We consider cannibalization in a duopoly model in which firms with diffrent costs supply two vertically differentiated products in the same market. We find that an increase in the difference in quality between the two goods or a decrease in the marginal cost of the high-quality goods leads to...

This paper studies the role played by the social norms of working hours in a household labor- leisure and fertility decision model. We suppose that social norms enforce workers not to deviate from the ideal level of working hours, which depends on past and current observations of working hours...

In this paper, we analyze the managerial behavior of firms by estimating a nested objective function consistent with the framework of Fershtman and Judd (1987). Using data for Japanese regional banks for FY 1980-FY 2009, we focus on oligopolistic behavior in the domestic loan market and examine...

In this paper, we consider and propose a new duopoly model of cannibalization in which firms produce and sell two vertically differentiated products in the same market. We show that each firm produces the high-quality good more (less) than the low-quality good if the upper limit of taste of...

In a real oligopoly, firms often supply multiple products differentiated by quality in the same market. To examine why they do so, we consider a duopoly model in which firms can choose between supplying two vertically differentiated products and selling a single product in the same market. By...

We analyze a simple task-assignment model in which a principal assigns a task to one of two agents depending on the state. If the agents have standard concave utility, the principal assigns the task to an agent with the highest productivity in each state. In contrast, if the agents are loss...

We investigate moral-hazard problems with limited liability where agents have expectation-based reference-dependent preferences. We show that stochastic compensation for low performance can be optimal. Because of loss aversion, the agents have first-order risk aversion to wage uncertainty. This...

Applying a standard model of endogenous quality choice to the case of multiple national markets (i.e., a developed and a less developed country), we consider the effect of an economic integration (i.e., a movement from segmented markets into a single integrated market through the removal of...

Some economically developed countries are suffering from an aging society with fewer children, which has brought about greater burdens imposed by social security. A child allowance and child-care services are provided by the governments in these countries to raise fertility. An increase in...

We first report three empirical findings from our survey on the contracting-out of municipal waste collection services in Japan: 1) the rate of contracting-out and the contract price are inversely related, 2) this inverse relationship tapers out as the contracting rate becomes sufficiently high,...