In 1997 the new Labour government launched major initiatives in the area of financial regulation, setting up the Financial Services Authority as a comprehensive regulatory body, supported by the legislative framework of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We evaluate the Labour...

It is often claimed that e-commerce has created a more competitive environment by encouraging the entry of new online firms and by enabling buyers to search easily for the lowest prices. The limited evidence that exists paints a mixed picture. Many online markets are advertising- and...

It is frequently claimed that the growth of e-commerce has created a more competitive environment. It is argued that lower production costs of online retailers encourages new entry in previously concentrated sectors, and a marked reduction in search costs and switching costs increase the...

It is often claimed that e-commerce has created a more competitive environment by encouraging the entry of new online firms and by enabling buyers to search easily for the lowest prices. The limited evidence that exists paints a mixed picture. Many online markets are advertising- and...

We consider a model in which productive bilateral links are formed between heterogeneous agents who differ in their innate productivity. Local information is complete but an outside planner can observe only network properties. We ask if consistent credit rating -- where agents' ratings are...

We consider a productive network formed by agents with heterogeneous privately-known productivity types. Under convex cost of link formation, bilateral links create endogenous externalities. We calculate the "rearrangement cost" imposed on the entire network by each subset of other agents an...