To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration, we examine a panel of 161 countries over the 1999-2001 period. Our candidate variables include economic variables (income per capita, years of schooling, illiteracy, trade openness),...

The introduction of a new product generation forces incumbents in network industries to rebuild their installed base to maintain an advantage over potential entrants. We study if backward compatibility can help moderate this process of rebuilding an installed base. Using a structural model of...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

Although many countries are aggressively implementing the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its effects. This paper presents the impact of the first large-scale randomized evaluation of the OLPC program, using data collected after 15 months of...

In reverse logistics networks, products (e.g., bottles or containers) have to be transported from a depot to customer locations and, after use, from customer locations back to the depot. In order to operate economically beneficial, companies prefer a simultaneous delivery and pick-up service....

In the area of reverse logistics, remanufacturing has been proven to be a valuable option for product recovery. In many industries, each step of the products' recovery is carried out in lot sizes which leads to the assumption that for each of the different recovery steps some kind of fixed costs...

Background: The remanufacturing plan of perfect cost makes reference to the remanufacturing plan of an optimal solution of the economic lot-sizing problem with remanufacturing (ELSR). In this paper, we address the problem of determining the quantities of the remanufacturing plan of perfect cost...

The remanufacturing industry as a whole and the automotive sector in particular have, over the years, proven to be beneficial to the environment and economically lucrative to the companies involved as well as to their customers. However, remanufacturing is associated with complicating...

Reducing energy demand and increasing energy efficiency are seen as major elements of the ongoing transformation of energy systems in multiple national and international programs like the EU 20-20-20 targets. Despite the predominately socio-economic nature of energy demand such interdisciplinary...