Bernard Caillaud - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Bernard Caillaud
Concurrences Review, Feb 1, 2006
During the Seminar organized the 15th of December of 2005, Bernard Caillaud and Pascal Wilhelm ta... more During the Seminar organized the 15th of December of 2005, Bernard Caillaud and Pascal Wilhelm talked about the two-sided markets. The seminar was animed by Anne Perrot, vice-president of the…
Revue Concurrences, Feb 1, 2006
International Journal of Industrial Organization, May 1, 2010
As we begin our final three-year term as editors, we would like to reflect on the learning steep ... more As we begin our final three-year term as editors, we would like to reflect on the learning steep learning curve we have been on for the last five years since we took over the journal on January 1, 2005. This document briefly summarizes our thoughts
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
ABSTRACT The authors consider a model where two agents, privately informed about their own charac... more ABSTRACT The authors consider a model where two agents, privately informed about their own characteristics, play a game on behalf of two uninformed principals. They analyze the existence of recommitment effects through public announcement of contracts in a model where agency contracts, designed ex-ante, can always be secretly renegotiated. The authors show that the existence of precommitment effects depends both on the strategic complementarity of the agents' actions and on the direct effect of the opponents' actions on each principal's welfare. The results are introduced through an example of Cournot and Bertrand competition between firms, viewed as vertical structures. Copyright 1995 by The Econometric Society.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2008
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 1, 2011
This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimi... more This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimination with the following property: in equilibrium, a firm may reward its previous customers although long term contracts are not enforceable. A firm can offer a lower price to its previous customers than to its new customers as a strategic means to hamper its rival to gather precise information on the young generation of customers for subsequent profitable behavior-based pricing. The result holds both with myopic and forward-looking, impatient enough consumers.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1989
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2011
The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in r... more The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in recent years. Based on this trend, we study the overload problem within the Patent Office and its consequences on the firms' R&D incentives. We assume that the examination process of patent applications is imperfect, and that its quality is poorer under congestion. Depending on policy instruments such as submission fees and the toughness of the non-obviousness requirement, the system may result in a high-R&D equilibrium, in which firms self-select in their patent applications, or in an equilibrium with low R&D, opportunistic patent applications and the issuance of bad patents. Multiple equilibria often co-exist, which deeply undermines the effectiveness of policy instruments. We investigate the robustness of our conclusions as to how the value of patent protection is formalized, taking into consideration the introduction of a penalty system for rejected patent applications, as well as the role of commitment to a given patent protection policy
PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint), 2018
This paper investigates the impact on fiscal revenues of taxing a two-sided monopolistic platform... more This paper investigates the impact on fiscal revenues of taxing a two-sided monopolistic platform offering personalized services to users and targeted advertising to sellers, based on the collection of users' personal data. We show that the introduction of a small tax on data collection, which has been proposed in the French context by Collin and Colin, fails to increase fiscal revenues if the value-added tax (VAT) rate is high enough, due to a tax base interdependence effect between the two taxes. Under a supermodularity condition on the platform's profit function as a function of its prices, this result generalizes to any per-unit tax. However, in some cases, an ad valorem tax on subscriptions or on advertising may raise fiscal revenues, irrespective of the VAT rate, as well as welfare.
We examine a Bertrand competition game between two intermedi-aries o¤ering matching services betw... more We examine a Bertrand competition game between two intermedi-aries o¤ering matching services between two sides of a market. Indirect network externalities arise as the probability of …nding one’s match with a given intermediary increase with the number of agents of the other side who use the services of this intermediary. We formalize some speci…cities of intermediation on the Internet by allowing registration and transaction prices, and multiple registration. When only registra-tion fees are used and agents register to at most one cybermediary, there exists an equilibrium where one …rm corners the market with positive pro…ts, as well as zero pro…t equilibria where the …rms share the market. Introducing either fees that are contingent on successful matching or the possibility of registration with two intermediaries dras-tically reduces the pro…ts of a dominant …rm. Moreover, with multiple registration, new types of positive-pro…t equilibria emerge where both matchmakers are active a...
A common economic occurrence is the following: Two parties, principal and agent, are in a situati... more A common economic occurrence is the following: Two parties, principal and agent, are in a situation—typically of their choosing—in which actions by the agent impose an externality on the principal. Not surprisingly, the principal will want to influence the agent’s actions. This influence will often take the form of a contract that has the principal compensating the agent contingent on either his actions or the consequences of his actions. Table 1 lists some examples of situations like this. Note that, in many of these examples, the principal is buying a good or service from the agent. That is, many buyer-seller relationships naturally fit into the principal-agent framework. This note covers the basic tools and results of agency theory in this context.
