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Innovation in the mining sector is crucial for industrial, economic, and sustainable development, particularly for developing economies. It is important to understand the factors that stimulate innovation in this sector to upgrade productivity and growth. In the mining sector, innovation is driven by profit structure, which in turn depends strongly on commodity prices. We hypothesize two innovation responses to prices, which we test against existing evidence found in recent literature and available industry data. We find two different innovation responses to prices: exploration and in-house research and development (R&D) investments by mining companies increase as commodity prices rise, while the use of suppliers' innovation intensifies when prices decrease. Policies to strengthen the sector should provide long-term support for the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector so that they can continuously invest in R&D to provide innovative solutions for mining firms, possibly extending to lateral linkages, applying digital and low-carbon solutions developed for the mining sector and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The introduction of the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail (Launch) and the Wenzhou bullet-train collision (Crash) in China provided a unique occasion to study the effect of competition on price dispersion. Results show that price dispersion increased by about 48% after the Launch, as airlines offered greater discounts to price-elastic consumers than to price-inelastic consumers. By contrast, price dispersion decreased by about 55% after the Crash, as airlines raised prices more for price-elastic consumers than for price-inelastic consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has highlighted a difference in the way consumers approach choice sets. Some consumers focus on products' quality benefits (vertical differentiation): their selections are driven by the level of quality obtained relative to the price paid. Other consumers focus on products' taste benefits (horizontal differentiation): their selections are driven by acquiring personal tastes at favorable prices. This article aims to investigate how consumers' benefit focus, a continuum anchored by quality and taste, drives their preferences between retailers differing in pricing strategies. All else equal, consumers who focus on taste benefits will prefer EDLP stores (infrequent discounters), while consumers who focus on quality benefits will prefer Hi-Lo stores (frequent discounters). Findings from our experiments and an analysis of consumer panel data corroborate this relationship. This work also shows the mediating role of perceived value and the effect of several moderators: the strength of the price–quality relationship, the pattern of discounts, and cherry-picking costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the prices of cryptocurrencies remained volatile for the past decade, the factors that impact the price dynamics of the new type of investment instrument have not been fully identified yet. In this study, we recognize the dual nature of cryptocurrencies, that is, being a software program and a financial instrument, and examine the impact of software advancement on the price dynamics of cryptocurrencies. The open-source software (OSS) platform functionality enables social behaviors that we use as signals. Using data from the largest OSS platform, we establish the connection between open-source activities and the price movement of cryptocurrency. In particular, as project popularity (forks and watches) and users' feedback (issues) increase, the market price increases by 4.3 percent, 2.4 percent, and 4.4 percent per annum, respectively. On the contrary, the number of code corrections (pull requests) is negatively related to prices leading to a 5 percent annual price decrease. Our results suggest that OSS contributions create a perfect selection mechanism, where higher quality projects receive more developers' attention and user feedback, whereas lower quality projects do not, thus creating the separating equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated non-instantaneous deteriorating items because not all products deteriorate immediately. In the high-tech product life cycle, the product demand increases linearly substantially in the growth stage and maintains a near-constant level in the maturity stage. This is a ramp-type demand rate. To satisfy the demand as shortages occur, partial backlogging is necessary. The advance-cash-credit payment scheme, comprising advance, cash, and credit payments, has gained popularity in business transactions to improve cash flow flexibility among supply chain participants. This study explored a partial backlogging inventory model with ramp-type demand for non-instantaneous deteriorating items under generalized payment. The proposed model also incorporated discounted cash flow analysis to account for the time value of the profit function. This study attempted to determine the optimal replenishment strategy to maximize the present value of the total profit. Finally, we conducted a sensitivity analysis to examine the efficacy of the proposed model and gain managerial insights. The optimal total profit rises with an increase in the permissible delay period and sale price but decreases with an increase in ordering and purchase costs. Then, the decision-maker can refer to the managerial insights to choose the appropriate parameter value for the operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The genetic test for Expected Progeny Differences (EPDs) is one of the newest technologies to reduce uncertainty in calf production. It provides information about the genetic composition of a bull, which relates to its propensity to produce offspring with specific growth and quality characteristics. Objective: To evaluate the influence of EPDs reports on the variation of Nellore bull semen prices for artificial insemination in the Brazilian beef cattle industry. Methods: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions were estimated. The study utilized genetic data provided by GENEPLUS as well as market prices of semen and physical measurements of the bulls collected from the Alta Genetics Insemination Agency. Results: Genetic results, except for age at first calving, weaning weight, and weight at 120 days EPDs, have little influence on semen prices. For each additional day expected for the first calving of the progeny average price of semen decreases by 0.66%. For each additional kg expected in weaning weight, the semen price was 1.73% higher. Furthermore, for each additional kg expected in the progeny at 120 days, semen price increased by 2.46%. Conclusion: Joint analyses of genetic reports and physical characteristics of bulls may provide a better explanatory power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic created an unprecedented demand and supply shock to the world economies. To understand its impact on corporate prices, we define a partial equilibrium model where non‐financial corporations operating in