Arbeitnehmer haben in Deutschland das Recht zur Wahl von Betriebsräten. Betriebsräte haben gesetzliche Informations-, Konsultations- und Mitbestimmungsrechte. Die Effekte von Betriebsräten auf Produktivität und Gewinne von mittelgroßen Betrieben des verarbeitenden Gewerbes werden mit Daten...

In this paper we develop a spatial Cournot trade model with two unequally sized countries, using the geographical interpretation of the Hotelling line. We analyze the trade and welfare effects of international trade between these two countries. The welfare analysis indicates that in this...

In this paper we develop a theoretical model of competition among marketing cooperatives (co-ops) in a spatial market setting assuming uniform delivered pricing and Löschian conduct. The model is an extension to Alvarez et al.’s (2000) spatial competition model for investorowned firms (IOF)....

Agricultural markets often feature significant transport costs and spatially distributed production and processing which causes spatial imperfect competition. Spatial economics considers the firms’ decisions regarding location and spatial price strategy separately, usually on the demand side,...

Given that existing food eco-labels are still not well defined in consumers' experience, there is potential for new labels to generate more confusion. Consumers incur fixed costs to learn about a label's meaning. Market shares for existing certifications may be eroded by perceptions that new...

This paper extends the interval Hotelling model with quadratic transport costs to the n−player case. For a large set of locations including potential equilibrium configurations, we show for n 2 that firms neither maximize differentiation - as in the duopoly model - nor minimize...

We use a spatial competition based model in a two-stage game setup to assess whether equilibrium in exchange rates among the leading currencies is attainable. We show that a stable equilibrium can be reached in the case of two leading currencies, but not in the case of three. In our model,...

In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of a very small economy which tries to attract foreign investments. For that purpose, we model the intertemporal behavior of a small jurisdiction using taxes and attractive public infrastructures as policy instruments, for given policy choices of the rest...

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/06/10.

This dissertation studies the roles of comparative advantage, monopolistic competition, and firm-level heterogeneity in international trade.The first essay investigates cross-country and cross-industry variation in the fractions of exporters among domestic firms. The paper presents a model of an...