This paper studies regulatory policy interventions aimed at protecting sticky consumers who are exposed to exploitation. We model heterogeneous consumer switching costs alongside asymmetric market shares. This setting encompasses many markets in which established firms are challenged by new...

Pricing strategies may include the advertising of meeting-the-competition clauses (MCCs). We show in a specific spatial model scenario with differently informed consumers that MCCs primarily serve as a device to facilitate collusion instead of allowing for price discrimination between these...

This paper examines the spatial dimension of marginal willingness to pay (MWP) for reduction of nuclear risks through increased insurance coverage. The effect of distance from a nuclear power plant on individuals' MWP is ambiguous. MWP is expected to decrease with distance because the risk of...

The China - Raw Materials dispute recently arbitrated by the WTO opposed China as defendant to the US, the EU and Mexico as claimants on the somewhat unusual issue of export restrictions on natural resources. For the claimants, Chinese export restrictions on various raw materials, of which the...

Biodiversity provides essential services to human societies. Many of these services are provided as public goods, so that they will typically be underprovided both by market mechanisms (because of the impossibility of excluding non-payers from using the services) and by government-run systems...

We consider a model of commercial television market, where private broadcasters coexist with a public television broadcaster. Assuming that the public TV station follows a policy of Ramsey pricing whereas the private stations are profit maximizers, we consider the equilibria in this market and...

We examine the effects of reorganizing electricity markets on ca- pacity investments, retail prices and welfare when demand is uncer- tain. We study the following market configurations: (i) integrated monopoly, (ii) integrated duopoly with wholesale trade, and (iii) sep- arated duopoly with...