The economic analysis of trade-secret protection has traditionally focused on the interests of companies to conceal information from competitors in order to gain competitive advantage through trade-secret law. This has neglected cases in which the interest is not in concealing information from...

The determinants of incentive regulation are a key issue in industrial policy. I study an asymmetric information model of incentive rules selection by a political principal endowed with an information-gathering technology whose efficiency increases with the effort exerted by two accountable...

Obwohl heute ein weitgehender Konsens darüber vorliegt, dass der Qualitätssicherung bei Humandienstleistungen ein ganz besonderer Stellenwert zukommt, fehlt eine systematische Auseinandersetzung mit den Gründen und Möglichkeiten einer solchen Qualitätssicherung. Am Beispiel der Bildung,...

The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

The paper deals with impulsive consumption and highlights the roles that cognitive and motivational aspects of reflexive thought (namely self-control and self-image motives, respectively) play in intertemporal decisions. While self-control inhibits individuals from consuming impulsively,...

The expansion of communications infrastructure worldwide entails huge investments and in the European Union alone these will undoubtedly exceed EUR 200 bn by 2020. But the commercial success of the politically desired expansion of high-performance broadband networks in a competitive market...

This paper is the second of two parts of a general theory of regulation. An effective regulatory system, whether created by a public legislative body or by private charter, must be coherent if it is to be successful. Coherence is a ‘property’ of well-designed regulatory systems. We suggest...

The law often limits the liability of an intermediary for the speech it carries. And rightly so, because imposing liability on intermediaries can induce them to filter out questionable content and this “collateral censorship” risks suppressing much lawful, even highly beneficial, speech. The...

Under Sec. 3(8) and 4(5) of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, liability is allocated to the common carrier for damages to cargo valued less than 500, and the carrier may not reallocate any of this liability to the cargo owner. The paper analyzes the economic effect of the regime, and shows that...

I introduce and analyze an equilibrium model of discovery, innovation, patenting and infringement. Firms that innovate must adapt complementary inputs, and are ex ante uncertain about whether adaptations will be costly and whether they will infringe other patents. If adaptation requires...