In this article we estimate individual banks' Lerner indices for a large group of countries in the years 1994--2012 by means of the econometric method proposed by Kumbhakar <italic>et al.</italic> (2012), which is based on the stochastic frontier methodology. We then compare our results with those of existing...

By means of an application of the Rosse--Panzar methodology, we assess the degree of competition in the Italian car insurance market in order to evaluate the considerable fine that is imposed on 39 companies by the Italian Antitrust Authority (IAA) in 2000 for their supposed anticompetitive...

Conventional models of the industrial organisation theory usually state that in concentrated industries firms have significant market power, and that competition can be easily reduced if the leading firms collude. However, recent theoretical analyses show that strong concentration does not...

By means of two NEIO techniques, this paper analyzes the conduct of a group of Italian single-branch banks operating as monopolists in small local areas (municipalities) in the years 1988-2005, in order to assess pricing behavior in highly concentrated banking markets. Both tests strongly reject...

This paper evaluates the possible effects of advertising on conditions of entry in a market with one incumbent and one potential entrant. Through a game-theoretic framework, it is shown that the use of pre-entry advertising expenditures (which are supposed to exhibit diminishing returns) may...

In this paper we develop an empirical two-stage model of price competition for the banking industry that incorporates the choice of capacity in the form of new branches. This is achieved by supplementing the customary two-equation framework (demand plus first-order condition in the loan market)...