The present paper explores issues surrounding multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) in payment card markets from various angles. The Eurosystem’s public stance on interchange fees is neutral. However, the Eurosystem takes a keen interest in facilitating a constructive dialogue among the...

The European Commission is working on a revision of its Guidelines on Research and Development Agreements. On this occasion, this note surveys the existing experimental evidence. Experiments add a number of additional arguments to the normative assessment. R&D agreements have a much smaller...

Colluding firms often exchange private information and make transfers within the cartels based on the information. Estimating the impact of such collusive practices" - known as the 'lysine strategy profile (LSP)" - on cartel duration is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias....

This paper shows that the correlation between the Net Promoter Score and consumers' Willingness To Pay in five European mobile markets is very strong. The Net Promoter Score is provided by a survey and the Willingness To Pay is calculated using the "Spokes Model" which is an economic model based...

We analyze horizontal mergers when the acquirer holds a passive partial ownership stake (PPO) in the target firm prior to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing...

This paper investigates the incentives to invest in improving the quality (as distinguished to investment in a new activity) in telecommunication industry using the empirical example of wireless markets. We highlight that investment incentives are positively related to the potential for...

We are concerned with economic analyses of markets from the perspective of supporting a decision maker selling in the market. The competitive pressure and the price formation are central issues. The goal of this paper is to highlight the remarkably different price patterns obtained from...

We examine research and development (R&D) policies when a national firm forms an R&D alliance with a foreign competitor. Firms differ in their R&D capabilities, and adopt a profit-sharing rule when R&D decisions are coordinated. National R&D tax/subsidy policies are set independently or...

We formally link insurance markets with product markets and identify a demand effect of insurance: if risk-averse consumers can buy insurance against possible product failure, there will be some additional consumers that buy the product because they can also purchase protection. The concomitant...