Banks continue to differ in many ways, for instance with respect to business models, growth strategies, or financial health. Neglecting these differences confuses inefficiency with heterogeneity while sub-sample estimation prohibits efficiency comparisons across different samples. We use a...

Tourism has long been important part of the economy. Specifically, it serves as a kind of resource that performs a significant role in national economies. With the rise of globalization, cross-border tourism has grown and induced intense competition among counties. The present paper highlights...

What is the impact of the removal of barriers to trade on the firms' innovative activities? Does the increase in competition arising from trade reforms lead to increases in innovation? This paper attempts to examine the link between trade liberalization and innovation using firm panel data on...

The main purpose of this survey paper is to consider the attempts that have been ,ade to apply economic theory snd empirical methods to the analysis of electricity markets, and to evaluate them in light of theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. We describe the key features of the...

This paper is the first that applies a new measure of competition, the Boone indicator, to the banking industry. This approach is able to measure competition of bank market segments, such as the loan market, whereas many well-known measures of competition can consider the entire banking market...

Since the early 2000s, there has been rapid growth in the number and spread of supermarkets in southern Africa. This paper is a synthesis of key findings of studies undertaken in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe on the expansion of supermarkets and the impact this has had on...

Efficient transport links are critical to enhancing the integration of markets in Southern Africa. This paper assesses the structure of markets, competition, and prices and costs of road transportation between urban hubs in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Key findings are...

Rapid urbanization and rising income levels in Southern Africa have increased the consumption of perishable and processed food products. This paper relies primarily on firm-level interview data to assess competition and bottlenecks in transporting time-sensitive perishable products across...

The positive impact that competition has on performance in most industries has been questioned in the education sector. The difficulty to measure competition, the idea that parents don't rationally choose schools for their children, and that schools do not react to that choice is in the center...

There are high economic expectations concerning the emergence of Big Data: a promised golden age for both consumers and firms. Digital technology allows firms to provide digital services in exchange of personal data, from which they can finetune their supply to better match market demand. By...