Pola Perubahan Harga dan Marjin Pemasaran Bahan Pangan di Masa Pandemi Covid-19

Food products are the main concern for the government and people of Indonesia. Changes in food prices have significant effects on the welfare of the population. Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected community activities and the food agribusiness system. This study analyzes patterns of changes in prices and marketing margins of seven main food products in Indonesian food consumption i.e. rice, shallots, garlic, red chillies, cayenne pepper, cooking oil, and sugar, after the Covid-19 pandemic by presenting descriptive statistics of daily food prices data from the National Strategic Food Price Information Center (PIHPSN). Based on empirical results, except for shallots and cooking oil, most food prices at various market levels have fallen during the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the risk of food prices at various levels of the market has been increasing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the magnitude and variability of marketing margins along the marketing chain also have been increasing. These findings imply the urgency of Institutional policies that can increase market transparency and competition appears to be more effective in the long term at reducing the price shocks caused by Covid-19 at various levels of the market than price interventions.

The Effect of Market Transparency on Corporate Disclosure: Evidence from the Observability of Bond Prices and Trading

Market prices and trading are important information constructs that reveal information to market participants. I study how the observability of market prices and trading (hereafter, "market transparency") affects firms' disclosure incentives. I exploit the staggered introduction of TRACE, which made bond prices and transactions publicly observable. I find that firms provide more guidance when their bonds' prices/trading become observable, suggesting that investors' access to market information limits managers' incentives to withhold information. This effect is stronger for firms whose revealed prices contain more new information, and it is more pronounced for the disclosure of bad news. I corroborate my results using (i) a controlled experiment, in which prices/trading were revealed for randomly selected bonds, and also (ii) relevant threshold rules. Together, my results suggest that increased market transparency improves investors' access to information not only directly, by revealing the information contained in returns/trading, but also indirectly, by increasing corporate disclosure.

Fish out of water: consumers’ unfamiliarity with the appearance of commercial fish species

Seafood labels play an increasingly key role in assisting consumers in purchasing processed and featureless fish products, and in encouraging sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. While informed purchasing choices are typically influenced by traceability and labelling awareness, they also depend on the consumers’ ability to identify and discriminate the fish species available on the market, which to date remains notably unexplored. We asked 720 people across six European countries to identify pictures of six fish species commonly sold in Europe. We reveal that European consumers have a poor understanding of the appearance of the fish they consume (overall ∼ 30% correct identification), with British consumers performing the poorest and Spanish ones doing best. We noted cultural association with some species, whereby the most regionally consumed fish are more easily recognized. We argue that despite recent improvements in technological solutions, stakeholder dialogue, and policy implementation, seafood market transparency will remain open to malpractice until consumers restore connection with their food.

Do Digital Platforms Reduce Moral Hazard? The Case of Uber and Taxis

Digital platforms provide a variety of technology-enabled tools that enhance market transparency, such as real-time monitoring, ratings of buyers and sellers, and low-cost complaint channels. How do these innovations affect moral hazard and service quality? We investigate this problem by comparing driver routing choices and efficiency on a large digital platform, Uber, with traditional taxis. The identification is enabled by matching taxi and Uber trips at the origin-destination-time level so they are subject to the same underlying optimal route, by exploiting characteristics of the pricing schemes that differentially affect the incentives of taxi and Uber drivers in various circumstances, and by examining changes in behavior when drivers switch from taxis to Uber. We find that (1) taxi drivers route longer in distance than matched Uber drivers on metered airport routes by an average of 8%, with nonlocal passengers on airport routes experiencing even longer routing; (2) no such long routing is found for short trips in dense markets (e.g., within-Manhattan trips) or airport trips with a flat fare; and (3) long routing in general leads to longer travel time, instead of saving passengers time. These findings are consistent with digital platform designs reducing driver moral hazard, but not with competing explanations such as driver selection or differences in driver navigation technologies. We also find evidence of Uber drivers’ long routing on airport trips in times of surge pricing, suggesting that the tech-enabled market designs may not be binding in our setting. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

The external impacts of historic landmarks and buildings on townhouse prices in Vietnam

