We revisit the debate on the optimal number of firms in the commons in a differential oligopoly game in which firms are either quantity- or price-setting agents. Production exploits a natural resource and involves a negative externality. We calculate the number of firms maximising industry...

We build up a differential game to investigate the interplay between the quality of health care and the presence of an evolving disease in a duopoly where patients are heterogeneous along the income dimension. We prove unicity, stability and perfection of the open-loop Nash solution. Moreover,...

This paper examines how assortative matching affects graduate earnings through the choice of attending university. We build up a model where individuals decide whether to attend university for increasing both their future income and the probability to marry an educated partner. The theoretical...

We model a vertically differentiated duopoly with quantity-setting firms as an extended game in which firms noncooperatively choose the timing of moves at the quality stage, to show that at the subgame perfect equilibrium sequential play obtains, with the low-quality firm taking the leader's role.

We extend the analysis carried out by Valletti (2000) by considering an environmental externality in a vertically differentiated duopoly where firms compete à la Cournot with fixed costs of quality improvement. We show that, if the weight of the external effect is high enough, the resulting...

The paper examines whether meeting performance targets in tests at school has an effeect on students' subsequent achievement in education and the take-up by schools of financial support from the government for students. We build a theoretical model to describe the channels through which...

This paper examines the stability conditions of the equilibria in a market where profit-maximising and CSR firms coexist in the presence of an environmental externality. An equilibrium in mixed duopoly is stable for low impact of productivity on pollution and high CSR sensitivity to consumer...

Grade inflation or soft grading is a common feature of the educational systems of many countries. In this paper I analyse grade inflation in a setting in which students differ in social background, and the grading policy can be targeted according to student type. I consider a signalling game...

This paper proposes a theory on how students.social background affects their school attainment and job opportunities. We study a setup where students differ in ability and social background, and we analyse the interaction between a school and an employer. Students with disadvantaged background...

We examine a duopoly with polluting production where firms adopt a form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to define their objective functions. Our analysis focusses on the bearings of CSR on collusion over an infinite horizon, sustained by either grim trigger strategies or optimal...