We analyze a stylized model of the world grain market characterized by a small oligopoly of traders with market power on both the supply and demand side. Crops are stochastic and exporting countries can impose export tariffs to protect domestic food prices. We show that export tariffs are...

Decisions of national competition authorities have important effects on other jurisdictions. We provide a framework to quantify the domestic and cross-border effects of mergers, and to draw conclusions for the coordination of national merger policies. We develop a two-country model with many...

We study the problem of assigning indivisible goods to individuals where each is to receive one object. To guarantee fairness in the absence of monetary compensation, we consider random assignments and analyse various equity criteria for such lotteries. In particular, we find that sd-no-envy (as...

This paper analyzes within a two-region endogenous growth model how different types of public policies affect the equilibrium spatial distribution of economic activity. Integration is modeled as a continuum and enables firms to access the public input of the respective other region. Given a...

The paper introduces the assumption of costly information acquisition to the theory of mechanism design for matching allocation problems. It is shown that the assumption of endogenous information acquisition greatly changes some of the cherished results in that theory: in particular, the...

This paper sets up a heterogeneous firms model, where production consists of a continuum of tasks that differ in complexity. Firms hire low-skilled and high-skilled workers to perform these tasks. How firms assign workers to tasks depends on factor prices for the two skill types and the...

How shifts in the economic leadership between countries can occur has been widely debated not only since the recent catch up of China in several sectors. However, there is no adequate theoretical model analyzing this question in the light of trade liberalization. This paper is the first one to...

In this paper we analyze the impact of public export credit guarantees on firms' exports. Earlier studies show that export credit guarantees stimulate exports, employment, and value added. Furthermore, there is evidence at the aggregate level that financial market imperfections are key to...

This paper looks inside the firm and investigates how trade alters the matching of worker-specific abilities and task-specific requirements. The outcome of this matching depends on how firms organize their recruitment process and how much they invest into the screening of applicants. In the open...

This paper is a dynamic extension of the well-known theory of trade in tasks. In my model, a firm's offshoring decision is governed by production cost savings, but also considers potential imitation risk. I show that such a consideration reduces the level of offshoring compared to a static...