three sectors (suppliers, end‐producers and service providers) optimize their production under monopolistic competition and are subject to demand and supply shocks of different intensities. Our model confirms that when the demand shock dominates, prices tend to decrease. We then introduce data from the COVID‐19 pandemic in the European Union into our model and find that prices are expected to fall in the most acute phase of the pandemic, when lockdowns and similar health measures decrease demand, and to increase later as a result of tensions in the supply of intermediate goods and of the persistence of the supply shock. Inventories could play a decisive role in avoiding price increases in the moderate phase of the pandemic. In the post‐pandemic period, higher prices may continue for a time until the shock to suppliers vanishes. These are relevant insights on the macroeconomic impact of worldwide pandemics, also considering the current macroeconomic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering consumer channel preferences, our paper establishes a two‐echelon differential low‐carbon supply chain model and discusses the effects of member's cost‐sharing and fairness concerns on equilibrium results. From a static perspective, the results indicate that retailers' fairness concern behavior will lead to a decrease in pricing and participants' efforts while manufacturers cost‐sharing strategy will only enhance retailers' advertising efforts. From a dynamic perspective, products' greenness, long‐term benefits of manufacturers and retailers, and social welfare will gradually increase and eventually saturate over time. In most cases, manufacturer‐to‐retailer cost‐sharing is a win–win strategy that not only enhances the long‐term interests but also realizes the greening and upgrading of the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many high‐tech and Internet‐related products, consumers' utility depends partly on the scale of user groups, which is called network externality. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in shaping firms' innovation strategies, especially in markets with price regulation. This paper aims to investigate a monopolist's dynamic product innovation problem in a price‐regulated market exhibiting network externality. We identify the sufficient conditions guaranteeing the existence of optimal steady‐state equilibrium. Our analysis mainly shows the following: (i) the product quality and network size move in opposite directions along the path to the steady‐state equilibrium; (ii) the equilibrium result of product innovation increases with the regulated price but decreases with the intensity of network externality; (iii) the social‐welfare maximizing path of product innovation can be replicated by a dynamic price regulation regime, involving a premium on quality and a premium or a penalty on network size. Numerical experiments are performed to characterize the dynamic patterns of product innovation. We find that firms with high brand power prefer adopting mild product innovation strategy while for firms with low brand power, almost constant high‐quality strategy is better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference prices (RPs) are consumers' subjective perceptions of prices that have important influences on purchase decisions. The standard RP formulation, which defines RP as an exponentially weighted average of past prices, ignores a certain asymmetry in weights between the regime of a price decrease and that of a price increase, which can be observed by the demand trend during the few days after a price decrease or increase. Such oversight usually leads to overestimation in demand as we illustrate by empirical evidence. We introduce the novel concept of RP with exposure effect (RPEE) that captures such asymmetry in RP formulation by imposing a weight proportional to how much the price is exposed to consumers. The exposure effect can be measured by clickstream data that are available for most e‐retailing platforms. We develop a customer behavioral model that can explain the formation of standard RP, and extend it in a natural way to provide foundation to the use of RPEE, especially for products with few repeat purchases. We then establish empirically the extensive benefit of forecasting from RPEE for e‐retailers that sell thousands of products. We demonstrate that RPEE exhibits significant and consistent improvement over standard RP for products, with around 20%$$ 20\% $$ reduced weighted mean absolute percentage error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing awareness of perishable products, green grocers are forced to be concerned about the deterioration of freshness and adopt a time-based multiple pricing (TMP) policy. However, the reluctance of supply chain members to share their information exacerbates the predicament in the perishable product industry. This paper focuses on the TMP policy with bilateral asymmetric information that the supplier conceals freshness information and the retailer conceals demand information. Differing from existing literature, we adopt the TMP policy to release the retailer from the inferiority of information asymmetry. Based on the Stackelberg game model, three main conclusions are summarized as follows. First, information asymmetry does not always damage profits of the agent in the supply chain. Second, when the retailer agrees to adopt the TMP policy, the TMP policy decreases the price but the retailer can benefit from the low price in perishable product industry. Third, interestingly, the TMP policy can mitigate the impact of information asymmetry that reduces profits of the retailer. However, the mitigation of the TMP policy is limited and it cannot undo the detrimental effects instigated by information asymmetry. Thus, managers in the perishable product industry should adopt the TMP policy as a countermeasure to prevent the reverse caused by information asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Materials and Methods Results Conclusion Insulin icodec is a first once‐weekly administration basal insulin analogue for type 2 diabetes. This study aimed to investigate the price range of icodec for type 2 diabetes in the Chinese market, taking insulin degludec as reference.Long‐term health outcomes and costs for icodec and degludec were simulated using the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study Outcomes Model (version 2.1) over 40 years from the Chinese healthcare provider's perspective. The efficacy and safety data were obtained from the ONWARDS 2 trial (Switching to once‐weekly insulin icodec versus once‐daily insulin degludec in individuals with basal insulin‐treated type 2 diabetes (ONWARDS 2): a phase 3a, randomised, open label, multicentre, treat‐to‐target trial). Cost–utility analysis and a binary search were used to investigate the price range of icodec. Sensitivity analyses were performed to verify the robustness of the base‐case analysis results.After a 40‐year simulation, the quality‐adjusted life years (QALY) of icodec and degludec were 10.32 and 10.28 years, respectively. At the initial assumption of the same annual