Book chapter
Product differentiation in the insurance market: equilibria analysis
We use the vertical differentiation framework to explore the quality - price competition in the insurance market.
This paper explores the intertwining of uncertainty and values. We consider an important but underexplored field of fundamental uncertainty and values in decision-making. Some proposed methodologies to deal with fundamental uncertainty have included potential surprise theory, scenario planning and hypothetical retrospection. We focus on the principle of uncertainty transduction in hypothetical retrospection as an illustrative case of how values interact with fundamental uncertainty. We show that while uncertainty transduction appears intuitive in decision contexts it nevertheless fails in important ranges of strategic game-theoretic cases. The methodological reasons behind the failure are then examined.
Beer was the drink of choice in many ancient societies and throughout the past centuries in large parts of the world. Right now, it is globally by far the most important alcoholic drink, in volume and value terms. The largest brewing companies have developed into global multinationals. The beer market is characterized by strong growth in emerging economies, by a substantial decline of (per capita) beer consumption in traditional markets, and a shift to new products. There has been a strong interaction between governments (politics) and markets (economics) in the beer industry. For centuries, taxes on beer or its raw materials were a major source of tax revenue for governments. Governments have also regulated the beer industry for reasons related to quality, health, and competition. The beer market is not only an interesting sector to study in itself but also yields important general economic insights. This book is the first economic analysis of the beer market and brewing industry. It comprises a comprehensive and unique set of economic research and analysis on the economics of beer and brewing. The various chapters cover economic history and development, demand and supply, trade and investment, geography and scale economies, technology and innovation, health and nutrition, quantity and quality, industrial organization and competition, taxation and regulation, and regional beer market developments.
The article presents a theoretical survey of different ways to analyze the effect coexistence of spot and forward markets has on incentives for non-competitive behavior. There is no common opinion in economic theory concerning the influence of forward contracts on incentives for non-competitive behavior in spot market. Several studies support the hypothesis that introduction of forward trading increases competition in the spot market by erosion of market power. But while it can reduce market power of an individual firm, forward trading facilitates tacit collusion in the market. This ambiguity demonstrates complexity of economic research, aimed at increasing social welfare.
This book aims to identify promising future developmental opportunities and applications for Tech Mining. Specifically, the enclosed contributions will pursue three converging themes:
The increasing availability of electronic text data resources relating to Science, Technology & Innovation (ST&I) The multiple methods that are able to treat this data effectively and incorporate means to tap into human expertise and interests Translating those analyses to provide useful intelligence on likely future developments of particular emerging S&T targets.Tech Mining can be defined as text analyses of ST&I information resources to generate Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI). It combines bibliometrics and advanced text analytic, drawing on specialized knowledge pertaining to ST&I. Tech Mining may also be viewed as a special form of “Big Data” analytics because it searches on a target emerging technology (or key organization) of interest in global databases. One then downloads, typically, thousands of field-structured text records (usually abstracts), and analyses those for useful CTI. Forecasting Innovation Pathways (FIP) is a methodology drawing on Tech Mining plus additional steps to elicit stakeholder and expert knowledge to link recent ST&I activity to likely future development. A decade ago, we demeaned Management of Technology (MOT) as somewhat selfsatisfied and ignorant. Most technology managers relied overwhelmingly on casual human judgment, largely oblivious of the potential of empirical analyses to inform R&D management and science policy. CTI, Tech Mining, and FIP are changing that.
Game theory has recently become a useful tool for modeling and studying various networks. The past decade has witnessed a huge explosion of interest in issues that intersect networks and game theory. With the rapid growth of data traffic, from any kind of devices and networks, game theory is requiring more intelligent transformation. Game theory is called to play a key role in the design of new generation networks that are distributed, self-organizing, cooperative, and intelligent. This book consists of invited and technical papers of GAMENETS 2018, and contributed chapters on game theoretic applications such as networks, social networks, and smart grid.