Collaborative Research on Dynamic Antitrust Policy: Predatory and Limit Pricing in a Model of Learning-by-Doing and Organizational Forgetting

这个项目考察了掠夺性定价和限制定价在一个行业动态模型的马尔可夫完美均衡中出现的程度，在该模型中，企业面临着从做中学习和组织遗忘的前景。掠夺性定价采用了各种标准，包括传统的Areeda&Amp；Turner(1975)定价低于平均变动成本的标准和一些学者(例如，Ordover&Amp；g(1981)和Cabral&Amp；Riordan(1997))提出的经济检验。到目前为止，还没有工作表明掠夺性定价的经济和法律定义如何在有进入和退出的价格竞争的动态模型中运作，也没有全面分析在这种模型中出现掠夺性定价的均衡程度。此外，在一个完全动态的模型中，还没有关于禁止掠夺性定价的福利效应的研究。本研究试图填补这些空白。掠夺性定价一直是反垄断政策中一个有争议的领域，一些学者(例如McGee 1980)认为掠夺性定价是罕见和无效的，而其他学者(最著名的是Kreps，Milgrom，Roberts和Wilson在几篇论文中)表明，如果企业关心建立强硬的声誉，掠夺性行为可以作为一种均衡现象出现。在存在学习型经济的情况下，区分掠夺性和非掠夺性行为尤其具有挑战性，因为企业既有掠夺性的理由，也有非掠夺性的理由，可以收取低于自付成本的价格。非掠夺性的理由是，低于成本的定价使企业更有可能沿着其学习曲线向下移动；甚至垄断企业也可能因为这个原因而采取低于成本的定价。掠夺性的原因是，通过比竞争对手更快地向下移动其学习曲线，一家公司可能会诱使其竞争对手退出该行业，并使其对新进入该行业的人失去吸引力。很难区分掠夺性和非掠夺性定价，这是评估20世纪80年代和90年代日本公司在DRAM芯片市场上的定价行为的一个问题(Flamm 1996)。广泛影响：这项研究除了对产业组织(IO)理论文献的贡献外，预计还将产生更广泛的社会影响。在过去的几年里，IO文献在分析行业动态方面取得了相当大的进展，现在可以相当容易地计算大型动态随机博弈的均衡(即使存在多个均衡)。此外，学者们在这类动力学模型的基元估计方面也取得了很大的进展。鉴于这些进展，这一分析预计将是向前迈出的重要一步，为负责制定和执行反垄断政策的机构提供工具，在特定情况下确定公司是否可能从事掠夺性行为，以及政策干预的福利后果可能是什么。更广泛地说，这项研究朝着使动态分析成为回答公共政策问题的标准方法的目标迈出了一步。

This project examines the extent to which predatory pricing and limit pricing arise in the Markov-perfect equilibrium of a model of industry dynamics in which firms face the prospect of learning-by-doing and organizational forgetting. A variety of standards for predatory pricing are applied, including the traditional Areeda & Turner (1975) standard of pricing below average variable cost and economic tests proposed by a number of scholars (e.g., Ordover & Willig (1981) and Cabral & Riordan (1997)). To date, there has been no work showing how economic and legal definitions of predatory pricing can be operationalized in a dynamic model of price competition with entry and exit, nor has there been a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which predation arises in equilibrium in such a model. In addition, there has been no work on the welfare effects of a ban on predatory pricing in a fully dynamic model. This research attempts to fill these gaps.Predatory pricing has been a contentious area of antitrust policy, with some scholars (e.g., McGee 1980) suggesting that predatory pricing is rare and ineffective, and other scholars (most notably, Kreps, Milgrom, Roberts, and Wilson in several papers) showing that predatory behavior can arise as an equilibrium phenomenon if firms are concerned with establishing a reputation for toughness. When learning economies are present, distinguishing predatory from non-predatory behavior is especially challenging because firms have both predatory and non-predatory reasons to charge a price below out-of-pocket cost. The non-predatory reason is that below-cost pricing makes it more likely that the firm moves further down its learning curve; even a monopolist may engage in below-cost pricing for this reason. The predatory reason is that by moving down its learning curve faster than its rivals, a firm may induce its rivals to exit the industry and make it unattractive for new entrants to come into the industry. The difficulty distinguishing predatory from non-predatory pricing was an issue in evaluating the pricing behavior of Japanese firms in the market for DRAM chips in the 1980s and 1990s (Flamm 1996).Broader impacts: This research is expected to have a broader social impact beyond its contributions to the theoretical literature in industrial organization (IO). Over the past few years, the IO literature has made considerable progress in analyzing the dynamics of an industry, and the equilibria of large dynamic stochastic games can now be computed fairly easily (even when there are multiple equilibria). In addition, scholars have made great advances in estimating the primitives of such dynamic models. In light of these advances, this analysis is expected to be an important step forward in providing agencies charged with developing and enforcing antitrust policy with a tool to determine in particular cases whether firms are likely to engage in predatory behavior and what the welfare consequences of a policy intervention are likely to be. More generally, this research is a step toward the goal of making dynamic analysis a standard methodology to answer questions of public policy.