costs of icodec and degludec of $455.40, icodec was the dominant therapy compared with degludec, with higher QALYs and lower total cost. After the binary search, we observed that the annual cost range of icodec was $625.17–$855.25. This cost range was finally adjusted to be $597.66–$736.34 using one‐way sensitivity analysis and confirmed using probabilistic sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis. The scenario analysis revealed that the annual cost range of icodec could be $506.70–$736.34 if the price of degludec decreased by 20% in the future.Insulin icodec appears to be more cost effective than degludec if the annual cost of icodec ranges from $597.66 to $736.34 for patients with type 2 diabetes in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish passenger railway market saw the entrance of two competitors in 2022–2023: the full-service operator Iryo and the low-cost operator Ouigo. Using a unique dataset of Spanish ticket price collected throughout an entire year and the Diff-In-Diff method, this paper investigates the impact on incumbent's prices of newcomers' entrance on the less congested corridors Madrid - Alicante and Madrid - Malaga/Sevilla. The Spanish government's strategy seems to be successful: the decision to lead the liberalisation process and the choice of having up to three asymmetric competitors induced a significant decrease in price even on the less attractive corridors, stimulating the demand and addressing the problem of under-utilization of some high-speed infrastructure. The results show that prices decreased by 28%–30% after nine months of competition. The impact has been the same on both the analysed corridors, despite the competition environment has been different in terms of number of competitors, pricing strategy and market share of those. • Spain is the first country with three competitors in the high-speed railway market. • Competition in high-speed rail in Spain reduced prices by 28%–30% in nine months. • The impact on incumbent's first-class and second-class prices was the same. • Both low-cost and full-service competitors similarly affected incumbent pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) are associated with significant toxicity and are increasingly used in electronic vaping devices. We assessed the availability of SCRA vaping products to UK purchasers on the surface web. Methods: An internet snapshot survey was performed between October 2022 and January 2023 on 'google.com' using the search terms "buy c-liquid vape", "buy herbal incense vape liquid", "buy cannabis vape liquid", "buy hashish vape liquid", "buy K2 vape liquid". Results: 62 websites selling 128 SCRA vaping brands were identified. Most were purportedly based in the USA (41 websites, 66%) and most sold other controlled substances. Purchase incentives offered included discreet packaging (38, 61%), discounts for bulk purchase (34, 55%) and tracked delivery (30, 48%). Many websites stated SCRA products were: not for human consumption (41, 66%), for research purposes only (15, 24%), or legal (28, 45%). Websites sold a median (IQR) of 16 (7–25) SCRA vaping brands. Almost all were bottles of vaping liquid (1220/1225, 99.6%). The most common bottle size was 5mL (60%), the median (IQR) total volume of SCRA liquid per sale was 50mL (10–200mL). Median (IQR) price was £3.39/mL (£2.01/mL– £5.29/mL). Price decreased with increasing volume purchased (£6.58/mL for ≤ 5mL, £1.60/mL for > 200mL). Conclusion: SCRA vaping products are easily obtainable online, in both small and bulk quantities. Information provided to purchasers on safety and legality is lacking or misleading. Further studies are needed to confirm the chemistry of these products. Policymakers should consider steps to limit the potential harm caused by the purchase and use of these products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic resulted in disruptions to the Canadian meat and livestock markets. While prices initially decreased, the shutdowns of beef packing plants led to a large reduction in the supply of beef and a corresponding increase in the wholesale price with ramifications along the entire supply chain. This study examines the effect of COVID‐19 on price transmission and price volatility in the Canadian beef supply chain using monthly farmgate, wholesale, and retail price data covering the period from July 2005 to February 2022. We find evidence indicating that COVID‐19 affected long‐run price transmission from farmgate and wholesale markets to the retail market. Specifically, we find that the pandemic resulted in a 94.42 and 81.48% decrease in price transmission from the farmgate and wholesale market, respectively, to the retail market, indicating that higher prices at the wholesale level were not being passed on to consumers to the same extent. In the short run, we find asymmetric price adjustments and both direct and indirect volatility spillovers among the three levels of markets, implying strong market interactions across the beef supply chain. Overall, our results suggest the resiliency of the Canadian beef sector to COVID‐19 shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and the housing market are important driving forces of economic growth in China. These two factors are also closely associated with people's daily lives. The land fiscal policy in China and the pursuit of economic growth of local governments have resulted in irrational land use structures in most Chinese cities since the reform of the tax-sharing system in 1994. The high proportion of industrial land supply and low proportion of residential land supply has led to an increase in housing price and an unneglectable decrease in air quality, influencing people's living quality to some extent. Thus, adjusting the land use structure is necessary to achieve sustainable growth. The data of 30 cities in China from 2009 to 2017 and the fixed effects model are used in this paper to investigate the in-depth effect of land use structure on housing prices and air quality. Special importance has been attached to the influence of air pollution in the research framework, which has been overlooked by existing studies. The results indicate that air pollution negatively affects housing price and shows an unneglectable mediating effect in the relationship between land use structure and housing price. The empirical results and implications of this study can help governments optimize land use structure to achieve a balance between economic growth and people's living quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I characterize China's one-child policy as an individually tailored pricing system allowing women to have second and third children. The average policy price for having a second or third child is 13,900 dollars (2020, purchasing-power parity). It varies by age and other individual characteristics. I estimate policy elasticities exploiting within-individual price variation in a sample of women that annually replicates the national total fertility rate between 1979 and 2000. A 1 percent increase in the policy price decreases the probability of having a child by 0.7 percent (SE 0.1 