The development of "general purpose" products means that the needs of quite heterogeneous consumers can be sat isfied with the same homogenous product. The private and social incen tives to produce "general purpose" products are studied in this paper within the "circular-road-model" of...

Excess capacities held by a dominant firm are usually viewed as ant icompetitive because they constitute a barrier to entry. This paper explores an alternative reason for a dominant firm to hold excess capacities: they serve as an assurance to upstream (or downstream) companies that the dominant...

Die Hochwasserkatastrophe im August dieses Jahres hat deutlich gezeigt, welches Schadenspotential Naturkatastrophen auch in Europa haben. Sollten solche Schäden in Deutschland weiterhin durch staatliche Ad-hoc-Hilfen und private Spenden behoben werden? Oder sollte eine Zwangsversicherung gegen...

This paper provides a critical review of competition policy in Switzerland. We analyse the legal statute, the institutional arrangements for its implementation and the case law since 1985. We find that the Cartel Commission, which was given wide discretion by the law, has been relatively immune...