We examine how retailers discount the prices of product systems versus their constituent components. The topic is important because such systems are ubiquitous in our daily lives. In particular, many high-tech markets revolve around complex multi-component systems – e.g. a camera system...

If producers have more information than consumers about goods' attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices don't change. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity per...

If producers have more information than consumers about goods’ attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices don't change. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity per...

Are dominant online search engines monopolies enjoying low contest-ability, due to high barriers to entry, or innovative first-movers? This paper argues that dominant online search engines maintain their leadership through an “innovation feedback loop”: a process whereby increasing R&D...

In the literature for strategic management a number of authors have explained in which ways information and communication technology (ICT) is being deployed in the strategy of the firm. In management books and articles in management journals a variety of cases have been described how specific...

This paper argues that the central function of the board of directors is, and has always been, to provide assurance, and reassurance. The paper introduces a typology of four classes of board functions, legal, normative, descriptive, and utilitarian, and argues that none adequately captures the...

I show that the three main contributions to the theory of the business of the last century, those of Cobb and Douglas (1928), Coase (1937), and Lucas (1978), are actually complementary and can be fitted into a general model of the firm size choice as the solution to a problem of optimal...

The business process management is one of the great challenges facing business organisations today. The business and the surrounding environment are constantly changing, which inevitably leads to changes in the processes and the way they are managed. The technological development also plays an...

Asymmetric pricing is the phenomenon where prices rise more readily than they fall. We articulate, and provide empirical support for, a theory of asymmetric pricing in wholesale prices. In particular, we show how wholesale prices may be asymmetric in the small but symmetric in the large, when...

This chapter from a Practical Guide to Transfer Pricing (Lexis) compares the U.S. Section 482 transfer pricing regulations to the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations as revised in 2010. Section 482's purpose is to ensure that taxpayers subject...