This study was prepared by Annika B. Bergbauer while she was working at the Ifo Center for the Economics of Education. It was completed in March 2019 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in July 2019. It consists of four self-contained...

Insurance products are distributed both by independent and dependent agents, although the use of independent agents is more costly. The product quality hypothesis states that independent agents provide both insurers and customers with higher service quality and therefore, remain on the market....

Until its liberalisation in 1994 exclusive agents dominated the distribution of products in the German life insurance industry. Since then, their importance has been declining for the benefit of both distribution via direct distribution channel and independent agents. However, the market shares...

The present paper examines one of the central elements of evolutionary thinking - competition formalized by the replicator dynamics mechanism. Using data on product characteristics of automobiles sold on the German domestic market over the period 2001-2006, we construct a competitiveness or...

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of demand in the German automobile industry. Our primary goal is to refine the existing literature on that topic by exploring the impact of uniqueness seeking behaviour of individuals on the demand schedule. Using a dataset on the segment of...

This paper investigates the impact of four key economic variables on an expert firm’s incentive to defraud its customers in a credence goods market: the level of competition, the expert firm’s financial situation, its competence, and its reputational concerns. We use and complement the...

A wide range of media provide information on many products based on reviews or expert opinions. A natural question is, whether these reviews and expert opinions have any effect on sales. A small but growing literature in economics and marketing science deals with this issue, by testing the...

Der aktuelle Rechtsstreit zwischen Ritter Sport und der Stiftung Warentest beschädigt beide Parteien. Verliert das Testsiegel an Glaubwürdigkeit, wird es für Produzenten qualitativ hochwertiger Waren schwieriger, ihren Reservationspreis durchzusetzen. Das kann langfristig zu einer...