In this paper, we study the return to human capital variables for wages of workers observed in Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999. We develop a new method based on multivariate analysis of firm characteristics, which allows us most of the benefits obtained by introducing firm dummies in...

Using only information on the degree of concavity of demand and observable structural variables as the market share of firms, a necessary and sufficient condition for a merger to increase welfare is derived. On the profitability side, we obtain that when market size decreases merger...

In this paper we analyze firms' ability to tacitly collude on pricesin an infinitely repeated duopoly game of vertical productdifferentiation. We show that firms collude if and only if their discountfactor is high enough, i.e. if they value future profits sufficiently. We alsoshow that a lower...

Competition has long been regarded as productivity enhancing. Understanding the mechanism by which competition affects innovation and productivity is therefore an important topic for economic policy. The main contribution of this paper is to disentangle the relationship between competition and...

From Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999, we study the returns to human capital for workers observed in two leading manufacturing sectors. Workers in the mechanical and electrical industries (IMMEE) benefit from higher returns to human capital than their counterparts in the...

In this paper, we study the return to human capital variables for wages of workers observed in Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999. This reveals us how returns to human capital in a Less Developed Country like Tunisia may differ from the industrial countries usually studied with matched...

Salant et al. (1983) showed in a Cournot setting that horizontal mergers are unprofitable because outsiders react by increasing their output. We show that this negative effect may be compensated by the positive effect that horizontal mergers have on the buyer power of merging firms in input markets.

A monopolist retailer facing two suppliers producing two symmetric and independent goods improves its bargaining position by commiting to sell only one good. We analyze if this advantage extends to the case where there are two undierentiated retailers competing in the same market. With linear...

In this paper, we draw some lessons from the Tunisian experience of social reforms and associated civil conflict. Our main interest is the riots that occurred after subsidy cuts and the attempts at substitution of price subsidies by direct cash transfers. We propose new welfare indicators apt to...

In this paper, we show that downstream mergers increase the incentives of an up-stream firm to invest in cost-reducing R&D. The upstream firm revenues increase with industry profits, which in turn increase with concentration downstream and this explains the positive link between concentration...