We investigate the impact of decentralised decision-making on product quality. Comparing a cooperative and an investor-owned firm suggests that members of the cooperative have an incentive to produce too much and to free-ride on quality. Whether or not cooperatives deliver higher quality...

The paper applies a semi-parametric propensity score matching approach to evaluate the effects of agri-environment (AE) programmes on input use and farm output of individual farms in Germany. The analysis reveals a positive and significant treatment effect of AE programmes on the area under...

The increasing concentration of retailing in many countries (particularly in Europe) is a cause for concern for competition authorities. In a formal model, we argue that retailer market power influences upstream firms' incentives to introduce new products. On the basis of a survey of German food...

Real costs result when inflation changes relative prices between products or regions. When such changes are unanticipated, resource misallocation and welfare losses are induced. Time series analysis of retail food prices in Russian markets provides estimates of anticipated and unanticipated...