2018/11/20 (火) 15:30～17:00
経済研究所 3階 会議室 2

Kenta Kojima (Kansai University)

"Successful Jobs and Dead-end Jobs in a Bureaucracy: Evidence from Japan"

This paper develops a novel method that assign a job a value which captures both the possibility and speed of promotion from each job to top executives and applies this method to investigate career paths of bureaucrats in Japan. We find that seemingly similar jobs within the same hierarchical rank, which is estimated by the standard method initiated by Baker, Gibbs, and Holmstrom (1994), have large different possibilities to be promoted to top executives. We can also detect frequent real demotions and the existence of early selection ( = fast track) of elite bureaucrats, which cannot be detected by the use of the hierarchical rank.

2018/11/13(火) 15:30～17:00
第2研究館 2階 小会議室 (217室)

Chongwoo Choe (Monash University)

"Competitive Personalized Pricing"

We study a model where each competing firm has a target segment on which it has full consumer information and can exercise personalized pricing, and consumers can engage in identity management that allows them to bypass the firm's attempt to price discriminate. More consumer information can intensify competition since firms can effectively defend their turf through targeted personalized offers, which allows them to set aggressive public prices offered to non-targeted consumers. But the effect can be mitigated as more consumers become active in identity management since it raises the firm's cost of serving non-targeted consumers. When firms have sufficiently large and non-overlapping target segments, active identity management by consumers can enable firms to extract full surplus from their targeted consumers through perfect price discrimination. Active identity management can also induce firms not to serve the entire market when the commonly non-targeted market segment is small, hence resulting in a deadweight loss. Thus active identity management by consumers can lead to lower consumer surplus and lower social welfare. Our main insight continues to be valid when a fraction of consumers are active in identity management or when there is a cost of identity management. We also discuss the regulatory implications for the use of consumer information by firms as well as the implications for management.

2018/10/30 (火) 15:30～17:00
第2研究館 2階 小会議室 (217室)

Michael Waldman (Cornell University)

"Bonuses and Promotion Tournaments: Theory and Evidence"

Standard models of promotion tournaments do not distinguish between wages and bonuses and thus cannot explain variation in the use of bonuses. We combine classic and market-based tournament theories to develop a model in which wages and bonuses serve distinctly different roles. We use this model to derive testable predictions which we test employing both a single firm dataset and a dataset encompassing a large segment of the Finnish economy. Our empirical analysis supports the testable predictions and shows that our theoretical approach better matches the data than alternative theories of bonus determination based on arguments already in the literature.

2018/6/12 (火) 15:30～17:00

第2研究館 2階 小会議室 (217室)

Jed DeVaro (California State University)

"Big Fish in Small (and Big) Ponds: A Study of Careers"

Talented, ambitious workers (big fish) often join highly competitive organizations (big ponds), though they sometimes instead choose less competitive organizations (small ponds) offering brighter promotion prospects. Big fish exist in both types of organizations, though average worker ability is higher in big ponds. Top executives enjoy higher wages in big ponds. Choosing a big pond allows workers to signal high ability. Workers sometimes overestimate or underestimate their abilities, choosing the wrong pond. They also vary in their desire to be promoted. All of the preceding phenomena are shown to be consistent with equilibrium in a new theoretical model of careers.

2018/5/29 (火) 15:30～17:00

第2研究館 2階 小会議室 (217室)

Akifumi Ishihara (GRIPS)

"Asymmetric Product Line and Multi-homing"

This study examines vertical relationships in which a monopolistic upstream producer supplies a product through downstream distributors to consumers, who may access multiple distributors (i.e., multi-homing). Given that there are multi-homing consumers, we point out that supply of the product induces more consumers to multi-home only if the product is supplied exclusively, and show that the upstream firm deals with only one of distributors exclusively without any contractual arrangements. We also show that forcing non-exclusive supply on the producer may worsen welfare due to the reduction of multi-homing consumers.