Character

• Some young South Africans have begun to question Nelson Mandela’s legacy, and the choices made in the transition to democracy after the end of apartheid in 1994.
• To mark 30 years since South Africa’s post-apartheid transition began, The Conversation Weekly podcast is running a special three-part podcast series, What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa?
• Young people make up 34% of South Africa’s population.
• At the end of 2023, the unemployment rate for young South Africans between the ages of 15 and 34 was 44%.

Elections looming

• We’re coming to the end of that period of domination by the ANC now; we’re into the period of what I call the second transition.
• Ramaphosa has had the very difficult task of rebuilding the state, rebuilding confidence in public ethics.
• Ramaphosa has had the very difficult task of rebuilding the state, rebuilding confidence in public ethics.
• And read more coverage of the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s democratic transition from The Conversation Africa.

Disclosure statement

• Sithembile Mbete has received grant funding for research on South African foreign policy from the National Research Foundation, National Institute of Social Science and Social Science Research Council.
• She’s received research support on South African democracy from the Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Credits

• Special thanks for this series to Gary Oberholzer, Jabulani Sikhakhane, Caroline Southey and Moina Spooner at The Conversation Africa.
• This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany, with production assistance from Katie Flood.
• Stephen Khan is our global executive editor, Alice Mason runs our social media and Soraya Nandy does our transcripts.

• Abstract
  This paper extends Boone (2008) by introducing a competition measure at the individual
  firm level rather than for an entire market segment.
• We apply this extended Boone indicator to individual bank-level competition
  in the loan market in the four largest euro area countries and Austria.
• Our new measure of firm-level competition enriches and complements
  other competition measures and provides a promising starting point for future market
  power analyses.
• The only measure among non-structural measures that is based on the
  concept of competition as a process of rivalry is the Boone (2008) indicator.
• We introduce
  a new performance measure of competition by extending the Boone indicator to the
  individual firm level.
• Introduction
  The ability to reliably measure competition is valuable to researchers, analysts, and
  policymakers, especially antitrust authorities, financial supervisors, and central banks.
• One broad
  category of indicators often used to measure competition are structural competition
  measures, such as static concentration measures, and dynamic measures, e.g., entry and
  exit rates.
• Out of these measures, the only measure based on the
  concept of competition as a process of rivalry is the Boone indicator.
• This study introduces a new performance measure of competition by extending the
  Boone indicator to the individual firm level.
• It thus measures the
  increase in profits in percent of one percentage point increase in efficiency, with marginal
  costs as measure of efficiency.
• We extend the theoretical
  underpinning of the measurement of competition for the entire market of Boone (2008) by
  a new measure of individual firm-level competition.
• A concern of the literature is the gap
  between the practical application and the theoretical framework of Boone (2008).
• We introduce within the same theoretical
  framework a new measure of competition on firm level, the MRP.
• Our new
  measure significantly augments the antitrust evaluative framework by shedding light on
  whether a merger results in a less competitive market.
• Our novel indicator focuses on
  firms? incentives to enhance their relative efficiency, as manifested in the elasticity
  between relative profits and efficiency.
• However, an inefficient firm that is foreclosed could be more
  competitive than the larger efficient firm that relies on its scale economies.
• Our new metric of competition unveils
  banks? ability to influence their profitability in the short term by cutting costs relative to
  their peers.
• The new MRP indicator provides the ability to assess the impact
  of individual banks? competitiveness on their interest rate-setting behaviour in loan
  markets.
• Incorporating this information promises a more refined understanding of the impact and
  timing of monetary policy rates changes on the real economy.
• Section 3 introduces within the Boone
  (2008) theoretical framework our new measure of individual firm-level competition,
  including the interpretation of the MRP.
• Section 4 provides an application of our new
  ECB Working Paper Series No 2925

  6

  individual firm-level competition measure to the loan market.

• The StructureConduct-Performance paradigm (SCP) provides a traditional framework in the field of
  industrial organization for analysing competition behaviour in markets.
• Concentrated
  markets ease the possibilities to collude implicitly or explicitly and therefore concentrated
  markets result in higher prices and profits.
• For example, a tougher competition
  setup may lead to a reallocation of market shares, potentially forcing some firms to exit
  the market.
• This approach gives firms? strategic behaviour
  central stage and focuses on the strategic interaction on prices and quantities, known as
  conjectural variation.
• Another measure from
  this strand of literature is the H-statistic developed by Panzar and Rosse (1987).
• The only competition measure from this performance literature where competition is the
  outcome from a process of rivalry is the Boone indicator.
• A continuous and monotonically increasing relationship exists between
  RPD and the level of competition if firms are ranked by decreasing efficiency.
• (2013) compare the Boone indicator with the price-cost margin
  and conclude that the profit elasticity is a more reliable measure of competition.
• The high
  elasticity of profits to efficiency unequivocally indicates that the high market shares and
  therefore high profits are due to high efficiency.
• A firm that quickly passes changes to the input prices is seen as a price
  taker with little market power.
• Indicators of competition tend to measure different phenomenon and may provide
  conflicting messages, as reported for European banking by Carbo et al.
• Application 2: Test the ?quiet life? and related market structure hypotheses using the
  MRP as competition or market structure measure.
• Data
  Our application to individual bank-level competition in the euro area loan market uses
  balance sheet and income statement data from the Moody?s Analytics BankFocus for the
  calendar years 2013-2020.
• As such, most publications
  on competition in the euro area includes the largest four member states.
• Due to these restrictions the database was reduced to an unbalanced panel of up to 1862
  banks (depending on the year) from five euro area countries.
• Application 1: Measure bank competition using MRP
  Looking at the distribution of the MRP for individual banks (Fig.
• A similar finding for the four largest euro area countries as a group is
  reported in Carbo et al.
• Application 2: Test of market structure hypotheses using MRP
  Our new measure of individual-bank competition can be used to test market structure
  theories.
• Euro area banks? market power,
  lending channel and stability: the effects of negative policy rates, European Central Bank
  Working Paper, 2790 (February).
• A
  new approach to measuring competition in the loan markets of the euro area, Applied
  Economics, 43 (23), 3155?3167.
• Impact of bank competition on the interest rate pass-through in the euro area, Applied
  Economics, 45 (11), 1359?1380.

• JUPITER, FL, April 02, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SRM Entertainment, Inc. , (Nasdaq: SRM) (the “Company” or “SRM”) which designs, develops, and manufactures custom products, toys and souvenirs for the world's largest theme parks and other leading entertainment venues, announced its fiscal results for the year ended December 31, 2023.
• For the year ended December 31, 2023, SRM had revenues of $5,760,533 and a gross profit of $1,317,450.
• In 2023, SRM welcomed industry veterans to our team, adding imagination and artistic design talent along with a product development specialist.
• “The SRM team delivered strong operational performance in 2023 adding new products, new customers and continuing to be a trusted supplier for our theme park customers.

• Making its official debut in the US, Stuzzi is the hot sauce made by and for people who know good food.
• Stuzzi is the latest launch by Casa Komos Brands Group (CKBG), maker of ultra-luxury, highest-rated Tequila Komos.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240409422584/en/
  Stuzzi Hot Sauce elevates the flavors of any dish it accompanies (Photo: Business Wire)
  Nearly a decade ago, Carla and Richard fell in love with the aroma and taste of a rare Italian dried pepper.
• Simply put, Stuzzi is hot sauce in its most perfect form.