This paper develops a model with multiple market locations in which the quality of intangible assets of firms, provided by management, determines the firms. performance. Despite an ex ante symmetry of potential entrants, the equilibrium assignment of heterogeneous managerial skills to firms...

A positive relationship between firm size and product diversification is a long-standing stylized fact. However, so far there is no appropriate theoretical model to explain the underlying forces of this observation. This paper analyzes an oligopoly model with asymmetric multiproduct frms, which...

Ability of managers and other nonproduction professionals is key for the productivity of firms. Hence, the assignment of heterogeneous nonproduction workers across firms determines the distribution of productivity. In turn, the transmission of productivity differences into profit differences --...

Using a unique panel data set for German grocery prices we find significant price synchronization within food retail chains as well as within individual food stores (between products). Price synchronization between chains appears to be less pronounced. Common shocks can only explain some...

We report that the price of a 6.5oz Coke was 5¢ from 1886 until 1959. Thus, we are documenting a nominal price rigidity that lasted more than 70 years! The case of Coca-Cola is particularly interesting because during the 70-year period there were substantial changes in the soft drink industry...

This paper introduces a number of indicators on various aspects of competition laws and competition agencies in order to make competition policies comparable. It contains an indicator concerned with the objectives and the instruments of competition laws, a second indicator evaluating to what...

This paper investigates the determinants of Norwegian import prices of manufactures over the period 1970(1) - 1991(4). Multivariate cointegration analysis establishes a long-run relationship between import prices, foreign prices, the exchange rate and domestic unit labour costs. Normalized on...

This is a discussion of Ratfai (2007), presented at the 2007 Macroeconomics Workshop of the Rimini Center for Economic Analysis on "The Macroeconomics of Price Setting," May 10-11, 2007, University of Bologna, Rimini, Italy.

We use micro data on product prices linked to information on the firms that set them to test for selection effects (state dependence) in micro-level producer pricing. In contrast to using synthetic data from a canonical Menu-Cost model, we find very weak, if any, micro-level selection effects...

This paper examines the relationship between competition, innovation and productivity for the Netherlands. We use industry level data aggregated from micro data as well as moments from firm level data for the period 1996-2006. We match innovation data from Community Innovation Survey with...