Analyzing the dynamics of structural change of an industry is a fundamental but challenging issue in economics. Accordingly, many attempts have been made to rationalize entry and exit decisions of firms, which, in total, appear as structural change of a sector. Among the most often hypothesized...

We analyze farmland prices in the German federal state of Brandenburg from 2000 to 2011 with the aim to understand the price formation process in farmland foreclosures. Pressured sales usually result in a price discount due to time constraints; however, the land is sold using public auctions....

Low investment rates are a puzzling phenomenon particularly in transition economies with an urgent need for modernisation. The literature offers two alternative explanations: imperfect capital markets and investment reluctance due to real options effects. In this paper, we develop a generalised...

Numerous studies have tried to provide a better understanding of firm-level investment behaviour using econometric models. The model specification of more recent studies has been based on two main approaches. The first, the real options approach, focuses on irreversibility and uncertainty in...

Nach einem drastischen Einbruch im vergangenen Jahr ziehen die Milchpreise wieder an. Doch auch künftig kann es zu Preiseinbrüchen in der Milchwirtschaft kommen. Zum einen wirken sich im Zuge der fortschreitenden Liberalisierung der Agrarmärkte internationale Marktentwicklungen verstärkt auf...

The continuous decline of commercial agricultural areas accompanied by a trend toward larger farms has increased competition for a scarce production factor in Germany: land. From 2000 to 2013, the purchase prices of agricultural land increased by 80 percent, according to the German Federal...

This paper examines the impact of technical efficiency on the optimal exit timing of farms in a stochastic dynamic framework. Starting from a standard real options approach, we incorporate technical efficiency via a production function and derive an optimal price trigger at which farms...

The allocation of permits is an important design aspect of an emissions trading scheme. Traditionally, governments have favoured the free allocation of greenhouse gas permits based on individual historical emissions (‘grandfathering’) or industry benchmark data. Particularly in the European...

This paper analyses the auction designs chosen for awarding 3G licences in the UK and Germany and compares them with respect to revenues and bidders' surplus using a laboratory experiment. In our study with a given number of bidders, the German design leads to higher revenues. However, bidder...