We propose a new methodology to estimate the share of household income accruing to children (i.e., the cost of children). Following the principle of the Rothbarth approach, the identification of the children's share requires the observation of at least one adult-specific good. However, our...

While many studies explain the correlation between firm-level productivity and export status entirely by better firms self-selecting into exporting, a few studies find evidence of reverse causation. Especially in developing or transition economies, exporters seem to improve performance after...

The Dutch drinking water sector experienced two drastic changes over the last 10 years. Firstly, in 1997, the sector association started with a voluntary benchmarking aimed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector. Secondly, merger activity arose. This paper develops a tailored...

The unique capital structure of commercial banking - funding production with demandable debt that participates in the economy´s payments system - affects various aspects of banking. It shapes banks´ comparative advantage in providing financial products and services to informationally opaque...

This paper explores how to incorporate banks' capital structure and risk-taking into models of production. In doing so, the paper bridges the gulf between (1) the banking literature that studies moral hazard effects of bank regulation without considering the underlying microeconomics of...

Our research as well as that by other authors has found scale economies at all sizes of banks and the largest scale economies at the largest banks - that is, larger banks are able to provide products at lower average cost than smaller banks. While the earlier literature found that scale...

The unique capital structure of commercial banking - funding production with demandable debt that participates in the economy's payments system - affects various aspects of banking. It shapes commercial banks' comparative advantage in providing financial products and services to informationally...

This paper explores the inconsistency of common scale estimators when output is proxied by deflated sales, based on a common output deflator across firms. The problems arise when firms operate in an imperfectly competitive environment and prices differ between firms. In particular, we show that...

Hall's (1988) approach to study price- cost margins is adapted to simultaneously estimate price- cost margins and scale economies from a panel of plant level data. The paper shows how this methodology provides a very flexible framework with only a few, economically interesting parameters to be...

We propose a new methodology to estimate the share of household income accruing to children (i.e., the cost of children). Following the principle of the Rothbarth approach, the identification of the children's share requires the observation of at least one adult-specific good. However, our...