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 the optimal trade policy against a foreign oligopoly with endogenous quality. We show that, under the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause, a uniform tariff policy is always welfare improving over the free trade equilibrium. However, a nonuniform tariff policy is always desirable on...

We study a two-sided market where a platform attracts firms selling differentiated products and buyers interested in those products. In the unique subgame perfect equilibrium of the game, the platform fully internalizes the network externalities present in the market and firms and consumers all...

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...

We model the idea that when consumers search for products, they first visit the firm whose advertising is more salient. The gains a firm derives from being visited early increase in search costs, so equilibrium advertising increases as search costs rise. This may result in lower firm profits...

This paper studies the relationship between three key elements of the marketing mix, namely, price, product, and promotion, in a model where a seller employs informative advertising to launch a new product. We propose a fairly general advertising technology for the study of three promotional...

This paper shows how a firm can use non-targeted advertising to exploit consumers' desire for social status. A monopolist sells multiple varieties of a good to consumers who each care about what others believe about his wealth. Advertising allows consumers both to buy different varieties and to...

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...

n this paper, we develop two hypotheses: First, regional innovation efforts have a positive impact on regional knowledge based entrepreneurial activity. Second, knowledge based entrepreneurship positively affects regional economic performance. We test these hypotheses using county level data...