We model the interactions between the management mode and costs of water services in order to compare their performances and pricing. We estimate those models on French panel data. We find that the choice by the local authority depends on the service costs and characteristics. There is no...

We model the interactions between management regimes (municipal vs. delegated) and operating costs of water supply services in order to compare their performance and pricing. We estimate the models from panel data in France. We show that the choice between management regimes at the local...

We analyze the contract-based relationship between a local community and a private operator in charge of a water utility. An important feature of the regulation model is the existence of water network losses that may reduce the operator's cost. We derive solutions to the optimal contract both...

We model capacity-building investments in a homogeneous product duopoly facing uncertain demand growth. Capacity building is achieved through the addition of production units that are durable and lumpy and whose cost is irreversible. While building their capacity over time, firms compete à la...

We study the interactions between the capital structure and the technological flexibility choices of firms in a duopoly. When there are bankruptcy costs, a leveraged firm may modify its strategic choices in order to decrease its probability of bankruptcy. We show that, when the capacity level of...

We show that whether observing technological choices made by competitors is possible or not has significant impacts on the equilibrium technological configurations. Depending upon the industry characteristics, the strategic value of technological flexibility may be either positive or negative,...

There is a large literature on the optimal order of exploitation of natural resources. We explore the impact of specific technical progress that enables the saving of resource inputs in production on the order of exploitation. Models of growth tend to assume uniform and global technical progess....

We study the optimal policies of research and development in the context of a resource-exploiting economy. We distinguish two cases: non-renewable resources and renewable resources. In the first case, we show that it is useful to construct an index of scarcity, which is the product of the level...

The problem in which some agents joint together to realize a set of projects and must decide how to share its cost may be seen as a cooperative cost game. In many instances, total cost may naturally be decomposed into joint costs and costs that are specific to individual agents. We show that the...

We study the links between observability and flexible technological choices in a duopolistic market. We show that, in large markets, the strategic value of flexibility is positive and observability of technological choices promotes the adoption of more flexible technologies whereas in small...