Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic growth. However, in Japan the promotion of competition has long been compromised by ministerial guidance and exemptions from the competition law. Thus, the level and growth of productivity have been low in many...

The strength of product market competition plays an important role in ensuring dynamic economic growth. This paper examines product market competition and its link with economic performance in Switzerland whose growth has been weaker than in most OECD countries since 1980. It shows that...

Exemptions from costly policy measures are frequently applied to alleviate financial burdens to specific market participants. Using a stated-choice experiment with around 6,000 German household heads, we test how exemptions for low-income households and energy-intensive companies influence the...

Based on a survey among more than 5,000 German households and a single-binary choice experiment in which we randomly split the respondents into two groups, this paper elicits both households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for power supply security and their willingness to accept (WTA) compensations...

Based on hypothetical responses originating from a large-scale survey among about 6,000 German households, this study investigates the discrepancy in willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for green electricity across single-binary-choice and open-ended valuation formats. Recognizing that...

Communication is well known to increase cooperation rates in social dilemma situations, but the exact mechanisms behind this have been questioned and discussed. This study examines the impact of communication on public good provisioning in an artefactual field experiment conducted with 216...

Public good games in coalitional form, such as the ones depicting international environmental agreements for the reduction of a global pollutant, generally foresee scarce levels of cooperation. The incentive to free ride, that increases for higher levels of cooperation, prevents the formation of...

This paper examines the strength of product market competition and economic performance in Canada and discusses way in which the institutional framework governing competition policy could be improved. Competitive forces are comparatively strong and administrative and economic regulations...

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...

Norwegian growth has been strong over the past decade. This development has been supported by the off-shore sector, but depleting oil reserves implies that growth will have to rely increasingly on the mainland economy. Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic...