@phdthesis{Muthers2017,
  author    = {Muthers, Johannes},
  title     = {Essays in Industrial Organization},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-141671},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {The dissertation deals with the market and welfare effects of different business practices and the firm's incentives to use them: resale price maintenance, revenue sharing of a platform operator, membership fees to buyers using a platform and patent licensing. In the second chapter we investigate the incentives of two manufacturers with common retailers to use resale price maintenance (RPM). Retailers provide product specific services that increase demand and manufacturers use minimum RPM to compete for favorable services for their products. Minimum RPM increases consumer pricesby voiding retailer price competition and can create a prisoner's dilemma for manufacturers without increasing, and possibly even decreasing the overall service level. If manufacturer market power is asymmetric, minimum RPM tends to distort the allocation of sales services towards the high-priced products of the manufacturer with more market power. These results challenge the service argument as an efficiency defense for minimum RPM. The third chapter deals with trade platforms whose operators not only allow third party sellers to offer their products to consumers, but also offer products themselves. In this context, the platform operator faces a hold-up problem if he uses classical two-part tariffs only (which previous literature on two-sided markets has focused on) as potential competition between the platform operator and sellers reduces platform attractiveness. Since some sellers refuse to join the platform, some products that are not known to the platform operator will not be offered at all. We discuss the effects of different platform tariffs on this hold-up problem. We find that revenue-based fees lower the platform operator's incentives to compete with sellers, increasing platform attractiveness. Therefore, charging such proportional fees can be profitable, what may explain why several trade platforms indeed charge proportional fees. The fourth chapter investigates the optimal tariff system in a model in which buyers are heterogeneous. A platform model is presented in which transactions are modeled explicitly and buyers can differ in their expected valuations when they decide to join the platform. The main effect that the model identifies is that the participation decision sorts buyers according to their expected valuations. This affects the pricing of sellers. Furthermore diffing form the usual approach, in which buyers are ex-ante homogeneous, the platform does not internalize the full transaction surplus. Hence it does not implement the socially efficient price on the platform, also it has control of the price with the transaction fee. The fifth chapter investigates the effects of licensing on the market outcome after the patent has expired. In a setting with endogenous entry, a licensee has a head start over the competition which translated into a first mover advantage if strategies are strategic substitutes. As competitive strategies quantities and informative advertising are considered explicitly. We find that although licensing increases the joint profit of the patentee and licensee, this does not necessarily come from a reduction in consumer surplus or other firms profits. For the case of quantity competition we show that licensing is welfare improving. For the case of informative advertising, however, we show that licensing increases prices and is thus detrimental to consumer surplus.},
  subject      = {Wettbewerbsverhalten},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Leidner2017,
  author    = {Leidner, Jacob Justus},
  title     = {Empirical Studies on Auditing in Germany and the U.S.},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-143901},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Chapter 2 concerns the audit market for German credit institutions (excluding savings banks and cooperative banks), and the presented study allows conclusions to be drawn regarding recent concentration levels of this particular audit market. The last reliable (statistical) studies concerning the audit market for German credit institutions were published several years ago (Grothe 2005; Lenz 1996b; Lenz 1997; Lenz 1998). This is surprising because parts of the new regulations concerning the audit market for public-interest entities—which should also apply to credit institutions (European Commission 2006c)—in Europe would require analyses of the audit market concentration to be performed on a regular basis. Therefore, this study begins to fill this research gap, and it reveals that the audit market for German credit institutions was highly concentrated (market leadership: KPMG AG WPG and PricewaterhouseCoopers AG WPG) in 2006 and 2010. Moreover, the findings also highlight that between these years, neither a notable trend toward higher levels of concentration nor a deconcentration process was evident. Finally, it is illustrated that the regulatory requirements for publishing audit fees and the corresponding right to claim exemption (\S\S 285 Sentence 1 No. 17, 314 (1) No. 9 Commercial Code) do not allow the calculation of concentration figures that cover the entire audit market for credit institutions. Thus, it will continue to be necessary to use surrogates for audit fees, and analyses reveal that the arithmetic mean of the total business volume (or total assets) of a credit institution and its square root is a very good surrogate for calculating concentration measures based on audit fees. Chapter 3 seeks to determine whether public oversight of public-interest entities (PIEs) increases audit fees specifically in the financial industry, which is already a highly regulated industry characterized by intense supervision. To answer this question, a sample of 573 German credit institutions is examined over the 2009-2011 period, as not all credit institutions were considered PIEs in Germany (until very recently). First, the results show that a credit institution's business risk is related to audit fees. In addition, the findings reveal not only that PIE credit institutions pay statistically significantly higher audit fees but also that this effect is economically substantial (representing an audit fee increase of 31.38\%). Finally, there are several indications that the relationship between (other) credit institutions' business risks and audit fees is greater for PIE credit institutions. Chapter 4 examines the association between the results of auditor ratification votes and perceived external financial reporting quality. As has been recently remarked by Wei et al. (2015), far too little is known about shareholders' interests in and perceptions of the election, approval or ratification of auditors. Although auditor ratification by shareholders is normally a routine, non-binding action and the voting ratios are in the range of 95\% or higher, the SEC emphasized the importance of this process by amending the disclosure requirements for such voting results in 2010 (SEC 2009; SEC 2010). This study demonstrates that the results of auditor ratification votes are associated with market reactions to earnings surprises (SEC registrants; 2010 to 2013). Moreover, there are moderate indications that this effect may be positively related to higher levels of information asymmetry between managers and shareholders, that such voting results contain incremental informational content beyond that of other publicly available audit-related information, and that the time lag between the ratification of an auditor and the earnings announcement influences the vote's importance. Finally, the study sheds additional light on an overlooked audit-related topic (e.g., Dao et al. 2012; Hermanson et al. 2009; Krishnan and Ye 2005; Sainty et al. 2002), and illustrates its relation to accounting. More importantly, the provided evidence indicates that disclosure of the results of auditor ratification votes might benefit (prospective) shareholders. Chapter 5 addresses the question of whether and when shareholders may have a negative perception of an auditor's economic dependence on the client. The results for a Big 4 client sample in the U.S. (2010 to 2014) show that the economic importance of the client—measured at the audit office-level—is negatively associated with shareholders' perceptions of external financial reporting quality—measured in terms of the earnings response coefficient and the ex ante cost of equity capital—and, therefore, is perceived as a threat to auditor independence. Moreover, the study reveals that shareholders primarily regard independence due to client dependence as a problem for firms that are more likely to be in financially distressed conditions.},
  subject      = {Deutschland},
  language  = {en}
}