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 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 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,...

Most contracts that individuals enter into are not written from scratch; rather, they depend upon forms and terms that have been successful in the past. In this paper, we study the structure of form construction contracts published by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). We show that...

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,...

I show that an advertising ban is more likely to increase — rather than decrease — total consumption when advertising does not bring about a large expansion of market demand at given prices and when it increases product differentiation (thus allowing firms to command higher prices). In this...

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 "revolving door" phenomenon has become very common in most industrialised countries, and is leading to conflicts of interest as well as economic distortions. The purpose of this paper is to develop an indicator of the distortionary effects of the revolving door - The Revolving Door Indicator...