percent). Without the policy, the total fertility rate would have been 2.7 children. The policy lowered this rate by 0.3 (SE 0.4) by curbing the number of girls born. This gendered policy impact further distorted the sex ratio at birth. Without the policy, the excess of boys per 100 girls born would have been 4.3. The policy increased the excess by 1.1 (SE 0.4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When consumers decide whether to buy an experience good, they usually search for online reviews to reduce quality uncertainty. In this paper, we consider that consumers may strategically wait for the new generation product and consult reviews of the previous generation product in the same series while facing sequential launching products. We develop a two‐period analytical model analyzing how the presence of intergenerational reviews influences the firm's decision on product upgrades. Our analysis obtains three main findings. First, when online reviews are less efficient and consumers are more strategic, the firm should skip the old product due to the severe product cannibalization effect. Second, negative reviews discourage the firm from quality improvement, and positive reviews drive the firm to provide quality improvement at a high price. Third, the firm chooses a decreasing price path without online reviews. However, an increasing price path is preferred in the presence of online reviews when online reviews are positive, the efficiency of consumer reviews is high, and consumers are more strategic. Our study indicates that online reviews have important influence on product generation design, and the firm should carefully evaluate online reviews of the old product when designing its new generation product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a novel social commerce practice known as "help-and-haggle," whereby an online consumer can ask friends to help her "haggle" over the price of a product. Each time a friend agrees to help, the price is cut by a random amount, and if the consumer cuts the product price down to zero within a time limit, she will get the product for free; otherwise, the product reverts to the original price. Help-and-haggle enables the firm to promote its product and boost its social reach as consumers effectively refer their friends to the firm. We model the consumer's dynamic referral behavior in help-and-haggle and provide prescriptive guidance on how the firm should randomize price cuts. Our results are as follows. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, the firm should not always reduce the (realized) price-cut amount if referrals are less costly for the consumer. In fact, the minimum number of successful referrals the consumer must make to have a chance to win the product can be nonmonotone in referral cost. Second, relative to the deterministic price-cut benchmark, a random price-cut scheme improves firm payoff, extracts more consumer surplus, and widens social reach. Additionally, in most instances, it also reduces the promotion expense while increasing profit from product sales at the same time. Third, help-and-haggle can be more cost effective in social reach than a reward-per-referral program that offers a cash reward for each successful referral. However, using the prospect of a free product to attract referrals cannibalizes product sales, potentially causing help-and-haggle to fall short. Yet, if consumers are heterogeneous in product valuations and referral costs or face increasing marginal referral costs, help-and-haggle can outperform the reward-per-referral program. This paper was accepted by Elena Katok, operations management. Funding: L. Yang acknowledges the Berkeley Haas Center for Growth Markets [2022 Grant Award]. C. Jin acknowledges the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund [Tier 1 Grant 251RES2101]. Z. Shao acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72071188]. All authors acknowledge the Networks, Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications (NET) Institute [2022 Summer Research Grant]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4948. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on analyzing the risk preferences of suppliers regarding two types of financing: partial credit guarantee (PCG) and trade credit financing (TCF). Using the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) criterion, we study each supply chain member's equilibrium solution and optimal financing strategy under the assumption of demand distributions with an increasing failure rate. Initially, we present an analytical solution of the risk-averse supplier's wholesale price, and prove that the optimal wholesale price decreases in the risk-averse level and initial capital, and increases in the credit guarantee ratio. Furthermore, we derive optimal financing strategies for both the supplier and the retailer under various circumstances. However, it is important to note that the results reveal a potential trade-off associated with PCG. While risk-averse suppliers may be more inclined to provide PCG compared to risk-neutral suppliers, this financing option can negatively impact the supplier's utility and the expected profits of the retailers. Finally, we illustrate how the optimal financing strategies shift in response to changes in the risk-averse level and credit guarantee ratio, and present the win-win situations for the supplier and the retailer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Railways has adopted a dynamic pricing mechanism for its premium trains like Shatabdi, Rajdhani, and Duronto. This led to an increase in its revenue but also a fall in passenger traffic. In this paper, we have analyzed the existing dynamic pricing model. A major flaw in the existing system is that the present system is only a fare hike system rather than a dynamic pricing system as there is no provision for a decrease in prices when the demand is low. Considering this, we have developed a new model that incorporates both inter-temporal pricing and demand-based pricing to come up with the dynamic fares along with the provision of having a downside in case of low demand. We developed a route selection criteria based on the key parameters identified by us where dynamic pricing would yield good results. The model was then tested on these routes using real-time data to determine the feasibility of the dynamic pricing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do limitations on commissions paid to financial advisers reduce prices of financial products and stimulate investment? I examine these questions by estimating the causal effects of regulating commissions for mutual fund distribution. I exploit the unique institutional setting in Israel and the 2013 policy change when the government reduced commissions differently for different fund types. The reform led to a major decline in fund expense ratios and a consequent increase in fund flows. Funds with price-sensitive investors experienced 35% larger inflows. I interpret these results as investor responses to price competition fostered by a reduction in distribution costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of