Patent pools allow a group of firms to combine their patents as if they were a single firm. Theoretical models predict that pools encourage innovation in pool technologies, albeit at the cost of innovation in substitutes. Empirical evidence is scarce because modern pools are too recent to allow...

The internet has facilitated the creation of new markets characterized by large scale, increased customization, rapid innovation and the collection and use of detailed consumer and market data. I describe these changes and some of the economic theory that has been useful for thinking about...

This paper presents some of the most important microeconomic tools used in assessing antitrust and merger cases by the competition authorities. By explaining the way that microeconomic concepts like “market power”, “critical loss” or “price elasticity of demand” are used by the...

By looking closely at the underlying structural causes of the discontinuity that appeared in the behavior of the U.S. stock market at 2:40pm in the afternoon of 6th May 2010. What transpired in those 7 minutes is viewed best as a hitherto unrecognized “emergent property” of structural...

This report is the result of the presentation of the Thesis Plan, performed on December 13, 2011, during the activities of the Winter School of Doctoral Program in Technology Assessment. It is intended to describe the main information about the Thesis Plan and also the definition of the main...

Generators supplying electricity markets are subject to volatile input and output prices and uncertain fuel availability. We show that a price-taking generator will generate only when the output price exceeds its operational marginal cost by the value of the option to delay the use of stored...

Motivated by recent controversies surrounding the role of commercial lenders in microfinance, we analyze borrower welfare under different market structures, considering a benevolent non-profit lender, a for-profit monopolist, and a competitive credit market. To understand the magnitude of the...

The tensions between books and book markets as expressions of culture and books as products in profit-making businesses are analysed and insights from the theory of industrial organisation are given.Governments intervene in the market for books through laws concerning prices of books, grants for...

This paper introduces optimal competition: the best form of competition in an industry that a competition authority can achieve under the information constraint that it cannot observe firms' effciency levels.We show that the optimal competition outcome in an industry becomes more competitive as...