Notes on "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices" (Ferguson, Shon M.)

Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices

Ferguson, Shon M.

Review of International Economics, 2015, Vol.23(1), pp.45-61 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

larger markets for differentiated goods often provide consumers with a greater variety of products
how market size affects the extent of endogenous product differentiation
assumptions: endogenizing fixed costs, costly product differentiation
market size and firm number alone do not provide sufficient information to make inferences about markups when product differentiation is endogenous and costly
prices can increase when markets expand may provide a valuable insight for economists who study anti-competitive behavior
the model is extended to include two countries and trade costs
the model allows for firms to endogenously choose from a continuous set of technologies by creating a trade-off between fixed costs and product differentiation
the theoretical model suggests that endogenous product differentiation contributes positively to the welfare gains from economic integration

Milton Friedman: Contributions to Economics and Public Policy

Robert A. Cord and J. Daniel Hammond

Print publication date: 2016

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2016

Print ISBN-13: 9780198704324

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198704324.001.0001

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Notes on "Has Government Any Role in Money?" (Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz)

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7507.pdf

Competition versus government monopoly in the creation of or control over outside or high-powered money
so-called free banking
the determination of the unit of account and its relation to media of exchange

the resource cost of a pure commodity currency and hence its tendency to become purely fiduciary
the peculiar difficulty of enforcing contracts involving promises to pay that serve as a medium of exchange and of preventing fraud in respect of them
the technical monopoly character of a pure fiduciary currency which makes essential the setting of some external limit on its amount - questioned, far more persuasively
the pervasive character of money and the important effects on parties other than those directly involved in the issuance of money

Notes on "The Role of Monetary Policy" (by Milton Friedman)

The Role of Monetary Policy
by Milton Friedman
The American Economic Review, Volume LVIII, March 1968, Number 1
https://assets.aeaweb.org/assets/production/journals/aer/top20/58.1.1-17.pdf

The price level is clearly the most important in its own right
The link between the policy actions of the monetary authority and the price level, while unquestionably present, is more indirect than the link between the policy actions of the authority and any of the several monetary totals. Moreover, monetary action takes a longer time to affect the price level than to affect the monetary totals and both the time lag and the magnitude of effect vary with circumstances. As a result, we cannot predict at all accurately just what effect a particular monetary action will have on the price level and, equally important, just when it will have that effect.
The monetary authority avoids sharp swings in policy
By setting itself a steady course and keeping to it, the monetary authority could make a major contribution to promoting economic stability.