The aim of this paper is to test the predictions of Sutton's model of independentsubmarkets for the Italian retail banking industry. This industry, in fact, can be viewedas made of a large number of local markets corresponding to different geographicallocations. In order to do that, I first...

This paper reviews the Hotelling literature of product differentiation. The purpose of this work is to examine the impact of the market structure on price competitionand equilibrium differentiation. The existence of a general ’principle of differentiation’ is rejected. In contrast,...

The market for the new provisioning type Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has reached a significantsize and still shows enormous growth rates. By varying size of SaaS products, providerscan improve their market position and profits by successfully acting in the tension area ofcustomer acquisition,...

This Paper will look at the changing nature of asset management, and will examine the natureof the European framework for collective investment undertakings, enshrined in the UCITSDirective2 in that light. This question whether the UCITS Directive in its current formremains an appropriate...

This paper examines the implications of “prominence” in search markets. We modelprominence by supposing that the prominent firm will be sampled first by all consumers.If there are no systematic quality differences among firms, we find that the prominentfirm will charge a lower price than its...

We present a new model of multi-product …rms (MPFs) and flexible manufacturing and explore itsimplications in partial and general equilibrium. International trade integration a¤ects the scale andscope of MPFs through a competition e¤ect and a demand e¤ect. We demonstrate how MPFs adjust...

This paper develops an asymmetric price setting oligopoly modelof store opening and closure decisions in the UK supermarket industrywhich is estimated using a survey of consumer choices and a datasetof store characteristics. The model is used to examine the strategiclocal entry and exit...

The literature on new goods and social welfare generally assumes thatmanufacturers develop innovations. But innovation by users has been foundto also be an important part of innovative activity in the economy. In this Paperwe explore the impact of users as a source of innovation on product...

Eine möglichst vollständige Erfüllung von Kundenanforderungen und eine Differenzierungvon Wettbewerbern sind zwei Faktoren, die produzierende oder dienstleistungsanbietendeUnternehmen beeinflussen (Böhmann und Krcmar 2007,Leimeister und Glauner 2008). Deswegen ändern viele Unternehmen ihre...