Firms in socialist and transitional economies are often obliged to provide a social good in addition to a private good, which makes it difficult for a government to commit not to bail out the firm once it is in financial trouble. This creates a soft budget constraint syndrome which causes the...

In this paper we specify and estimate a structural model which links product market competition and union power. The model has a two-stage setting in which wages are determined through bargaining between management and unions in the first stage, with a price-setting market game to follow in the...

In this paper we specify and estimate a structural model which links product market competition and union power. The model has a two-stage in which are determined through bargening between management and unions in the first stage, with a price-setting market game to follow in the second stage....

R&D rivalry and optimal R&D policies are investigated in an asymmetric four-stage game that involves international licensing. It is found that a government’s R&D policy crucially depends on its domestic firm’s bargaining power over the licensing gain. When the firm’s bargaining power is...

This paper examines the asymptotic (in)efficiency of Stackelberg markets with incomplete information. Firms who are early in the queue make their quantity choices based on limited information and their output choices are likely to deviate from those optimal under complete information. Due to the...

Firms in the European chemical industry have been among the most successful firms world wide. However, they have had to undertake severe restucturing in order to maintain their market position. These efforts focused in particular on strengthening their innovative capability as product and...

This paper proposes a simultaneous-equation approach to the estimation of the contribution of transport infrastructure accumulation to regional growth. We model explicitly the political-economy process driving infrastructure investments; in doing so, we eliminate a potential source of bias in...

This paper develops a framework for testing discrete complementarities in innovation policy using European data on obstacles to innovation. We propose a discrete test of supermodularity in innovation policy leading to a number of inequality constraints. We apply our test to two types of...

This paper provides a structural interpretation to the estimates of the shape and position of nonlinear tariffs. We focus on the evaluation of price-cost margins, and thus we need to identify marginal cost from an equilibrium model of nonlinear pricing competition. We estimate these price-cost...

In this paper we investigate how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth. This issue is important and has received considerable attention in the popular press concerning the creation of the information superhighway and its potential impacts on the economy. We use evidence from...