We demonstrate that the Varian (1980) model of sales has a unique Nash equilibrium when firms incur costly advertising to compete for informed consumers. The equilibrium is symmetric. In particular, with costly advertising, the asymmetric equilibria highlighted by Baye et al. (1992) do not arise.

We show that, in general, consistent estimates of cost pass-through are not obtained from reduced-form regressions of price on cost. We derive a formal approximation for the bias that arises even under standard orthogonality conditions. We provide guidance on the conditions under which bias may...

The WTO has revised downwards the forecast of global trade growth. As compared to the same period of the previous year, in Russia there is still weak positive dynamics of the export with a reduction of the import volume.

In May 2014, the Russian foreign trade turnover kept growing at a low rate with growth in export and a decrease in import; as a result, the positive surplus of the trade balance increased substantially. In the geographic pattern of the Russian foreign trade, the share of countries of the...

We analyze the sourcing strategies of firms active in the Spanish manufacturing sector. We show that firms that select strategies of vertical integration and of foreign sourcing ex post tend to have been more productive, ex ante, than other firms.

Russia’s foreign trade turnover shrank in June 2014. At the same time, Russian export stagnation observed in the last months changed for the worse and began falling. Sanctions against Russia and retaliati on measures taken by the Russian government most likely will lead to the fall in...

Russia’s foreign trade turnover fell deep in December 2014 – the lowest plunge since October 2009 – with both exports and imports seeing almost equal rates of sinking. The geographical structure of Russia’s foreign trade is facing changes.

Russian manufacturing industrial development in late 2014 – early 2015 has been splitted: depending on the output dynamics industries may be divided into two groups. One group (the “losers”) shows a stagnating dynamics in spite of the substantial price growth caused by the exchange rate...

The results of the estimates obtained using the Gaidar Institute method of decomposing Russia’s GDP growth rates show that in 2015 all of the components of economic growth rates will make them negative. Furthermore, the current economic contractin is mostly of structural nature induced by the...

Early in 2015, a drop in the main indices of the Russian foreign trade amounted to the 2009 crisis level. The existing non-tariff barriers between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus highly complicate trade.