A fully unbundled, regulated network firm of unknown efficiency level can untertake unobservable effort to increase the likelihood of low downstream prices, e.g. by facilitating downstream competition. To incentivize such effort, the regulator can use an incentive scheme paying transfers to the...

We analyze shareholders' incentives to change the leverage of a firm that has already borrowed substantially. As a result of debt overhang, shareholders have incentives to resist reductions in leverage that make the remaining debt safer. This resistance is present even without any government...

Institutional barriers to entry were removed to a considerable extent in 1996 in the Dutch retail sector. Three years before that the regulator decided to not take legal actions anymore against entrants violating institutional requirements. In the current analysis we investigate the effects of...

This paper investigates barriers to effective knowledge spillovers for markets in which the product can be characterized as a credence good, i.e. its complexity impedes the evaluation of quality by customers both ex-ante and ex-post. We focus on the German market for energy efficiency...

We develop a simple model of banking regulation with two policy instruments: minimum capital requirements and supervision of domestic banks. The regulator faces a trade-off: high capital requirements cause a drop in the banks' profitability, while strict supervision reduces the scope of...

We develop a simple model of banking regulation with two policy instruments: minimum capital requirements and supervision of domestic banks. The regulator faces a trade-off: high capital requirements cause a drop in the banks'; profitability, while strict supervision reduces the scope of...

This paper analyzes the incentives to invest in Next Generation Access Networks (NGA) in a framework with horizontal product differentiation with price competition between an investing and an access seeking firm. Given uncertainty about the success of the NGA, I compare regulatory regimes with...

Can regulation solve problems arising from a natural monopoly? This paper analyzes whether "unbundling", referring to regulations that enforce sharing of natural monopolistic infrastructure, prevents entrants from building new infrastructure. It models and estimates a dynamic entry game to...

Small businesses shoulder significant costs in order to comply with the maze of government regulation that impacts commerce. The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) was designed to alleviate that burden by making regulators more accountable in their enforcement of agency mandates. The RFA just...

Why do good bankers at times respond unanimously with the same disastrous strategy? Rooted in regulatory economics and behavioural finance, the paper offers a taxonomy of effects that narrow banks decision scope into funnel-shaped and thus prepared the ground for the financial crisis. The basic...