entry deregulation in the Finnish interurban bus market. We observe that the number of operators on routes connecting large and medium-sized cities has grown. In less populated regions, there has not been an increase in operators, but there is also no indication of a decrease in access to transport services. We estimate the causal effect of the reform on prices using a synthetic control unit constructed from other European countries. We show that increased competition resulted in 28% lower prices in the interurban bus market. Consistent with our evidence on entry, we find that prices decreased on routes connecting large and medium-sized cities, while on routes connecting smaller municipalities, we find no significant change in prices. We also study how the reform affected the price of substitutes and find that the increased intermodal competition resulted in a 23% price decrease in the long-distance railway market. Overall, we find that the entry deregulation benefited consumers and increased total welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit a city-level panel comprised of individual house price estimates to estimate the impact of COVID-19 on both small and big real-estate markets in California USA. Descriptive analysis of spot house price estimates, including contemporaneous price uncertainty and 30-day price change for individual properties listed on the online real-estate platform Zillow.com, together facilitate quantifying both the excess valuation and valuation confidence attributable to this global socio-economic shock. Our quasi-experimental pre-/post-COVID-19 design spans several years around 2020 and leverages contemporaneous price estimates of rental properties – i.e., off-market real estate entering the habitation market, just not for purchase and hence free of speculation – as an appropriate counterfactual to properties listed for sale, which are subject to on-market speculation. Combining unit-level matching and multivariate difference-in-difference regression approaches, we obtain consistent estimates regarding the sign and magnitude of excess price growth observed after the pandemic onset. Specifically, our results indicate that properties listed for sale appreciated an additional 1% per month above what would be expected in the absence of the pandemic. This corresponds to an excess annual price growth of roughly 12.7 percentage points, which accounts for more than half of the actual annual price growth in 2021 observed across the studied regions. Simultaneously, uncertainty in price estimates decreased, signaling the irrational confidence characteristic of prior asset bubbles. We explore how these two trends are related to market size, local market supply and borrowing costs, which altogether lend support for the counterintuitive roles of uncertainty and interruptions in decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing non-family CEOs in Chinese family firms has become a universal phenomenon. The existing research mainly focuses on the direct effect of non-family CEOs on corporate operation, but ignores the capital market influence despite stock price crash has a more serious damage for family firms due to their reputation concern. To fill this research gap, this paper shed light on the important but ignored capital market effect of non-family members by exploring the role of nonfamily CEOs on stock price crash risk. Based on 12,561 firm-year observations of listed family firms in China from 2004 to 2020, this study estimates using correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, entropy balancing matching, treatment effect model and granger causality test. The results show that family firms with non-family CEOs are negatively related with future stock price crash risk in Chinese family firms, and this relationship tends to be stronger when CEOs have more power. Further, to explore the effect mechanism, we isolate the formation of stock price crash risk into two stages: bad news generation and bad news disclosure, and find that non-family CEOs reduce bad news generation but have no impact on bad news disclosure. Additionally, nonfamily CEOs decrease stock price crash risk when governance mechanisms in family firms are weaker, industry environments are poorer and macroeconomic conditions are more positive. This study highlights the negative effect of non-family CEOs on stock price crash risk in Chinese family firms, firstly clarifies the effect mechanism based on the two stages of stock price crash formation and finds that CEO power strengthens the role of non-family CEOs in lowering stock price crash risk in family firms, which differs from previous studies. Finding of this study also have important implications for the managers and investors of family firms. Family firms are expected to increase the introduction of non-family members and strengthen supervision to formalize governance structure. Meanwhile, investors should also consider the ability and experience of top management teams in family firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine whether China's grain price support policy has distorted the grain market price. Design/methodology/approach: The time-varying differences-in-differences (DID) model is used to study the impact of support policies on grain prices, and it is combined with the event study method to explore the dynamic effects of price support policy. Panel data model is used to study the effect of the price support policy on price formation for national grain market prices. In addition, we apply the smooth transformation (STR) model to verify whether there is a distortion in the transmission of grain prices among different markets in China and from the international market to China's market. Findings: China's grain price support policy plays a significant role in rising grain market prices, weakens the decisive role of the market mechanism in the formation of grain prices, hinders the spatial transmission of market price signals and decreases the effect of price transmission from the world market to China's market. Research limitations/implications: In order to ensure both the stability of grain production as well as the market stability, and also to ensure that intervention policies do not distort the food market, the minimum purchase price of grain and market regulation policies should be adjusted as follows: (1) price support policy should be shifted to an income support policy and (2) reasonably determine the scale of reserves and implement a grain minimum purchase price policy in limited areas. Originality/value: Our findings are relevant for understanding the effect of China's grain price support policies on the implementation regions and the price transmission effect, which provide reference experience for developing countries to implement food price policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between product market competition and internal corporate governance from the perspective of stock price crash risk using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2003 to 2014. We find that product market competition significantly decreases stock