The paper identifies and tries to account for the forms taken in selected art markets for the selling of paintings, as a response to specific features and constraints in the local regulatory environment. Our analytical historics cover 15"' century Bruges, 16th century Antwerp, 17"' century...

This paper analyses the incentives to upgrade input quality in vertically related (network) industries. Upstream investments have a biased effect on the downstream companies and lead to vertical product differentiation. Different vertical structures such as vertical integration, ownership and...

La loi de nouvelle organisation des marchés de l'électricité s'inscrit dans le prolongement du processus d'ouverture à la concurrence du secteur européen de l'énergie électrique engagé par les États membres de l'Union européenne en 1996. Cette nouvelle loi, qui modifie et complète...

The Commission was asked to evaluate current assistance arrangements to the TCF industries and provide policy options for post 2005 assistance and to report on a range of related matters that will affect the sector's long-term viability. The inquiry will also look at relevant workplace issues...

The United States represents the world’s largest market for pharmaceutical drugs. It is also the only advanced economy in the world that does not regulate drug prices. There is no upper threshold for the prices of medicines in the United States. List prices are instead set by manufacturers in...

The perspective of modern macroeconomic theory, be it new classical or old and new Keynesian, is that unemployment can be reduced only if real wages are cut. The modern Keynesians, basing themselves upon the microfoundations of efficiency wage theory, argue that real wages cannot and will not be...

It has been long recognized by members of both major political parties that federal regulatory burdens can operate as a hidden tax. President Donald Trump has echoed that view. In response, his administration has issued a “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” Memorandum to executive branch...

The paper proposes a new way of analysing the efficiency of dynamic market selection, based on the persistence of scale economies. The new methodology is used to investigate the causes of stagnating productivity growth in EU business services. The persistence of scale-related inefficiencies is...

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reforms that will help it to break away from three decades of slow growth and low productivity. Major structural measures have been legislated to improve competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure and the tax...