Government agencies typically have a certain freedom to choose among different possible courses of action. This paper studies agency decision-making on priorities in a principal-agent framework with multi-tasking. The agency head (the principal) has discretion over part of the agency's budget to...

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...

This special issue marks the 25th anniversary of the introduction of a leniency program for antitrust in the EU and contains five original papers: Each paper examines the effects of design parameters of leniency programs on their performance. Before introducing each contribution separately, we...

We examine recent claims that a particular Q-learning algorithm used by competitors 'autonomously' and systematically learns to collude, resulting in supracompetitive prices and extra profits for the firms sustained by collusive equilibria. A detailed analysis of the inner workings of this...

In this paper we compare the new satisfaction evaluation approach, developed inthe nineties by Oswald ,Clark , Blanchflower and others with the older incomeevaluation (IEQ) approach, developed by Van Praag and Kapteyn in theseventies of the previous century. We find that both approaches yield...

In this paper, we use quantile regression decomposition methods to analyzethe gender gap between men and women who work full time in the Nether-lands. Because the fraction of women working full time in the Netherlands isquite low, sample selection is a serious issue. In addition to shedding...

In this paper I determine the importance of adjustment costs in employers' hiring decisions. Temporary work arrangements offer potential ways to avoid adjustment costs. I estimate employers willingness to pay for the characteristics of these work arrangements. I distinguish regular contracts,...

Harmful algal bIoom species are the cause of important damages to marine living resources and human beings. These marine species are primarily introduced in North-European waters through ballast water, i.e. water trans-ported across the oceans so as to keep a vessel in balance. Port authorities...

An explanation of the Dunning-Kruger effect is provided which does not require any psychological explanation, because it is derived as a statistical artefact. This is achieved by specifying a simple statistical model which explicitly takes the (random) boundary constraints into account. This...

We examine the setting of national competition policy in a two-country setting,emphasizing the relationship of trade to the goals of competition policy (suchas the degree and nature of competition). The issues we address involve thegeneral equilibrium distributional effects of competition...