This paper explores the role that employers’ associations may play in centralized wage bargaining processes. It thereby adds to the literature on labor markets, in which the relationship between union behavior and unemployment has been explored quite extensively, while employers’...

This paper examines how unionization structures that differ in the degree of wage centralization affect firms' incentives to increase labor productivity. We distinguish three modes of unionization with increasing degree of centralization: (1) “Decentralization” where wages are determined...

Der vorliegende Beitrag interpretiert die Standortentscheidung von Unternehmen als den Abschluß eines impliziten Franchisevertrages zwischen dem Standort als Franchisegeber und dem Unternehmen als Franchisenehmer. Standorte bieten ein Bündel von Dienstleistungen wie die Nutzung von...

This paper explores the anticompetitive effects that wage determination between an employers. association and the industry.s labor union may have when wages are generally binding. It is shown that employers. associations can, under certain circumstances, use generally binding standard wages to...

In the literature on international trade, very little attention has been given to informational asymmetries between firms and consumers with respect to product quality. The few economic models that analyze the question of how asymmetric information about product quality might affect trade flows...

This paper examines the consequences of introducing mobile number portability (MNP). As MNP allows consumers to keep their telephone number when switching providers, it reduces consumers' switching costs. However, MNP may also cause consumer ignorance if telephone numbers no longer identify...

Im vorliegenden Papier werden die Ursachen und das Ausmass von so genannten First-Mover Vorteilen (FMV) analysiert und wettbewerbsoekonomische sowie regulierungspolitische Implikationen eroertert. Im Zentrum der Analyse stehen dabei das theoretische Fundament von FMV, die empirischen Befunde zu...

This paper analyzes how competition works in mobile telecommuncations markets and, bases on this analysis, we discuss whether regulatory intervention in mobile telephone markets is justified from an economic perspective. Starting point of our analysis is the observation that an evaluation of...

This paper analyzes a sequential game where firms decide about outsourcing the production of a non-specific input good to an imperfectly competitive input market. We apply the taxonomy of business strategies introduced by Fudenberg and Tirole (1984) to characterize the different equilibria. We...

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