We examine a price competition game between two intermediaries o!eringto match two sides of a mar... more We examine a price competition game between two intermediaries o!eringto match two sides of a market on the Internet. Competition is characterized by asymmetric network externalities. We account for some speci"cities of cybermediation, in particular access versus usage pricing and the possibility of using the services of several intermediaries. When only registration fees are used and agents register with at most one cybermediary, there exists an equilibrium where one "rm corners the market with positive pro"ts. Introducing either fees contingent on successful matching or the possibility of registration with two cybermediaries make these pro"ts vanish. Other types of equilibria are discussed. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classixcation: D43; L13
A seller possessing private information about the quality of a good attempts to sell it through a... more A seller possessing private information about the quality of a good attempts to sell it through a second-price auction with announced reserve price. The choice of a reserve price transmits information to the buyers. We characterize the equilibria with monotone beliefs of the resulting signalling game and show that they lead to a reduced probability of selling the good compared to the symmetric information situation. We compare the unique separating equilibrium of this signalling game to the equilibrium of a screening game in which an uninformed monopoly broker chooses the trading mechanism. We show that the ex-ante expected probability of trade may be larger with a monopoly broker, as well as the ex-ante total expected surplus.
Very preliminary. Please do not circulate without the authors ’ permission. Many decisions in pri... more Very preliminary. Please do not circulate without the authors ’ permission. Many decisions in private and public organizations are made by groups. The paper explores strategies that the sponsor of a proposal may employ to convince a qualified majority of group members to approve the proposal. Adopting a mechanism design approach to communication, it emphasizes the need to distill information selectively to key members of the group and to engineer persuasion cascades in which members who are brought on board sway the opinion of others. The paper unveils the factors, such as the extent of congruence among group members and between them and the sponsor, and the size and governance of the group, that condition the sponsor’s ability to maneuver and get his project approved.
This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimi... more This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimination with the following property: in equilibrium, a firm may reward its previous customers although long term contracts are not enforceable. A firm can offer a lower price to its previous customers than to its new customers as a strategic means to hamper its rival to gather precise information on the young generation of customers for subsequent profitable behavior-based pricing. The result holds both with myopic and forward-looking, impatient enough consumers.
Concurrences Review, Feb 1, 2006
During the Seminar organized the 15th of December of 2005, Bernard Caillaud and Pascal Wilhelm ta... more During the Seminar organized the 15th of December of 2005, Bernard Caillaud and Pascal Wilhelm talked about the two-sided markets. The seminar was animed by Anne Perrot, vice-president of the…
Revue Concurrences, Feb 1, 2006
International Journal of Industrial Organization, May 1, 2010
As we begin our final three-year term as editors, we would like to reflect on the learning steep ... more As we begin our final three-year term as editors, we would like to reflect on the learning steep learning curve we have been on for the last five years since we took over the journal on January 1, 2005. This document briefly summarizes our thoughts
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
ABSTRACT The authors consider a model where two agents, privately informed about their own charac... more ABSTRACT The authors consider a model where two agents, privately informed about their own characteristics, play a game on behalf of two uninformed principals. They analyze the existence of recommitment effects through public announcement of contracts in a model where agency contracts, designed ex-ante, can always be secretly renegotiated. The authors show that the existence of precommitment effects depends both on the strategic complementarity of the agents' actions and on the direct effect of the opponents' actions on each principal's welfare. The results are introduced through an example of Cournot and Bertrand competition between firms, viewed as vertical structures. Copyright 1995 by The Econometric Society.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1991
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2008
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 1, 2011
This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimi... more This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimination with the following property: in equilibrium, a firm may reward its previous customers although long term contracts are not enforceable. A firm can offer a lower price to its previous customers than to its new customers as a strategic means to hamper its rival to gather precise information on the young generation of customers for subsequent profitable behavior-based pricing. The result holds both with myopic and forward-looking, impatient enough consumers.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1989
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2011
The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in r... more The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in recent years. Based on this trend, we study the overload problem within the Patent Office and its consequences on the firms' R&D incentives. We assume that the examination process of patent applications is imperfect, and that its quality is poorer under congestion. Depending on policy instruments such as submission fees and the toughness of the non-obviousness requirement, the system may result in a high-R&D equilibrium, in which firms self-select in their patent applications, or in an equilibrium with low R&D, opportunistic patent applications and the issuance of bad patents. Multiple equilibria often co-exist, which deeply undermines the effectiveness of policy instruments. We investigate the robustness of our conclusions as to how the value of patent protection is formalized, taking into consideration the introduction of a penalty system for rejected patent applications, as well as the role of commitment to a given patent protection policy
PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint), 2018
This paper investigates the impact on fiscal revenues of taxing a two-sided monopolistic platform... more This paper investigates the impact on fiscal revenues of taxing a two-sided monopolistic platform offering personalized services to users and targeted advertising to sellers, based on the collection of users' personal data. We show that the introduction of a small tax on data collection, which has been proposed in the French context by Collin and Colin, fails to increase fiscal revenues if the value-added tax (VAT) rate is high enough, due to a tax base interdependence effect between the two taxes. Under a supermodularity condition on the platform's profit function as a function of its prices, this result generalizes to any per-unit tax. However, in some cases, an ad valorem tax on subscriptions or on advertising may raise fiscal revenues, irrespective of the VAT rate, as well as welfare.
