This paper computes and compares alternative quality-adjusted price indexes for new cars in Spain in the period 1990 - 2000. The proposed hedonic approach simultaneously controls for time-invariant unobserved product effects and age effects, that can be interpreted as a proxy for time-variant...

This paper studies equilibrium merging behavior in composite good industries. Component producers face the option to either merge with a similar component producer (horizontal merger) or a complementary one (vertical merger) of a composite good. Focusing only on strategic reasons, vertical...

We propose a spatial competition model to study banks' strategic responses to the asymmetric Spanish geographic deregulation process. We find that once the geographic deregulation process finishes, inter-regional mergers between savings banks are optimal whenever the economies of scale...

When health plans compete under adverse selection, the competitive equilibrium set of contracts is unique. However, the allocation of these contracts among health plans is undetermined. We show that three health plans suffice to sustain an equilibrium where each health plan offers a single...

We consider an empirical model of worldwide airline alliances that we apply to a large set of companies for the period 19952000. Using observations at the network level, we estimate a cost, capacity, and demand system that accounts for cross-price elasticities. Our contribution consists in...

We analyze how a manufacturer with a brand-name drug close to patent expiration decides to launch a product-line extension (an upgrade through innovation) before it faces generic competition. There are two types of physicians: loyal physicians always prescribe first the product-line extension...

This paper studies how the emergence of specialized communication media focused on both high quality contents and high quality advertised products, affects the functioning of a vertically differentiated market. To that end, we formulate a simultaneous game of pricing and targeted advertising...

The standard approach to nominal illusion in Economics sees it as a transitory phenomenon, as economic agents eventually see through the nominal veil, making the right choices. Recent empirical studies suggest that money illusion may persist, distorting real prices in a variety of economic...

We study consumer surplus in a single market when (a) there is a lower bound in the consumption of the outside good and (b) the weights in the social welfare function given to consumers and firms are different. We assume quasilinear utility. When the lower bound constraint on the consumption of...