In German electricity submarkets for residential customers standard contracts offered by former monopolists are the more costly option for customers who have not switched to an alternative contract yet. As most German households are served with this contract type we follow the Limit Pricing...

We investigate the effect of market structure on market performance in the market for consumer electronics. This research is novel, because we exploit product life cycle information to build an instrumental variable for the number of firms in a market, a variable which hitherto had to be treated...

We analyze a drastic price increase in the German auction market for reserve power, which did not appear to be driven by increased costs. Studying the market structure and individual bidding strategies, we find evidence for collusive behavior in an environment with repeated auctions, pivotal...

We investigate the impact of consumer search and competition on pricing strategies in Germany’s electricity retail. We utilize a unique panel dataset on spatially varying search requests at major online price comparison websites to construct a direct measure of search intensity and combine...

We investigate the effect of market structure on market performance in the market for consumer electronics. This research is novel, because we exploit product life cycle information to build an instrumental variable for the number of firms in a market, a variable which hitherto had to be treated...

We study how consumer search affects pricing in markets with incumbents and entrants using panel data on German electricity retail markets. Consumers observe the baseline price of the incumbent and decide whether or not to search. Incumbent providers can price discriminate between searching and...

The paper investigates the construction of a low cost airline network by analyzing JetBlue Airways' entry decisions into nonstop domestic U.S. airport-pair markets between 2000 and 2009. Adopting duration models with time-varying covariates, we find that JetBlue consistently avoided concentrated...

Two years after the deregulation of the German interurban bus industry in January 2013, two new entrants emerged as market leaders: MeinFernbus (MFB) and FlixBus (FB). We use a comprehensive route-level data set to investigate the determinants of route entry for both providers. Applying survival...

In many industries, the number of firms evolves non-monotonically over time. A phase of rapid entry is followed by an industry shakeout: a large number of firms exit within a short period. We present a simple timing game of entry and exit with an exogenous technological process governing firm...

This paper analyses the effects of minimum wages on competition in the German roofing sector. The case is particularly interesting since this sector is faced with a uniform minimum wage despite significant regional disparities in productivity and wages. As a control industry we take the plumbing...