We examine a Bertrand competition game between two intermedi-aries o¤ering matching services betw... more We examine a Bertrand competition game between two intermedi-aries o¤ering matching services between two sides of a market. Indirect network externalities arise as the probability of …nding one’s match with a given intermediary increase with the number of agents of the other side who use the services of this intermediary. We formalize some speci…cities of intermediation on the Internet by allowing registration and transaction prices, and multiple registration. When only registra-tion fees are used and agents register to at most one cybermediary, there exists an equilibrium where one …rm corners the market with positive pro…ts, as well as zero pro…t equilibria where the …rms share the market. Introducing either fees that are contingent on successful matching or the possibility of registration with two intermediaries dras-tically reduces the pro…ts of a dominant …rm. Moreover, with multiple registration, new types of positive-pro…t equilibria emerge where both matchmakers are active a...
A common economic occurrence is the following: Two parties, principal and agent, are in a situati... more A common economic occurrence is the following: Two parties, principal and agent, are in a situation—typically of their choosing—in which actions by the agent impose an externality on the principal. Not surprisingly, the principal will want to influence the agent’s actions. This influence will often take the form of a contract that has the principal compensating the agent contingent on either his actions or the consequences of his actions. Table 1 lists some examples of situations like this. Note that, in many of these examples, the principal is buying a good or service from the agent. That is, many buyer-seller relationships naturally fit into the principal-agent framework. This note covers the basic tools and results of agency theory in this context.
We examine a price competition game between two intermediaries o!eringto match two sides of a mar... more We examine a price competition game between two intermediaries o!eringto match two sides of a market on the Internet. Competition is characterized by asymmetric network externalities. We account for some speci"cities of cybermediation, in particular access versus usage pricing and the possibility of using the services of several intermediaries. When only registration fees are used and agents register with at most one cybermediary, there exists an equilibrium where one "rm corners the market with positive pro"ts. Introducing either fees contingent on successful matching or the possibility of registration with two cybermediaries make these pro"ts vanish. Other types of equilibria are discussed. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classixcation: D43; L13
A seller possessing private information about the quality of a good attempts to sell it through a... more A seller possessing private information about the quality of a good attempts to sell it through a second-price auction with announced reserve price. The choice of a reserve price transmits information to the buyers. We characterize the equilibria with monotone beliefs of the resulting signalling game and show that they lead to a reduced probability of selling the good compared to the symmetric information situation. We compare the unique separating equilibrium of this signalling game to the equilibrium of a screening game in which an uninformed monopoly broker chooses the trading mechanism. We show that the ex-ante expected probability of trade may be larger with a monopoly broker, as well as the ex-ante total expected surplus.
Very preliminary. Please do not circulate without the authors ’ permission. Many decisions in pri... more Very preliminary. Please do not circulate without the authors ’ permission. Many decisions in private and public organizations are made by groups. The paper explores strategies that the sponsor of a proposal may employ to convince a qualified majority of group members to approve the proposal. Adopting a mechanism design approach to communication, it emphasizes the need to distill information selectively to key members of the group and to engineer persuasion cascades in which members who are brought on board sway the opinion of others. The paper unveils the factors, such as the extent of congruence among group members and between them and the sponsor, and the size and governance of the group, that condition the sponsor’s ability to maneuver and get his project approved.
This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimi... more This paper proposes a dynamic model of duopolistic competition under behaviorbased price discrimination with the following property: in equilibrium, a firm may reward its previous customers although long term contracts are not enforceable. A firm can offer a lower price to its previous customers than to its new customers as a strategic means to hamper its rival to gather precise information on the young generation of customers for subsequent profitable behavior-based pricing. The result holds both with myopic and forward-looking, impatient enough consumers.