Intermediate microeconomics : A modern approach

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Intermediate microeconomics : A modern approach

01 Jan 2006-

TL;DR: The Varian approach as mentioned in this paper gives students tools they can use on exams, in the rest of their classes, and in their careers after graduation, and is still the most modern presentation of the subject.

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Abstract: This best-selling text is still the most modern presentation of the subject. The Varian approach gives students tools they can use on exams, in the rest of their classes, and in their careers after graduation.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Examination of Generational Differences in Household Apparel Expenditures

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Pamela S. Norum¹•Institutions (1)

University of Missouri¹

01 Sep 2003-Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between household apparel expenditures and age groups defined by generations while controlling for other household characteristics and found significant differences between baby boomers and other generations with respect to their household apparel expenditure.

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Abstract: In light of the impact baby boomers continue to have on the American culture and marketplace, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between household apparel expenditures and age groups defined by generations while controlling for other household characteristics. Generations used in this study were the GI generation (1901 to 1932), the silent generation (1933 to 1945), the baby boom generation (1946 to 1964), Generation X (1965 to 1976), and Generation Y (1977 to 1987). Data from the 1998 Consumer Expenditure Survey were used to estimate expenditure equations for total household apparel as well as men's, women's, boys', girls', and infants' apparel. The results of this research indicate there are significant differences between baby boomers and other generations with respect to their household apparel expenditures. The results have both educational and marketing implications.

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83 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Conflicts of interest and incentives to bias: A microeconomic critique of Google’s tangled position on the Web:

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Bernhard Rieder¹, Guillaume Sire•Institutions (1)

University of Amsterdam¹

01 Mar 2014-New Media & Society

TL;DR: It is argued that the combination of search and advertising services, and in particular advertising network services, creates powerful incentives to orient the results page in self-serving ways, leading to fundamental conflicts of interest exacerbated by Google’s dominant position in both markets.

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Abstract: Media scholars have studied and critiqued search engines – and in particular the dominant commercial actor, Google – for over a decade. Several conceptual and methodological problems, such as a lack of technological transparency, have made a detailed analysis of concrete power relations and their effects difficult. This paper argues that a microeconomic approach can aid media scholars in examining the complex interactions that underpin the dynamics of information visibility unfolding around the Google search engine. Using the concept of a ‘three-sided market’, we characterize the business model built around google.com as the foundation of the company’s success. We then argue that the combination of search and advertising services, and in particular advertising network services, creates powerful incentives to orient the results page in self-serving ways, leading to fundamental conflicts of interest exacerbated by Google’s dominant position in both markets. Based on search engines’ mass media-like capacity ...

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82 citations

Cites background from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

...According to the OED, an incentive is an ‘exciting cause or motive’ – something that ‘incites to action’ – and microeconomics is as much an analysis of economic motives than of specific market configurations (Varian, 2010: 566–580)....
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...Microeconomics studies particular markets and focuses on the question of how resources are allocated based on individual participants’ decisions and interactions (Varian, 2010: 1)....
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...Considering the often narrow focus and prevalence of mathematical modelling in microeconomics (Varian, 2010), this (mutual) indifference is somewhat understandable; we hope to show, however, that there is much to be gained from doing away with it....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Price Competition of Make-to-Order Firms

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Hong Chen, Yat-wah Wan

01 Sep 2003-Iie Transactions

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the non-cooperative competition of two make-to-order firms with different service capacities and different values of service, and obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium.

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Abstract: In recent years, there has been considerable research on price competition in a market where customers are sensitive to production or service delays. Most of these works assume identical firms with only different service speeds (capacities), and find that the firm with the higher speed can usually charge a premium price and take a larger market share. We consider the (non-cooperative) competition of two make-to-order firms. In addition to different service capacities, the competing firms may provide different values of service, and have firm-dependent unit costs of waiting. We obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium, and we characterize the equilibrium analytically for some cases and numerically for some other cases. Our results confirm that the firm with the higher speed of service can usually charge a premium price and does take a larger market share. In addition, we find that the firm with the higher value of service and lower cost of waiting can usually charge a premium pr...

