This paper studies asymmetric price responses of individual firms, via daily retail prices of almost all gasoline stations in the Netherlands and suggested prices of the five largest oil companies over more than two years. I find that 38% of the stations respond asymmetrically to changes in the...

Even though economic models have been relatively successful in explaining the long run patterns of house prices, they have more difficulties in explaining short run developments of the housing markets. However, the fact that during such ‘bubbles’ the spatial pattern of house prices, which...

Several surveys on intra-industry dynamics have recently reached the conclusion from a large body of evidence that Gibrat's Law does not hold, i.e., the main finding is that firm growth decreases with firm size. However, almost all of these studies have been based on manufacturing. In this paper...

This paper gives an overview and evaluates the literature on Microfoundations.<P>

Despite the mixed empirical evidence, many economists still hold to the view that Internet will promote competition between firms, thereby lowering prices and increasing economic welfare. This paper presents a search model that provides a different view. We analyze the market for a homogeneous...

This paper studies the incentives to merge in a Bertrand competition model where firms sell differentiated

This paper is the first to examine the effect of minimum price guarantees

We study mergers in a market where <I>N</I> firms sell a homogeneous good and consumers search sequentially to discover prices. The main motivation for such an analysis is that mergers generally affect market prices and thereby, in a search environment, the search behavior of consumers. Endogenous...</i>

In a circular city model, I consider network design and pricing decisions for a single fast transport connection that faces competition from a slower but better accessible transport mode. To access the fast transport network individuals have to make complementary trips by slow mode. This fact...

This paper presents an empirical examination of oligopoly pricing and consumer search. The theoretical model allows for sequential and non-sequential search and using the theoretical restrictions firm and consumer behavior impose on the data we study the empirical validity of the models. Two...