Purpose This paper aims to explore the external spillover effects of landmarks and buildings with historic preservation designation in Vietnam, a country marked with a unique property right regime and market transparency. The study contributes to the existing debate over the impact of distance to historic preservation sites and landmarks and property prices. Design/methodology/approach The study examines property data of 274 attached townhouses in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and estimates the spillover effects of historic preservation on property prices collected during 2018–2019. The authors test for spatial autocorrelation by using the Global Moran’s I and Lagrange Multiplier diagnostics and deploy different spatial regression models including SAR, SEM and SDM. Findings The authors find that there is a premium on the prices of townhouses near formally designated landmarks and buildings. This premium decreases monotonically away from the historic sites. However, this paper also demonstrates that there is a non-linear (U-shape) relationship between housing premium and the distance to the nearest historic building. Originality/value This study is the first to take advantage of the surveyed property data to study the external impacts of historic preservation designation on housing prices in Vietnam. The study also contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate over the direction of the impacts. The study suggests that similar to other amenities, the price effect of designation tends to fade away after a certain distance.

THE INFLUENCE OF ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION ON FOREIGN CAPITAL INFLOWS IN ASEAN PLUS THREE COUNTRIES

This paper examines the influence of asymmetric information on foreign capital inflows in ASEAN PLUS THREE (ASEAN+3) countries. Linking capital flows to stock market setting, it substantiates other efforts concerning the debatable issues of the effect of asymmetric information on foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI). The asymmetric information is captured through the stock market microstructure perspective on the width and depth dimensions using highly frequency cross sectional data from year 2000 to 2015. Roll and Amivest models are employed to quantify the width and depth aspects of the asymmetric information. Employing the panel data technique, the results demonstrate the significant effect of market transparency on foreign capital inflows specifically the FDI as compared to the FPI. An increase in the width and depth analysis based on the Amivest model signifies a high informational transparency, thus shows a lower asymmetric information which consequently leads to the high foreign capital inflows. The results of the study provide information to the policymakers in monitoring capital inflows on the aspect of market transparency and highlight the importance of the stock market microstructure in assessing the asymmetric information for ASEAN+3 countries.

Digitalising Public Employment Services: Benefit to Social Justice in the Labour Market?

A basic strand in the mission of Public Employment Services is promoting labour market transparency, which is considered of importance for reducing unemployment and for improving patterns of labour allocation in several other ways. Self-evidently therefore, always a strong connection existed between PES operations and information and communication technology. Already the organization itself can be considered a social specimen of such technology. The ICT revolution of recent decades positively influenced general market transparency with a variety of easily accessible market places on the Internet. It also brought innovations to the PES. It changed the content of its services and the formats of their delivery. These things happened around Europe. Here the Dutch case is presented in more detail. ICT-induced innovations are followed over three subsequent stages from mid ‘80s onward. While the transformation of services was impressive and PES played a part in the increasing labour market transparency, its role in labour allocation has not noticeably strengthened. Its market share did not really increase. Neither did its contribution to less unemployment and/or a more equitably distributed entrance to job opportunities. Nevertheless, unexploited opportunities for the latter may still exist. Some are suggested for further exploration.

Tacit Collusion on Steroids: The Potential Risks for Competition Resulting from the Use of Algorithm Technology by Companies

Digitalization has a growing impact on everyone’s life. It influences the way consumers purchase products, read online news, access multimedia content, and even meet or interact socially. At the core of digital products lies algorithm technology, decision-making software capable of fulfilling multiple tasks: data mining, result ranking, user matching, dynamic pricing, product recommendations, and ads targeting, among others. Notwithstanding the perceived benefits of algorithms for the economy, the question has been raised of whether the use of algorithms by businesses might have countervailing effects on competition. Although any anti-competitive behavior typically observed in traditional markets can be implemented by this technology, a particular issue highlighted in discussions between researchers and practitioners is the concern that algorithms might foster collusion. Because of their capacity to increase market transparency and the frequency of interactions between competing firms, they can be used to facilitate parallel collusive behavior while dispensing competing firms with the need for explicit communication. Consequently, it is not excluded that algorithms will be used in the years to come to obtain the effects of a cartel without the need to enter into restrictive agreements or to engage in concerted practices. We evaluate the collusion risks associated with the use of algorithms and discuss whether the “agreement for antitrust purposes” concept needs revisiting. The more firms made use of types of algorithms that enable direct and indirect communication between the competitors, the more likely those companies may be considered liable.