Online Consumer-to-Consumer Communication Networks are characterized by informational and social benefits as well as time and effort costs for participants. Therefore, this dissertation takes an economic perspective on the network formation process as a determinant of value for consumers and...

Mit der Liberalisierung des europäischen Marktes für elektrische Energie haben sich die Randbedingungen für alle in diesem Markt tätigen Unternehmen grundlegend verändert. Um das langfristige Ziel eines europäischen Binnenmarktes zu erreichen, sind erhebliche Eingriffe in die unter...

Diese Doktorarbeit besteht aus vier eigenständigen Forschungsarbeiten, die in der Zeit von Oktober 2004 bis Oktober 2007 geschrieben wurden, während ich Teilnehmer am "Doctoral Programme in Quantitative Economics and Finance" an der Universität Konstanz war. Meine Forschungsinteressen...

Today's predominant disclosure philosophy calls for the fulldisclosure of all decision relevant information bycompanies. More publicly available information, theargument goes, limits the adverse selection problem by reducinginformation asymmetry among heterogeneous investors. Thus, theliquidity...

Die Gründung des GATT Abkommens im Jahr 1947 sowie die Welthandelsorganisation führten zu weltweiten Zollsenkung. Seit deren Gründung haben sich mehr als 150 Länder innerhalb von acht Verhandlungsrunden auf Zollsenkungen von durchschnittlich 40% auf nunmehr 4% geeinigt.Hauptsäule der WTO...

The importance of social and economic networks has meanwhile been widely acknowledged throughout social sciences. Network positions are supposed to be important for both, consumers and suppliers. Examples are R&D collaborations, strategic alliances, knowledge management within organizations,...

When a new technology consists of sequences of innovations that culminate in a finalconsumer product, the balance between successive innovators is one of the main concernsin the design of the patent system. While intertemporal aspects of incentive are critical inthis environment of sequential...

We examine the intersection of patents and antitrust where a patentholder uses the monopoly power it possesses in the market for a patentedproduct to exclude competitors in an adjacent market and attempt tomonopolize or monopolize the adjacent market. The present scheme forawarding patents...

There is a substantial number of cases where the a priori relationshipbetween products is not at all clear in the sense that although apparentto be clear substitutes may turn out to be in fact complements, orvice-versa. This paper aims to study the relationship between fixed andmobile telephony...

We study competitive interaction between profit-maximizing firms thatsell software and complementary goods or services. In addition totactical price competition, we allow firms to compete through businessmodel reconfigurations. We consider three business models: theproprietary model (where all...