We consider duopolists innovating and producing a good subject to network externalities, so that the reservation price of a consumer increases with aggregate consumption. The post-innovation network consists of two compatible sub-networks, with increased network valuation of the new product....

This paper gives an account of events, and explains some systematic reasons of the UMTS auction flop in Switzerland. Apart from general market developments, which could not have been anticipated, we argue that auctiondesign which was introduced in England and adopted in Switzerland and elsewhere...

The third generation UMTS auction in Germany raised an enormous amount of revenue, and at the same time achieved a more competitive market structure than other UMTS auctions in Europe. The present paper explains the design of that auction, and presents a game theoretic explanation of observed...

In this paper I review the Dutch UMTS-auction that took place in the summer of 2000 and which, in contrast to the UK and German auctions, was generally considered to be a major flop. I analyse the policy process leading to the auction as well as the bidding behaviour in the auction, and provide...

This study evaluates the role market competition plays in determining inflation based on sector-level data from OECD countries. In theory, trade openness can affect inflation through changes in market competitiveness and productivity. Nonetheless, previous empirical studies often fail to account...

Since gasoline has a relatively inelastic demand, raising government revenue via gasoline taxes could appear appropriate as it entails a relatively small deadweight loss. However, gasoline retail is generally a highly concentrated market, hence the assumption of perfect competition when...

We present a unified treatment of optimal trade policy for a small country. The well-known results for duopoly and competitive markets emerge as benchmark cases of our model. In addition, we show that changes in market structure have non-monotonic effects on optimal tariffs. Our results suggest...

Merged firms are typically rather complex organizations. Accordingly, merger has a more profound effect on the structure of a market than simply reducing the number of competitors. We show that this may render horizontal mergers profitable and welfare-improving even if costs are linear. The...

This paper is based on the model of backward linkages from foreign direct investment (FDI) Lin/Saggi (2003), where the market structure of the final goods sector is represented by a monopoly or Cournot oligopoly, and the supplier sector – by a pure monopoly. We extend this model by examining...