In this paper we analyze the incentive of the German postal service (Deutsche Post AG, DPAG) to increase quality in the light of the upcoming liberalization of the postal services market. Currently, there would be no incentive for DPAG to increase its quality if the market were not to be...

In the advent of postal market liberalization in several European countries we expect that the incumbent operators anticipate entry by competitors who are not required to offer universal service, i.e. coverage of the entire country and uniform pricing. The market for postal service exhibits...

In this paper, we examine welfare implications of switching from a neutrality regime to a network management regime. While in the former a network provider or an integrated ISP should transmit data with a-bit-is-a-bit principle, in the latter it is allowed to differentiate its connection quality...

'Robot cars' are cars that allow for automated driving. They can drive closer together than human driven 'normal cars', and thereby raise road capacity. Obtaining a robot car instead of a normal car can also be expected to lower the user's value of time losses (VOT), because travel time can be...

Despite the positive effect electricity grids separated from generation and supply by ownership are expected to have on the level of competition in the non-network activities, several EU member states still adhere to a solely legally unbundled transmission grid. This choice might be induced by...

This study examines the effect of yardstick regulation in Japan's gas distribution sector, especially focusing on its effect of reducing the adverse selection problem. The Japanese government has regulated the price of city gas supplies by a combination of fixed-price regulation and ex-ante...

This paper evaluates the effects of the lack of regulatory commitment on emission tax applied by the regulator, abatement effort made by the monopoly and social welfare comparing two alternative policy games. The first game assumes that the regulator commits to an ex-ante level of the emission...

This paper analyzes a mechanism through which a supplier of unknown quality can overcome its asymmetric information problem by selling via a reputable downstream …rm. The supplier’s adverse-selection problem can be solved if the downstream …rm has established a reputation for delivering...

While the sharing economy is generally perceived to be very innovative, it has hardly been analyzed what defines this innovativeness. The main aspect for the sharing economy as a whole is the peer-to-peer (P2P) organization of its businesses. This allows sharing platforms to enter markets more...

The internet giants - Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, among others - have transformed society with both positive and negative effects. The negative effects have been stark. There have been huge disruptions caused by e-commerce. More recently, subtler, but even more serious negative effects...