Contests often involve players vying for the same prize year after year. This paper characterizes equilibrium effort, both individual and aggregate, in a general parameterization of such repeated contests.

This article demonstrates that exaggerated risk aversion may comprise a rational form of strategic behaviour in the face of asymmetric information. Unlike some other forms of strategic behaviour analysed previously, this behaviour confers a benefit in the form of higher ex post consumption (not...

The Panzar-Rosse test has been widely applied to assess competitive conduct, often in specifications controlling for firm scale or using a price equation. We show that neither a price equation nor a scaled revenue function yields a valid measure for competitive conduct. Moreover, even an...

This paper shows how a monopolist can be induced to produce at the optimal output level and price, by utilizing a strategic middleman to represent to the monopolist a synthetic demand curve such that perceived marginal revenue equals true (inverse) demand. Conditions are derived for insuring the...

We apply the Bresnahan--Lau model (1982) to test the degree of competition of China's banking industry over the period 1986 to 2011. Results strongly reject monopoly power and indicate perfectly competitive behaviour. China's entry into the WTO did not cause any measurable shift in banking...

Several theories of externalities and asymmetric information suggest a positive role for government programs to assist credit markets, though potential distortions by special interests carry attendant dangers. The authors examine the empirical association between funding by several federal...

Using data from metropolitan U.S. labor market areas, the authors quantify empirical associations between entry by small firms and multiple economic outcomes including levels, growth rates, and volatilities of income and employment. The inclusion of volatilities, motivated by prior studies,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide the first empirical study of external economies (agglomeration economies) in the banking industry. Design/methodology/approach – The author extends a standard specification of banking costs to control for community and market characteristics....

Economic theory predicts that reciprocal brokered deposits, by enhancing deposit insurance coverage, may reduce market discipline for banks, permitting them to take more risk in various dimensions. A newly available dataset provides empirical evidence related to that hypothesis.