This chapter reviews the literature which has developed around the ‘bounds approach’ to market structure over the past fifteen years. The focus of this literature lies in explaining cross-industry differences in concentration, and in the size distribution of firms. One of the main ideas...

Switching costs are a leading cause of customer lock-in in banking, reducing the extent of competition and increasing market power in this industry. This paper tries to estimate these costs using a methodology that does not require customer microdata. The estimates obtained here-using bank...

Sind die steigenden Benzinpreise ein Zeichen mangelnden Wettbewerbs auf den Öl- und Kraftstoffmärkten? Was kann die Einrichtung einer »Markttransparenzstelle« beim Bundeskartellamt bewirken? Für Justus Haucap, Universität Düsseldorf und Vorsitzender der Monopolkommission, sollten...