Many countries with national health care providers and health insurances regulate the market for pharmaceuticals to steer drug demand and to control expenses. For example, they introduce reference pricing or tiered co-payments to enhance drug substitution and competition. Since 2006, Germany...

This paper empirically evaluates the price effects of the merger of two major book retail chains in the UK: Waterstone's and Ottakar's. We employ differences-in-differences techniques and use a rich dataset containing monthly scanner data information on a sample of 200 books sold in 60 stores in...

The paper provides empirical evidence for the causal impact of broadband Internet on firms' labour productivity and realised process and product innovations. The analysis refers to the early phase of DSL expansion in Germany from 2001 to 2003, when roughly 60 percent of the German firms already...

Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...

This paper uses a rich panel data set of Indian manufacturing firms to analyze the effects of domestic and international acquisitions on various outcomes at target firm and product level. We apply recent methodological advances in the estimation of production functions together with information...

Financial constraints are considered an important impediment to growth for small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically the relationship between the financial constraints of agents and the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of franchising. We find that...

This paper analyzes the effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the innovation of European firms. The results indicate a considerable increase in post-acquisition innovation in the merged entity. This is mainly driven by inventors based in the acquirer's country, while...

The paper analyses the impact of private equity (PE) backed leveraged buyouts (LBOs) on innovation output (patenting). Using a sample of 407 UK deals we find that LBOs have a positive causal effect on patent stock and quality-adjusted patent stock. Our results imply a 6% increase in...

This paper tests whether upstream R&D cooperation leads to downstream collusion. We consider an oligopolistic setting where firms enter in research joint ventures (RJVs) to lower production costs or coordinate on collusion in the product market. We show that a sufficient condition for...

Previous empirical evidence which evaluated the accuracy of management earnings or sales forecasts consistently revealed these forecasts to be on average significantly overoptimistic. However, all studies analyzed forecasts from public disclosures, which are an important signal to investors and...