Although economic theory suggests that market size and fuel costs affect fuel-saving technology adoption by vehicle manufacturers, there is very little empirical evidence. We document a strong connection between market size, as measured by a vehicle's sales, and technology adoption. Using a...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between dirty (internal combustion engine) and clean (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that firms...

This paper studies the introduction of new products (increase in product variety) in the automobile industry. The focus is on the two sources of market power that may allow the firms to get higher profits (and, thus, recoup investments): new products and brand-name reputation. The effects of new...

We study the impact of fuel taxes and kilometer taxes on households' choices of vehicle quality, on their demand for kilometers driven, and on fuel consumption. Moreover, embedding this information in a model of the car market, we analyze the implications of these taxes for the opportunity costs...

In the German automobile industry the vertical integration, as an indicator of value added, is on average low. Beyond the argument of relative high labour costs for manufacturing, several specific reasons for the level of vertical integration, linked to the flexibility of business administration...

This paper considers the trade-off between leveraging external sources of innovation by outsourcing design and engineering activities and the ability to develop internal product development competences. The trade-off arises because the division of labor within and across firms' boundaries has a...

Clarke & Wright algorithm is a well-known algorithm for Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). Using this algorithm one can find the best possible route for fleet allocation and movement by calculating distances from the home position to all points; distances between points; and then calculating the...

This paper examines the various arguments that have been put forth in favor of protectionism, from both an accounting and philosophical perspective. The author concludes that arguments against free trade are based on faulty premises, illogical reasoning or incorrect facts

Both the theory and practice of using hedonic regressions to remove quality effects in price indexes are implicitly developed for monopolistic competitive markets. In this paper, we theoretically and practically analyse the application of a standard hedonic regression for an oligopoly. In the...

Both the theory and practice of using hedonic regressions to quality adjust inflation estimates are implicitly developed for monopolistic competitive markets. We demonstrate conditions required for consistent OLS estimation of hedonic regression for an oligopoly. To reflect firm heterogeneity,...