This paper investigates the effectiveness of antitrust policy in fighting horizontal collusion under different regimes of policy implementation. We consider two regimes : a public agency regime, where an antitrust authority is in charge of competition policy, and a "delegation" regime, where the...

In a two period model with asymmetric information we study the optimalantitrust policies carried out by a public agency faced with firms'horizontal price-fixing behaviour. We analyse the effect on social welfare in case the Antitrust Authority decides to bind itself to follow the same policy, an...

In a simple economic setting with asymmetric information we compare different social insti- tutions which fight against industry cartels on prices. Firstly, we analyse the case where an Antitrust Authority is created and we distinguish two situations depending whether the agency has the...

We investigate how the intensity of competition among airports affects their technical efficiency by computing airports’ markets on the basis of a potential demand approach. We find that the intensity of competition has a negative impact on airports’ efficiency in Italy from 2005...

We study the presence and the magnitudes of trade-offs between health outcomes and hospitals' efficiency using a data set from Lombardy, Italy, for the period 2008–2011. Our goal is to analyze whether the pressures for cost containment may affect hospital performance in terms of population...

We develop a dynamic duopoly, in which firms have to take into account a technological externality, which reduces their innovation costs over time, and an inter-firm spillover, which lowers only the second comer’s R&D costs. This spillover exerts its effect after a disclosure lag. We identify...