For refuse collection, we estimate the cost effects of different institutional modes using panel data for almost all Dutch municipalities between 1998 and 2010. The modes we consider are private contracts, intermunicipal cooperation, public provision and own collection. For private companies,...

Municipalities may have various motives for decisions on the mode of their task execution. Empirical studies – based on both public choice and transaction costs theory - have not yet provided a fully comprehensive explanation for municipal contracting out decisions. Therefore, we held...

We develop a simple test to assess whether horizontal spillover effects from multinational to domestic firms are endogenous to the market structure generated by the entry of the same multinationals. In particular, we analyze the performance of a panel of 10,650 domestic and multinational firms...

This paper explains why consolidation acquisitions occur in waves and it predicts the differing role each firm is likely to play in the consolidation game. We propose that whether a firm assumes the role of rival consolidator, target, or passive observer depends on the position of the firm...

This paper introduces the Werden-Froeb Index (WFI) to assist in evaluating merger-specific efficiencies in horizontal mergers. The index measures the weighted average reduction in marginal costs required to restore pre-merger equilibrium prices and quantities after the (full or partial) merger...

This paper examines the relationship between firm births and job creation in Great Britain. We use a new data set for 60 British regions, covering the whole of Great Britain, between 1980 and 1998. The central theme of the paper is that, with the exception of a recent paper by Audretsch and...

This paper extends Hotelling's model of price competition with quadratic transportation costs from a line to graphs. I propose an algorithm to calculate firm-level demand for any given graph, conditional on prices and firm locations. One feature of graph models of price competition is that...

We consider a duopoly in a homogenous goods market where part of the consumers are ex ante uninformed about prices. Information can come through two different channels: advertising and sequential consumer search. We arrive at the following results. First, there is no monotone relationship...

The search literature assumes that consumers know which firms sell products they are looking for, but are unaware of the particular variety and the prices at which each firm sells. In this paper, we consider the situation where consumers are uncertain whether a firm carries the product at all by...

We study a consumer non-sequential search oligopoly model with search cost heterogeneity. We first prove that an equilibrium in mixed strategies always exists. We then examine the nonparametric identification and estimation of the costs of search. We find that the sequence of points on the...