price crash risk and this effect is more pronounced for firms with poor corporate governance (i.e. state-owned enterprises (SOEs), firms with remote independent directors, and firms with lower managerial ownership). This pattern of evidence suggests that product market competition, as an external governance mechanism can substitute poor internal corporate governance by disciplining insiders' information hoarding and thus lead to lower stock price crash risk. The further finding that market competition improves information quality supports the information hoarding channel. Our findings hold up to a battery of robustness checks and endogeneity tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Internet technology, many manufacturers encroach into the retail market by selling products directly to consumers, which is called manufacturer encroachment. In practice, the manufacturer may encroach in normal sales period, markdown period, or both periods in a two‐period supply chain. It is a challenging task for the firm manager to provide appropriate quality level under different channel structures. This research originally studies manufacturer encroachment with endogenous quality investment decision in a two‐period supply chain considering that consumers' valuation of products depreciates over time. Using a game‐theoretic framework, this work explores four channel strategies of the manufacturer and discusses equilibrium decisions and profits. The analysis generates several insights. First, the manufacturer should promote quality investment if encroachment occurs when the direct selling is efficient. Second, regardless of which period and scenario, encroachment may increase wholesale price when the direct selling cost is smaller than a threshold. Third, results show the effect of encroachment time on price could be classified into quality investment effect, wholesale price effect, and channel‐adding effect. The quality investment effect increases retail price, while the channel‐adding effect and wholesale price effect decrease retail price. Finally, results reveal that encroachment is always the best choice for the manufacturer and it does not always harm the retailer's profits. Overall, our results and managerial insights can help the manufacturer to formulate channel strategies, wholesale price, and selling quantity decisions while help the retailer to make order quantity decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractExosuits for the lower limb have developed rapidly as an affordable, light, and more cost-effective alternative to the bulkier, traditional exoskeletons. The synergy-based approach aims at further emphasizing such advantages, providing even lighter and cheaper solutions, thanks to its reduction in actuators and the subsequent simplification of the actuation unit. In this paper, a design approach based on dynamic synergies is proposed to reduce the number of required actuators, thus decreasing the price and weight of walking-assistance exosuits. Also, in this work, we propose a methodology to calculate motor torque output and cable forces during assisted gait. Mechanical designs for the actuation unit are proposed along with experimental and computer-based testing and simulation. Lastly, actuation units with one and two motors are studied and compared, regarding control, mechanical complexity, and metabolic cost reduction. The results show that dynamic synergies can indeed contribute to the design of these assistive devices, with its own set of advantages and disadvantages when compared to the previously proposed postural synergies: while the latter led to a higher cumulative variance of the first principal component and the transmission system is simpler, control may be more unpredictable and forces upon the system, harder to estimate. With dynamic synergies, more related to muscle synergies, metabolic benefit on users may be more significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the effects of generic entry on the market share of different statins. We use administrative records from a representative sample of Australians between 2003 and 2014 and analyse over 21 million prescriptions to quantify the change in the total market share of each statin after experiencing generic entry for the first time. With detailed information on patients' benefits and prices, we also estimate potential savings from increasing the use of statins where generics became available. Our results indicate that despite the price decrease, the market share of the molecule experiencing generic entry does not significantly increase, and there is some evidence of substitution away from statins with generic availability. For the most commonly used molecules, this association is stronger in patients receiving higher government subsidies. We calculate potential savings of A\$17 million if patients had initiated treatment with the most prescribed off‐patent statin rather than a patent‐protected statin. Generic entry after patent expiry presents an opportunity for a significant reduction in pharmaceutical expenditure if these are preferred. This study highlights the importance of improving prescription systems that help doctors recommend lower cost, clinically appropriate alternatives and enhance the effectiveness of policies promoting generic substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the previous offline spatial price discrimination by adding an online entrant that results in partially equalized prices, and the urban (rural) segments are served by the offline (online) firms. The presence of online competition prompts offline firms to relocate nearer to the market center. The online firm's advantage in servicing remote areas grants it market power, enabling it to mark up its prices. This leads to a shift in the equilibrium locations of firms, causing them to diverge from socially optimal positions. The magnitude of this online advantage directly influences market dynamics: a greater advantage correlates with higher online prices, a reduced dispersion of offline firm locations, and decreased offline prices in urban regions. Finally, zoning policies and two extensions of online price discrimination and multiple offline firms with free entry are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common for suppliers to underestimate costs in procurement auctions, thereby decreasing the bid price and profit on completion of the supply, and potentially resulting in supply disruptions. We study the bidding decisions of suppliers that underestimate costs when the buyer uses first‐price or second‐price sealed‐bid procurement auctions. We study the effects of underestimating costs on the bid prices and performance decisions under different auction modes and propose renegotiations after procurement auctions to cope with supply disruptions. The results show that: (1) using first‐price or second‐price auctions, underestimating costs does not guarantee a positive profit on completion of the supply. When the winning supplier's degree of underestimation is high enough, underestimating costs may cause supply disruptions. (2) When the buyer faces supply disruptions, if