Research Catalog

Title

Competition, commitment, and welfare / Kotaro Suzumura.

Author

Suzumura, Kōtarō, 1944-2020.

Publication

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1995.

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Holdings

Details

Description

xii, 281 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

• This book examines one of the classical issues in theoretical welfare economics in general, and in theoretical industrial organization in particular - namely, the welfare effects of increasing competition among firms.
• In the orthodox literature on welfare economics and industrial organization, the desirability of competition in terms of social welfare, an idea which can be traced back to Adam Smith, is widely accepted, resulting in the policy-relevant belief that by increasing competition we can always improve social welfare. However, this orthodox view is challenged by another piece of conventional wisdom which is widely held among industrial policy authorities as well as people in business.
• According to this view, the adage 'doing to excess is as bad as not doing enough' is applicable to the welfare effects of competition as well, and government intervention for the purpose of controlling the damage caused by 'excessive competition' is proper and justified. The author examines whether promoting competition is indeed welfare-improving, or whether there exists any systematic cause for excessive competition which can be identified in the standard framework of welfare economics.
• . Two questions are posed in looking at these issues: Can competition ever be excessive in the welfare-theoretic sense? Can policy intervention in the name of keeping excessive competition under control be justified?
• Starting from an elementary model of oligopoly and introducing several complexities step by step, the author shows that, for a wide class of situations where economies of scale prevail, competition can certainly be excessive in the welfare-theoretic sense, but that regulation of competition may cause serious distortions of its own. The latter distortions, he argues, should be weighed against market distortions arising from excessive competition before prescribing a policy mix of competition and regulation.
• Those who are interested in the proper role of industrial and competition policies in the market economics will find these theoretical results both illuminating and suggestive.

Subject

• Competition
• Industrial policy
• Free trade
• Welfare economics
• Government

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-273) and indexes.

Contents

1. Entry Barriers and Economic Welfare: Partial Equilibrium Approach -- 2. Entry Barriers and Economic Welfare: General Equilibrium Approach -- 3. Welfare-Improving Tax Subsidy Schemes with or without Entry Barriers -- 4. Strategic R&D and Economic Welfare -- 5. Taxation and Welfare with Strategic Commitment -- 6. Co-operative and Non-cooperative R&D with Spillovers -- 7. Entry, Commitment, and Welfare: A Synthesis -- 8. Alternative Firm Objectives and Strategies -- 9. Non-Symmetric Equilibria -- App. A. Exemption Systems from Anti-Monopoly Law and Other Anti-Competitive Measures in Japan: Overview and Evaluation -- App. B. Collaborative Research and Development: Economic Analysis in the Light of Japanese Experience.

ISBN

0198289146

LCCN

94044909

OCLC

ocm31607364

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries