The paper sheds light on two questions, using transaction cost theory: 1) Why do management consultants exist, and 2) why do they organize in independent firms. The paper also contains a history of the management consulting industry.

Este trabajo analiza la entrada y la competencia en servicios de telecomunicaciones, en los que las empresas se diferencian por sus costes hundidos y por la valoración que reciben de los consumidores. En este marco de análisis desaparece el problema de coordinación presente en la literatura...

We analyze models of product differentiation with perfect price discrimination and free entry. Although perfect price discrimination ensures efficient output decisions given product characteristics, coordination failures may prevent efficiency in the choice of product characteristics. More...

We consider innovation incentives in markets where final goods comprise two strictly complementary components, one of which is monopolized. We focus on the case in which the complementary component is competitively supplied, and in which innovation is important. We explore ways in which the...

The paper examines the economic and regulatory factors that led to an explosion in the wholesale power prices, supply shortages, and utility insolvencies in California’s electricity sector. A necessary first step in determining the lessons learned from the California electricity crisis is a...

We use a Hotelling linear city model to study competition between open source and proprietary software, where only the producer of the proprietary software aims at maximizing the profit. The producer of the proprietary software must decide on compatibility. Different compatibility strategies...

This paper presents an equilibrium model of industry dynamics and capital structure decisions. The unique stationary equilibrium is derived in closed-form. The analysis reveals that the interaction between capital structure and production decisions influences the stationary distribution of...

DOMESTIC MARKETS AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS This paper develops a theoretical and empirical model to analyze the effects of the size and nature of domestic markets on the international competitiveness of national industries. We validate our theory using data on the more than 20,000 plants...

The paper examines the economic and regulatory factors that led to an explosion in the wholesale power prices, supply shortages, and utility insolvencies in California’s electricity sector. A necessary first step in determining the lessons learned from the California electricity crisis is a...

A number of private colleges and universities have chosen not to compete for students by offering merit-based financial aid. In addition, until 1990 many of these schools jointly calculated a student's financial need. I theoretically and empirically analyze the effects of different financial aid...