We assess the influence of competition and capital regulation on the stability of the banking system. We particularly ask two questions: i) how does capital regulation affect (endogenous) entry; and ii) how do (exogenous) changes in the competitive environment affect bank monitoring choices and...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the 'Journal of Law Economics & Organization' (2013). Volume 29(5), pages 1114-1144.<P> We estimate the deterrence effects of U.S. merger policy instruments with respect tothe composition and frequency of future merger notifications. Data from the...</p>

We study mergers in a market where N 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...

This paper studies the incentives to merge in a Bertrand competition model where firms sell differentiatedproducts and consumers search for satisfactory deals. In the pre-merger symmetricequilibrium, the probability that a firm is the next one to be visited by a consumer is equal acrossfirms not...

By combining two large data sets (on international trade flows and cross-border mergers and acquisitions – M&As), we test two implications of Neary’s (2003, 2007) general oligopolistic equilibrium (GOLE) model (incorporating strategic interaction between firms in a general equilibrium...

This discussion paper led to an article in <I>Games and Economic Behavior</I> (2012), pp. 120-138.<P> We consider an oligopolistic market where firms compete in price and quality and where consumers are heterogeneous in knowledge: some consumers know both the prices and quality of the products offered,...</p></i>

Consider a government tendering a facility, such as an airport or utility, where one bidder owns a competing facility. With a "standard auction", this "existing operator" bids above the auctioned facility's expected profit, as winning means being a monopolist instead of a duopolist. This auction...

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...

In this paper we investigate whether markets with heterogeneous network externalities can belocked-in by old technologies even if superior technologies are available. Heterogeneous networkexternalities are present when some consumers care more about the size of the market share of agood than...

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...