship is negative.
We empirically examine the effectiveness of EU Border carbon adjustment (BCA) in the context of BRI, by developing a hypothetical BCA scheme based on a multi-regional Input-Output model. We use various evaluation criteria such as sectoral coverage, economic condition of trade partners, compliance with trade regulations, and selection of Best Available Technology (BAT). Our analysis shows that the EU-BCA scheme covers 44% of the global traded emissions, of which 84% are generated in the BRI regions. However, the BAT principle and trade provisions reduce the coverage of BCA emissions for BRI regions, while assumptions about the carbon intensity of imports result in a further reduction. Our findings both cast serious doubt on BCA's ability to drive industrial decarbonisation and alleviate domestic producers' competitiveness concerns, and support the argument that EU-BCA may level the playing field for the EU's domestic market but may not address competitiveness concerns in other (non-EU) markets.
This paper assesses how national leaders’ quality of governance varies with their career and education. Using a sample of 1,000 rulers between 1931 and 2010, I identify three types of leaders: military leaders, academics, and politicians. Military leaders are associated with an overall negative performance, while politicians who have held important offices before taking power tend to perform well. Academics have on average non-significant effects. These results are partially driven by differences in policy decisions and in leadership styles. Military leaders spend less in health and education, are more likely to establish a personalistic regime, to disrespect the constitution, and to move towards a non-electoral regime, while the reverse holds for politicians. Additionally, this paper highlights the weakness of using educational attainment as a proxy for politicians’ quality, and of growth as a measure of national leaders’ performance.
Declines in marriage and fertility rates in many developed countries have fostered research debate and increasing policy attention. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze the effects of exposure to globalization on fertility and marital behavior in Germany, which was a lowest-low fertility setting until recently. We find that exposure to greater import competition from Eastern Europe led to worse labor market outcomes and lower fertility rates. In contrast, workers in industries that benefited from increased exports had better employment prospects and higher fertility. These effects are driven by low-educated individuals, married men, and full-time workers and reflect changes in the likelihood of having any child (the extensive margin). We find evidence of some fertility postponement and significant effects on completed fertility, but we see little evidence of a significant impact on marital behavior. Our results inform the public debate on fertility rates in settings with lowest-low fertility, such as Germany, during the period under investigation.
This paper introduces a dataset that gathers information on whether and how Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have complied with or deviated from implemented fiscal rules. It provides annual data on fiscal rules for 14 LAC countries from 2000 to 2020, and it considers the design features of the rules and information about numerical compliance. It provides descriptive statistics reflecting the panorama of the fiscal rules implemented in LAC countries. Additionally, it calculates compliance rates across countries, years, and rules. On average, this study finds that compliance with rules aiming to constrain debt ratios and structural balances is the highest, while compliance with fiscal balance and expenditure rules is the lowest. Furthermore, the data collection process revealed that LAC countries still have room for discretion even when they subject their fiscal policy to rules. To address this problem, the paper proposes an adjusted compliance index that considers different elements that add degrees of discretion to the rule. The study finds that the numerical compliance rates of each country are likely to be over-estimated once discretionary actions are accounted for.
In the microfinance sector, experienced lenders enjoy an information advantage over first-time entrepreneurs. Our study proposes an analysis of the business training provided on a par with microloans and its potential effect on borrowers’behavior. First, we present a simple theoretical mechanism showing that an information advantage concerning borrower risk can lead to a non-monotonic relationship between risk and business training provision. Second, using a hand-collected data set of loan applications to a French MFI, we empirically examine the relationship between business training provision and borrower risk, controlling for selection bias and endogeneity. The collected evidence supports the existence of a non-monotonic relationship and shows that business training significantly increases the survival time of loans. Our results are robust to alternative econometric models.
Background:
Cooperation between general practitioners (GPs) and other healthcare professionals appears to help reduce the risk of polypharmacy-related adverse events in patients with multimorbidity.
Objectives:
To investigate GPs profiles according to their opinions and attitudes about interprofessional cooperation and to study the association between these profiles and GPs’ characteristics.
Methods:
Between May and July 2016, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of a panel of French GPs about their management of patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy, focussing on their opinions on the roles of healthcare professionals and interprofessional cooperation. We used agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis to identify GPs profiles, then multivariable logistic regression models to study their associations with the characteristics of these doctors.
Results:
1183 GPs responded to the questionnaire. We identified four profiles of GPs according to their declared attitudes towards cooperation: GPs in the ‘very favourable’ profile (14%) were willing to cooperate with various health professionals, including the delegation of some prescribing tasks to pharmacists; GPs in the ‘moderately favourable’ profile (47%) had favourable views on the roles of health professionals, with the exception for this specific delegation of the task; GPs from the ‘selectively favourable’ profile (27%) tended to work only with doctors; GPs from the ‘non-cooperative’ profile (12%) did not seem to be interested in cooperation. Some profiles were associated with GPs’ ages or participation in continuing medical education.
Conclusion:
Our study highlights disparities between GPs regarding cooperation with other professionals caring for their patients and suggests ways to improve cooperation.
Background:
Reducing the mortality burden associated with urban air pollution constitutes a public health priority, and evidence of unequal exposure and susceptibility across population subgroups is growing. Many European countries have implemented low emission zones (LEZs) in densely populated city centers. Although LEZs decrease air pollution exposure and health impacts, evidence is lacking on their impact across neighborhoods and socio-economic groups.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the most equitable approach to implementing the second phase of the LEZ in Paris, France. We also present a literature review of the studies evaluating the benefits associated with LEZs in Europe.
Methods:
A health impact assessment (HIA) was conducted to quantify changes in air pollution exposure and expected health benefits by socioeconomic group and neighborhood related to four hypothetical scenarios for the second phase of the LEZ based on French Deprivation Index scores. The study focused on NO2 and PM2.5 as air pollutants and evaluated the impact of the LEZ on the inequitable burden of childhood asthma and all-cause premature adult mortality. We also conducted an economic evaluation associated with the LEZ benefits on prevented deaths and asthma cases.
Results:
The scenario with the largest LEZ perimeter and the most stringent vehicle standards prevented the highest number of cases and produced the most equitable distribution of health benefits, especially childhood asthma. It is expected that 810 deaths and 3200 cases of asthma could be prevented from the LEZ extension in this scenario. These results were distributed heterogeneously across three socioeconomic (SES) groups, most noticeably with asthma cases as 230, 180, and 210 cases were avoided per 100,000 inhabitants in high, medium, and low SES groups, respectively. We found substantial economic benefits associated with LEZ, with estimates ranging from €0.76 billion to €2.36 billion for prevented deaths. The benefits associated with asthma reduction ranged from €2.3 million to €8.3 million.
Discussion:
Conducting HIAs with a focus on equity will further inform policy makers of the impact of LEZ models on air pollution, health, and environmental justice. Developing these systematic methods and applying them to future LEZs and other air pollution policies will increase their effectiveness to reduce the burden of ambient air pollution on society and the environment.
