Evidence shows that real-effort investments can affect bilateral bargaining outcomes. This paper investigates whether similar investments can inhibit equilibrium convergence of experimental markets. In one treatment, sellers’ relative effort affects the allocation of production costs, but a...

This paper analyses the policy implications of licensing between producers of differentiated goods. We consider and compare two-part tariff, fixed fee, royalty and collusive licensing contracts. Under the optimal licensing policy, there will be no technology transfers if the innovation size is...

Time of day (TOD) rates are a commonly used method for peak load pricing of many services. Such services as ; electricity, communications, transportation, shared computer facilities, and computer networks (ie. the Internet), either use, or will use form of TOD pricing. The model presented here...

This paper studies the determinants of Edgeworth Cycles, price leadership and coordination in retail gasoline markets using daily station-level price data for 110 markets in Ontario, Canada for 2007-2008. We find an “inverse-U” relationship between markets’ propensity to exhibit price...

This paper empirically studies howconsumers respond to retail gasoline price cycles. Our analys is uses new station-level price data from local markets in Ontario, Canada, and a unique market-level measure of consumer responsiveness based onweb traffic fromgasoline price reportingwebsites. We...

We derive a measure of firm speed of price adjustment that is directly inversely related to market power and compare this to the measure derived by Martin (1993). However, both measures are incorrect when firms have non-zero price conjectural variations and treat competing price levels as...

The goal of this paper is to explore how the demand for specific investments may affect the product variety in a bilateral duopolistic industry. In the literature on the hold-up problem, it is generally assumed that the degree of specificity of investments is either exogenously determined or...

The standard quadratic price adjustment cost function makes no allowance for firm size or for scale economies. Incorporating quadratic price adjustment costs into the profit function, a firm's speed of price adjustment is both shown to be a positive/negative function of its size when firms have...

We examine the relationship between inflation and unemployment in the long run,using quarterly US data from 1952 to 2010. Using a band-pass filter approach, we find strong evidence that a positive relationship exists, where inflation leads unemployment by some 3 to 3.5 years, in cycles that last...

In this paper we develop a framework which is appropriate for the systematic investigation of the relationship between net (and gross) flows between different labour market states and movements in the unemployment rate. We use that framework to investigate the behaviour of net flows of persons...