Studies regarding the migrants' impact upon performance variables and in particular upon productivity growth - which is the focus of this study - are few although there has been an increased interest in this area. This study addresses this issue in a cross-country and regional perspective with a...

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...

Unbundling of vertically integrated utilities has become an integral element in the regulation of network industries and has been implemented in many jurisdictions. The idea of separating the network, as the natural monopoly, from downstream retailing, which may be exposed to competition, is...

In recent years, a new trend of seasonal labour migration from Armenia to Russia has emerged. Based on a novel household survey, this paper analyses how successful seasonal migrants are in increasing their incomes. Applying matching operators allows addressing endogenous self-selection to...

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 this...