The Durability of Goods and Regulation of Monopoly
The Durability of Goods and Regulation of Monopoly
复制标题
商品的耐用性与垄断的规制
DOI：
10.2307/3003172
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发表时间：
1971
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
P. Swan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Swan
本文重新考虑了许多经济学家提出的命题，即垄断企业产生的耐用资产不如竞争企业。所做的关键假设是，资产是他们提供的服务所需要的。结果表明，由于所有的公司都希望提供任何给定的服务，垄断和竞争的公司将选择相同程度的耐久性的成本最小化。虽然这一结果是针对指数衰减的商品证明的，但该结果可以推广到任意衰减函数。许多早期的作家得出错误的结论，主要是因为他们忽视了对商品的最初需求。只要允许垄断者在需求曲线的弹性部分经营，垄断者的耐久性选择就不受价格或需求条件的影响。价格管制将不会对耐久性的选择产生影响，除非试图迫使企业在需求曲线的非弹性部分进行操作。如果进行这种尝试，产量将保持不变，成本将增加，以满足单位成本加价的限制。在这种情况下，监管机构应确保耐久性保持在以前的水平不变。
This paper reconsiders the proposition put forward by many economists that monopolies would produce less durable assets than would competitive firms. The key assumption made is that assets are desired for the services they provide. It is shown that, as all firms desire to minimize the cost of providing any given service, monopoly and competitive firms will select the same degree of durability. Although this result is proved for goods subject to exponential decay, the result can be generalized to an arbitrary decay function. A number of earlier writers reached mistaken conclusion basically because of their neglect of the initial demand for the good. Durability choice by a monopolist is unaffected by price or demand conditions so long as the firm is permitted to operate in the elastic portion of the demand curve. Price regulation will have no effect on the choice of durability unless an attempt is made to force the firm to operate in the inelastic portion of the demand curve. If this attempt is made, output will remain unchanged and costs will be increased so as to satisfy the unit cost mark-up constraint. In this case, the regulator should ensure that durability remains unaltered at the previous level.