Electronic coordination may drastically reduce transport costs, especially for digital or digitalizable products where local markets may actually shrink to a point in space. In the present paper we use a model with differentiated products to analyze the impact of declining transport costs on...

Do firms have proper incentives to invest in electronic coordination? We discuss this question in an oligopoly model with a local firm and a distant competitor that may reduce transport costs by investing in electronic coordination. In a two-stage game with investment in the first stage and...

What is the appropriate degree of centralization in the context of industrial policy? The basic advantage of centralization results from internalization of external effects. While most of the literature stresses the superior information of regional authorities as a countervailing force, the...

Die formal verwandten Phänomene Lernkurven- und Netzwerkeffekte sind in Oligopolmärkten häufig anzutreffen. Im vorliegenden Papier wird untersucht, ob in solchen Märkten ein Anreiz zur Kooperation zwischen einem Technologieführer und potentiellen Konkurrenten besteht. Die Vorteile einer...

Durch die Anwendung des Vergleichsmarktkonzepts versucht das Bundeskartellamt den Mißbrauch einer marktbeherrschenden Stellung zu verhindern. Die Bindung der Preispolitik an das Verhalten im Vergleichsmarkt führt jedoch bei unvollkommenem Wettbewerb dazu, daß ein Anreiz zu Preiserhöhungen im...

Oil price indexing is a peculiar feature of the natural gas markets in Germany and other European countries. It is closely linked to the existence of local monopolies (at least de facto) and of the so called "take-or-pay" (TOP) contracts. After discussing the relation between these features and...

Electronic coordination links markets at different locations that have initially been (partially) separated by transport costs. Rising competitive pressure should in turn affect incentives to differentiate products. In this paper investment decisions concerning transport cost reduction and...

Electronic commerce and flexible manufacturing allow personalization of initially standardized products at low cost. Will customers provide the information necessary for personalization? Assuming that a consumer can control the amount of information revealed, we analyze how his decision...

In the European Union the commission has the primary right to decide about industrial policy. Note that this includes the possibility to allow actions of member countries as long as these are not in conflict with the interest of the EU. This paper deals with the question whether such an...

An welchen Kriterien sollte sich die Entscheidung über die bestmögliche Aufgabenverteilung zwischen staatlichen Stellen und privaten Akteuren bezüglich Finanzierung, Erstellung und Betrieb öffentlicher Infrastruktureinrichtungen orientieren? Während die unmittelbare Erstellung der...