Collective Choice and Producer Cartels

集体选择和生产者卡特尔

• 批准号: 8720741
• 负责人: Stephen Salant
• 金额: $ 4.48万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-05-01 至 1990-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8720741&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collective; Choice; Producer; Cartels

Agricultural marketing boards, producer cartels, international commodity organizations, and prorationing boards typically restrict output based on a committee decision. The decision is generally the result of a vote. The behavior of such organizations obviously has important economic consequences. Nonetheless, the voting aspect of the decision making has previously received no attention from the economics profession.The purpose of this investigation is to develop models which will permit a better understanding of the decisions such organizations will make. In their prior research the investigators developed a number of propositions concerning agricultural marketing boards. The same propositions were then shown to hold for producer cartels provided members differed only in size or capacity, not cost. In this research the investigators reexamine the propositions when members may also differ in their costs. While some of the earlier propositions remain true (even if their proofs must be revised to incorporate new assumptions), several propositions are no longer valid. For example, if cartel members differ only in size, the quota selected will result in a lower price than the quota which maximizes profits. That is, the aspect of marketing boards which is typically neglected makes them more competitive than is commonly supposed. However, if cartel members have different costs, it turns out that the result may be reversed: the quota voted for may be even tighter than the quota which maximizes joint profits. The methodology of this project is straight forward. The profits which each voter would receive in the economic game which follows selection of any given quota are first deduced. These "induced preferences "(equilibrium profits to each voter as a function of the scalar quota) are then used to examine the equilibrium in the prior voting game. The result is a joint political/economic equilibrium. Given exogenous data on costs, demand, capacity, the voting rules, and the composition of the committee, the model can be used to predict how each committee member will vote, what quota will be selected, and what economic consequences will follow. From the view point of economics, this research is valuable because it addresses an important but overlooked aspect of volume restricting organizations. From the viewpoint of voting theory in political science, the research is valuable and important because a natural sufficiency condition for the existence of a Condorcet point is proved which does not involve single peakedness of the induced preferences. Finally, from a policy point of view the research leads to revised assessments of the welfare losses from cartels and marketing boards. Moreover, the model clarifies how political interventions can have economic effects. Changes in the composition of the committee, the weights attached to their votes, and other exogenous political factors induce economic consequences.

农业营销委员会、生产者卡特尔、国际商品组织和按比例分配委员会通常根据委员会的决定限制产量。这一决定通常是投票的结果。这类组织的行为显然具有重要的经济后果。尽管如此，决策的投票方面以前并没有得到经济学专业人士的关注。这次调查的目的是开发模型，使人们能够更好地理解这些组织将做出的决定。在他们之前的研究中，研究人员提出了一些关于农业营销委员会的命题。然后，同样的主张被证明适用于生产者卡特尔，只要成员的规模或能力不同，而不是成本不同。在这项研究中，当成员的成本也可能不同时，研究人员重新检查了这些主张。虽然一些较早的命题仍然成立(即使它们的证明必须修改以纳入新的假设)，但有几个命题不再有效。例如，如果卡特尔成员只是规模不同，所选配额将导致价格低于实现利润最大化的配额。也就是说，营销委员会通常被忽视的方面使它们比人们通常认为的更具竞争力。然而，如果卡特尔成员国的成本不同，结果可能会相反：投票支持的配额可能比实现共同利润最大化的配额更紧。这个项目的方法是直截了当的。首先推导出每个投票者在选择任何给定配额后的经济博弈中将获得的利润。然后，这些“诱导偏好”(作为标量配额函数的每个投票者的均衡利润)被用来检验先前投票博弈中的均衡。其结果是一种共同的政治/经济均衡。给出关于成本、需求、产能、投票规则和委员会组成的外部数据，该模型可以用来预测每个委员会成员将如何投票，将选择什么配额，以及随之而来的经济后果。从经济学的角度来看，这项研究是有价值的，因为它解决了限制组织数量的一个重要但被忽视的方面。从政治学投票理论的观点来看，这项研究是有价值和重要的，因为证明了存在Condorcet点的一个自然充分条件，该条件不涉及诱导偏好的单峰性。最后，从政策的角度来看，这项研究导致了对卡特尔和营销委员会福利损失的修订评估。此外，该模型还阐明了政治干预如何产生经济影响。委员会的组成、他们投票的权重以及其他外生政治因素的变化会导致经济后果。