This paper examines the relation between prices in conventional stores and on the Internet. Main results from the theoretical analysis are i) we expect a discrete fall in prices in conventional stores as the share of the population with access to Internet reaches a critical level, ii) the...

Average profits of a price taker are increasing in the variability of the output price (Oi, 1961). We show that, for the same reason, average profits of the price taker are increasing in the variability of the price of inputs. We proceed to establish that the same holds for a firm with a...

This paper analyzes how bond option prices are affected by different types of monetary policy. Analytical results from a general equilibrium model with sticky wages show that employment or output targeting typically give lower bond option prices than inflation targeting. -- inflation targeting ;...

We summarize some methods useful in formulating and solving Hansen-Sargent robust control problems, and suggest extensions to discretion and simple rules. Matlab, Octave, and Gauss software is provided. We illustrate these extensions with applications to the term structure of interest rates, the...

To the surprise of many, price deviations between markets characterized by imperfect competition have often been little affected by lower transport costs. In a Cournot model we show that if firms' decisions to segment markets are endogenous, then lower transport costs are, in many cases,...