The paper aims at assessing the costs and benefits of antitrust enforcement. The analysis starts with an investigation of why competition is typically worth protecting followed by a collection of empirical evidence which shows that competition actually needs protection by antitrust policy in...

This paper investigates how local jurisdictions in a federal system influence each other in the adoption of policy innovations. We look at school districts in Michigan and their participation in a public school choice program launched in 1996. Districts' participation decisions are modelled as...

Determinants of a firm's export-sales ratio (degree of internationalisation) are frequently discussed in the literature related to individual firms' export activities. Stylised facts show a positive relationship between firm size and firm age on the one hand and the firm's export-sales ratio on...

Within the last three years, Google has acquired YouTube and DoubleClick and has attempted to control part of Yahoo!'s search advertising business. Two of the deals have not raised antitrust concerns by competition authorities. I review these deals with a focus on consumer welfare. Consumers are...

This paper studies the aggregate substitution and expansion effects triggered by changes in input prices, in a context where firms supply a homogenous commodity and compete in quantities à la Cournot. We derive a sufficient condition for the existence of a Cournot equilibrium and show that this...

Normalising CES production functions in the calibration of basic dynamic models allows to choose technology parameters in an economically plausible way. When variations in the elasticity of substitution are considered, normalisation is necessary in order to exclude arbitrary effects. As an...

Prior research shows long-run productivity growth in agriculture is associated with increases in the stock of public scientific knowledge and private patented inventions. However, private inventions may be a function of the stock of public knowledge. In this paper, we examine the possibility...

While most economists believe that public scientific research fuels industry innovation and economic growth, systematic evidence supporting this relationship is surprisingly limited. In a recent study, Acemoglu and Linn (2004) identified market size as a significant driver of drug innovation in...

This paper empirically estimates the effects of a new thin-capitalization rule on the financing behavior of German corporations employing a fixed effects difference-in-difference approach. We compare treatment and control groups separated by a hypothetical application of the new rule in three...

Contractual and regulatory provisions for access affect incentives to invest in an upgraded network and, in particular, a next-generation access network. Investment decisions are made under uncertainty and have to be made over time. This papers provides a framework for taking uncertainty, risk...