The authors examine the timing and quality of product introduction in an R&D stopping game, where they allow for horizontal and vertical differentiation in the product market. They observe that discontinuous changes in introduction dates can occur as firms' abilities as researchers change....

Companies with market power occasionally engage in intentional quality reduction of a portion of their output as a means of offering two qualities of goods for the purpose of price discrimination, even absent a cost saving. This paper provides an exact characterization in terms of marginal...

If a product has two dimensions of quality, one observable and one not, a firm can use observable quality as a signal of unobservable quality. The correlation between consumers' valuation of high quality in each dimension is a key determinant of the feasibility of such signaling. A firm may use...

As consumers’ demand for organic products and especially organic food grows, organic certification for tropical fruit is increasingly promoted in many developing countries. Certified organic pineapple exports only started taking off after 2005 and are rapidly increasing. The organic and...

As consumer demand for organic food grows, organic certification is increasingly promoted in many developing countries. Organic products earn a premium price on the market compared to conventional varieties. Hence, organic production is often seen as a valuable alternative for developing...

Technology transfer (TT) is not mandatory for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, yet proponents of CDM argue that TT in CDM can bring new technologies to developing countries and thus not only reduce emissions but also foster development. We review the quantitative literature on...

One of the most significant changes in the global economy today is the strong increase in outgoing foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies to industrialised countries. Whereas investment in less developed countries is often motivated by the sourcing of natural resources and...

This paper constructs a two-sector unified growth model that explains the timing and the inevitability of an industrial revolution through entrepreneurs' role for the accumulation of useful knowledge. While learning-by-doing in agriculture eventually allows the preindustrial economy to leave its...