We incorporate three important aspects of current climate policy, unilateralism, demand side approach and a climate target, in a multi-country model with flow dependent fossil fuel extraction costs and a backstop. It turns out that the optimal climate coalition should encompass all countries...

Under which conditions unilateral tightening of climate policy causes a weak or strong green paradox or even decreases social welfare has recently been studied by Hoel (2011). Hoel assumes that the costs of extracting fossil fuel are linear in output. We extend his model by allowing for...

Under the assumption of imperfect competition in a durable good industry, the present paper investigates the efficient regulation of solid waste which causes environmental damage at the end of the product's life. It turns out that the second-best waste tax falls short of the marginal...

We study the pricing decision of firms in the presence of consumer inertia. Inertia can arise from habit formation, brand loyalty, switching costs, or search, and it has important implications for the interpretation of equilibrium outcomes and counterfactual analysis. In particular, consumer...

The U.S. residential real estate agency market presents a puzzle for economic theory: commissions on real estate transactions have remained high for decades even though entry is frequent and costs are low. We model the real estate agency market, and other brokered markets, as a game in which...

Increasingly, retailers have access to better pricing technology, especially in online markets. Firms employ automated pricing algorithms that allow for high-frequency price changes. What are the implications for price competition? We develop a model of price competition where firms can differ...

In his book on “Market Microstructure” Spulber presented some strange results with respect to the impact of the substitutability parameter in an intermediation model with differentiated products and inputs. Intuitively, effects in the product and the input market should be similar: if firms...

The related phenomena of learning curve and network effects are quite common in oligopolistic markets. In this context the present paper discusses the incentives of a technological leader to share its exclusive technology with potential competitors. An alliance may be preferable because partner...

For a durable consumption good which turns into waste after consumption, the socially optimal durability increases with an increase in the marginal environmental damage. In a laissez-faire equilibrium under perfect competition, producers fail to provide an efficient product design, i.e....