the expected payment for re‐selecting another supplier is not less than a certain threshold value, the buyer can prevent supply disruptions through renegotiations after procurement auctions. (3) Compared to the situation where all suppliers' budgeted costs are accurate, underestimating costs always decreases the supplier's profit. For the buyer, when the supplier completes the supply under the original or renegotiated contract, underestimating costs can decrease the procurement costs. Finally, we show the main conclusions with numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: High prices, as a main factor, contributed to the lack of adequate access to essential anticancer medicines, especially for patients in developing countries. The Chinese Government has introduced a series of policies to control the prices of medicines during the last decade, but the effect on anticancer medicine is not yet clear. Methods: To evaluate the time trends and regional variation in the price of essential anticancer medicines in China, we used the procurement data of anticancer medicines from 2015 to 2022. We selected 29 anticancer medicines from the 2018 Chinese National Essential Medicines List. To measure the cost of a medicine, we used defined daily dose cost -the cost per defined daily doses. At national level, we focused on the price changes over time and compared the price between medicine categories. At provincial level, we assessed price variation among provinces over time. Results: For prices at the national level, all 6 targeted medicines exhibited a continuous decrease trend in price. Out of 23 non-targeted medicines, 4 (17.39%) experienced continuous increases in prices, and 9 (39.13%) showed price decreases from 2015 to 2019 and then an upward trend during 2019-2022; Of the remaining non-targeted medicines, 7 (30.43%) had continuous price decreases and 3 (13.04%) had price increases followed by decreases. For prices at the provincial level, provincial price variation became smaller for almost all targeted medicines, except rituximab; for 11 out of 23 non-targeted medicines, provincial price variations became larger. During the study period, the proportion of price-increased medicines in each province was geographically correlated, and no significant relationship between prices and GDP per capita was observed for both targeted and non-targeted anticancer medicines. Conclusion: The prices and regional disparity of most targeted anticancer medicines were decreasing, while for nearly half of the non-targeted anticancer medicines, the prices were increasing and the regional disparity became wider, which may lead to compromised access to these essential anticancer medicines and raise inequity health outcome among regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the rapid development of e-commerce, many retailers choose to launch promotional activities to become consumers' first choice for shopping. Since price discounts can greatly attract consumers, the e-commerce platforms have also begun to implement discount pricing. It is urgent for e-commerce platforms and retailers to formulate reasonable discount strategies to achieve sustainable business. In this paper, we construct a dynamic game model for implementing discount pricing on an e-commerce platform and two retailers, we study the market equilibrium between the two retailers and the e-commerce platform under various scenarios that considering consumers' strategic waiting behavior and competition between the two retailers, we further discuss the effectiveness of retailer discount pricing and the double discount pricing of the platform and retailers. We show that the optimal pricing decreases as the difference in product quality narrows under both pricing strategies. Low-quality retailers implementing a double discount pricing strategy are in relatively higher demand only when the difference in product quality is small. High-quality retailers implementing the retailer discount pricing strategy are in relatively higher demand only when the product quality difference is large. Double discount pricing is desirable for both e-commerce platforms and retailers and can be used to effectively achieve Pareto improvement in the market by increasing their expected profit. Our results emphasize the role of product quality and the value of the double discount pricing strategy. The double discount pricing strategy weakens the profit advantage that retailers and platforms gain from it as the rebate intensity and rebate redemption rates increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangifera indica var Ataulfo is the main variety grown in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico and faces a decrease in firmness and weight loss due to hydrothermal treatment, in addition to non-uniform ripening and consequently a decrease in price as the harvest period lengthens. In order to improve the postharvest quality of the "Ataulfo" mango fruit, preharvest applications of aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG; ReTain®, a.i. 15%) were carried out in "La Norteña" with Phaeozem soil, 1500 mm of annual precipitation, and applications of agrochemicals, and in "Santa Cecilia" with Acrisol soil, 2500 mm of annual precipitation, and without agrochemicals. The treatments were: (1) Control, (2) One application 7 days before harvest (0.1 g L−1), (3) Two applications (14 days and 7 days before harvest, 0.2 g L−1) and (4) Three applications (21, 14 and 7 days before harvest, in total 0.3 g L−1), with completely randomized design in the laboratory. The results show contrasting differences between the evaluation sites, with lower weight loss (18.4%) and 3.1% more firmness in a drier climate and higher soil calcium content. The average firmness (N) on day 14 was 18.3 and with three applications of AVG it was 22.0. The °Brix at the end of the study in the control was 11.3 and on average with AVG applications it was 14.4. Three-time applications of AVG in preharvest delayed the weight loss with an increase in the maintenance of the firmness of the fruits. The weight of the fruit epidermis was lower with AVG applications, and increased with the number of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multichannel retailing, consumers may experience products in physical stores and eventually purchase online, which is referred to as showrooming behaviour. In this study, we investigate a manufacturer's online channel strategy in the presence of showrooming behaviour in a supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a physical retailer. Our results exhibit the following major findings. First, adding an online channel regardless of a direct or an indirect online channel (i.e. owned by the manufacturer or an independent online retailer) will not always benefit the manufacturer but introducing a direct online channel will always hurt the physical retailer. Second, when introducing an indirect online channel, the manufacturer will decrease the wholesale price to regulate the effect of showrooming behaviour. Interestingly, if the market size of distant consumers is relatively large, the showrooming