Vehicle taxation based on CO2 emissions is increasingly being adopted worldwide in order to shift consumer purchases to low-carbon cars, yet little is known about the effectiveness and overall economic impact of these schemes. We focus on feebate schemes, which impose a fee on high-carbon...

Vehicle taxation based on a car’s CO2 emission levels is increasingly adopted in countries around the world. This paper describes a model of oligopolistic competition in markets with differentiated products, simulating automobile demand and supply under alternative tax regimes. The objective...

The RAE ratings, while intended for allocating research funds to UK universities, are often used as quality indicator by academics and students throughout the world. Yet the same outcome has been criticised as biased in favour of universities that are old, located in England, large and...

Quantity surcharges occur when firms market a product in two sizes and offer a promotion on the small size: the large size then costs more per unit than the small one. When quantity surcharges occur the sales of the large size decrease only slightly despite the fact that the small size is a...

Did the rise in anti-American sentiment caused by the Iraq war affect sales of US goods abroad? We address this question using data on sales of soft drinks and fabric detergents in nine Arab countries. We find a statistically significant but modest and short-lived negative impact of the war on...

We estimate the degree of competition in the banking sectors of 148 countries worldwide over the period 1997-2010. We employ three methods, namely those of Lerner (1934), Koetter, Kolari and Spierdijk (2012) and Boone (2008a). For the estimation of marginal cost required under all methods, we...

. Intermediaries often arise in order to facilitate trade in markets characterized by asymmetric information. In this paper we study the intermediary role of tour operators in the market for package tourism. Policymakers have tried to address information asymmetries in this market by providing...

The Eurovision Song Contest provides a setting where Europeans can express their sentiments about other countries without regard to political sensitivities. Analyzing voting data from the 25 contests between 1981-2005, we find strong evidence for the existence of clusters of countries that...

This paper investigates the welfare effects of trade liberalization by exploiting a natural policy experiment in the small open economy of Cyprus. A 1993 law relaxed import restrictions on used vehicles and facilitated the flow of used Japanese vehicles into the country. This led to a dramatic...

There is an intense debate over whether fuel economy standards or fuel taxation is the more appropriate policy instrument to raise fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions of cars. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of standards and fuel prices in new car fuel economy with the aid of...