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82 citations

Cites background from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

...Necessarily, the full price is determined exogenously, which implicitly assumes the existence of a competitive market (with an infinite number of firms) that determines the full price (Varian, 1996)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Efficiency and Inefficiency in the Ranking in Competitions: the Case of the Queen Elisabeth Music Contest

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Herbert Glejser¹, Herbert Glejser², Bruno Heyndels²•Institutions (2)

Université de Namur¹, Vrije Universiteit Brussel²

01 May 2001-Journal of Cultural Economics

TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed data from all piano and violin versions of the Queen Elisabeth Contest over the period 1956-1999 and found strong evidence of biases in the ranking process.

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Abstract: The Queen Elisabeth Contest is one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music. For both the artists who participate and for the public, it is important that the ranking of the finalists be affected as little as possible by exogenous factors relating to the organisation of the competition. Still, it is impossible to control for all contingencies. Thus, the ranking can be expected to deviate from that obtained in a hypothetical full-information assessment process. As such, the ranking may be unfair to the candidates and inefficient in providing information to the consumer. Deviations from the full-information ideal may result from self-selection of candidates, from positive information at the margin, and from differences in circumstances. Analysing data on all piano and violin versions of the Contest over the period 1956–1999, we find strong evidence of biases in the rankingprocess. Confirming previous research, we find that musicians who perform later in the final week or later on a given day in this week (on average) obtain a better classification. Further, in the piano competitions women obtain lower rankings and, prior to 1990, finalists from the Soviet Union obtained higherrankings than average. The jury appreciates innovation in the sense that musicians who perform a more recently composed concerto obtain a higher rank. Finally – especiallyfor violin – the candidate's decision to perform a popular concerto leadsto a lower ranking.

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81 citations

Cites methods from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

...While being unrealistic, the fully decentralised ranking process may be used as a hypothetical benchmark for comparing alternative assessment institutions ( Varian, 1999, p. 649 )....
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Proceedings Article•DOI•

How query cost affects search behavior

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Leif Azzopardi¹, Diane Kelly², Kathy Brennan²•Institutions (2)

University of Glasgow¹, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill²

28 Jul 2013

TL;DR: Results show that subjects who used the Structured interface submitted significantly fewer queries, spent more time on search results pages, examined significantly more documents per query, and went to greater depths in the search results list.

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Abstract: affects how users interact with a search system. Microeconomic theory is used to generate the cost-interaction hypothesis that states as the cost of querying increases, users will pose fewer queries and examine more documents per query. A between-subjects laboratory study with 36 undergraduate subjects was conducted, where subjects were randomly assigned to use one of three search interfaces that varied according to the amount of physical cost required to query: Structured (high cost), Standard (medium cost) and Query Suggestion (low cost). Results show that subjects who used the Structured interface submitted significantly fewer queries, spent more time on search results pages, examined significantly more documents per query, and went to greater depths in the search results list. Results also showed that these subjects spent longer generating their initial queries, saved more relevant documents and rated their queries as more successful. These findings have implications for the usefulness of microeconomic theory as a way to model and explain search interaction, as well as for the design of query facilities.

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80 citations

Cites background or methods from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

...In Azzopardi [2], the search process was modeled using an analogy to Production Theory [44]....
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...Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval:Search Process; H.3.4 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Systems and Software:Performance Evaluation General Terms Theory, Experimentation, Economics, Human Factors Keywords Search Behavior, Economic Models, Production Theory, Interactive Information Retrieval, Query Interfaces, Query Cost Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page....
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...It was shown that for several standard information retrieval models (such as Boolean, VSM with TFIDF and BM25 [11]) the function g(Q,A) could be modeled closely with a CobbsDouglas production function [44]:...
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...This model of search behavior follows the basic economic principle that if cost goes up, consumption goes down [44]....
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...In Production Theory, a firm takes inputs (i.e., capital and labor) and converts them to output (i.e., widgets)....
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Intermediate microeconomics : A modern approach

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Cites background from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

Cites background from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

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Cites background or methods from "Intermediate microeconomics : A mod..."

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