behaviour can benefit both the manufacturer and the physical retailer when an indirect online channel is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a global fresh product supply chain consisting of an overseas supplier and a local cross-border e-commerce platform, in which the supplier sells fresh products to the platform and then the platform sells them to consumers at the local market. We develop an analytical model to explore the effects of the adoption of blockchain technology (BCT) on the pricing decisions and profits of the supply chain members. The results show that the wholesale price and the retail price may decrease or increase when the supplier adopts BCT, and the adoption of BCT is not always beneficial to both the supplier and the retailer. The supplier should adopt BCT if the real product freshness is at a relatively high level. Furthermore, compared with the supplier, the retailer is more likely to benefit from the adoption of BCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of increased competition at the product-market level on firms' strategic price decisions. We analyse this issue in a context of trade liberalization where only some firms benefit from the input tariff cuts. We focus on China which is characterized by a unique dual trade regime, where some imports of intermediate goods are subject to tariff (i.e., the ordinary status) whereas other (i.e., the processing status) have been exempted of tariffs for the last 30 years. The recent Chinese trade liberalization allowed ordinary importers to improve their competitiveness relative to processing firms. Facing stronger pressures in their export markets, processing firms must adjust their strategy. We find that ordinary firms took advantage of the Chinese' input trade liberalization to improve the quality of their exported products and processing firms respond to this quality sorting by decreasing their export prices and markups. This finding is more pronounced for lower-end product sold in in advanced economies, where the quality sorting of competitors is more relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers acquire information through their own search efforts or through word‐of‐mouth communication within their social network. Information diffusion leads to free‐riding and less active search. Free‐riding consumers also create important positive externalities, however, as they are more likely to compare prices, imposing competitive pressure on firms. We show how market prices depend on network characteristics and search cost. For example, if search cost becomes small, price dispersion disappears, while prices converge to the monopoly level, with expected prices decreasing for small search cost. Prices are lower in societies with more connections, while price dispersion remains even in fully connected societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the Western United States, human development into the wildland urban interface (WUI) is contributing to increasing wildfire damage. Given that natural disasters often cause greater harm within socio-economically vulnerable groups, research is needed to explore the potential for disproportionate impacts associated with wildfire. Using Zillow Transaction and Assessment Database (ZTRAX), hereafter "Zillow", real estate data, we explored whether lower-priced structures were more likely to be damaged during the most destructive, recent wildfires in Southern California. Within fire perimeters occurring from 2000–2019, we matched property price data to burned and unburned structures. To be included in the final dataset, fire perimeters had to surround at least 25 burned and 25 unburned structures and have been sold at most seven years before the fire; five fires fit these criteria. We found evidence to support our hypothesis that lower-priced properties were more likely to be damaged, however, the likelihood of damage and the influence of property value significantly varied across individual fire perimeters. When considering fires individually, properties within two 2003 fires–the Cedar and Grand Prix-Old Fires–had statistically significantly decreasing burn damage with increasing property value. Occurring in 2007 and later, the other three fires (Witch-Poomacha, Thomas, and Woolsey) showed no significant relationship between price and damage. Consistent with other studies, topographic position, slope, elevation, and vegetation were also significantly associated with the likelihood of a structure being damaged during the wildfire. Driving time to the nearest fire station and previously identified fire hazard were also significant. Our results suggest that further studies on the extent and reason for disproportionate impacts of wildfire are needed. In the meantime, decision makers should consider allocating wildfire risk mitigation resources–such as fire-fighting and wildfire structural preparedness resources–to more socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shore power (SP) is widely recognized as an efficient strategy for reducing air pollution in port areas. Unfortunately, the adoption of SP has been relatively low, resulting in limited emission reductions and financial losses. To address these challenges, this paper focuses on enhancing the utilization rate of SP, which is meaningful for emission control and environmental protection. This paper combines system dynamics with a study of the benefits of SP, which bridges the research gap to some extent. We propose a system dynamics model that assesses the impact of various incentive policies on the economic and environmental benefits of SP. The model considers the life cycle cost and comprises four subsystems. By conducting a case study on Nansha Port, we find that price subsidies are more effective than construction subsidies in overcoming economic barriers. Furthermore, we observe that the overall economic benefits only increase when the electricity price decreases. This is because lowering the electricity price enhances the profitability of ships without negatively affecting port revenue. Additionally, it is the proportion of the electricity price and service price that determines the overall economic benefits, rather than the SP price itself. Hence, it is recommended to provide preferential subsidies for the electricity price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a heterogeneous agent model including the fundamentalists, chartists, and carry traders, to describe the dynamics of exchange rates, and examine the effects of Tobin Tax on the equilibrium exchange rates. A theoretical analysis shows that an increase of Tobin tax always reduces the trading volume, and its impact on the equilibrium exchange rate depends on the agents' expectations of exchange rate movements and their weights in the markets. Our simulation exercise shows that an increase in Tobin tax may lead to an increase in volatility and price distortion and a decrease in the kurtosis and the trading volume. Our results suggest that the Tobin tax could be an emergency measure, but not a long-term policy tool to suppress speculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]