Should mergers among nonprofit organizations be regulated differently than mergers among for-profit firms? The relevant empirical literature is highly controversial, the theoretical literature is scarce. I analyze the question by modeling duopoly competition with quality-differentiated goods. I...

Impersonal exchange has been a major driver of economic development. But transactors with no stake in maintaining an ongoing relationship have little incentive to honor deals. Therefore, all economies have developed institutions to support honest trade and realize the gains of impersonal...

Economic articles are published very slowly. We believe this results mainly from the poor incentives referees face. We recommend that an auction market replace the current system for submitting papers and demonstrate a strict Pareto-improvement of equilibrium. Besides the benefits of speed, this...

The modern world is complex and difficult to understand for voters, who may hold beliefs that are at variance with reality. Politicians face incentives to pander to voters' beliefs to get reelected. We analyze the welfare effects of this pandering and show that it entails both costs and...

Abstract: This paper studies the strategies employed by Catholic and Protestant nonprofit hospitals in Germany and traces them back to the theological foundations of those religions, which shape managers' values. We find that Catholic nonprofit hospitals follow a strategy of horizontal...

We examine the interrelation between interconnection and competition in the internet backbone market.Networks asymmetric in size choose among different interconnection regimes and compete for end-users.We show that a direct interconnection regime, Peering, softens competition compared to...

We analyze competition among clubs in which the status of club members is the crucial added value accruing to fellow club members through social interaction within the club (e.g. in country clubs, academic faculties, or internet communities). In the course of competition for new members, clubs...

We analyze competition among academic faculties for new researchers. The value to individual members through social interaction within the faculty depends on the average status of their fellow members. When competing for new members, existing members trade off the effect of entry on average...

The process of innovation is driven by two main factors: new inventions and institutions supporting the transformation of inventions into marketable innovations. This paper proposes a new institution, called a semi- public contest, that has been neglected by the economic literature but exists...

Abstract: We study the capacity of business associations - private, formal, noncommercial organizations designed to promote the common business interests of their members - to support contract enforcement and collective action. Inspired by recent empirical literature, our theoretical framework...