Summary The premium rates paid for statutory health insurance in Germany play a key role in the competition among health care funds. With the most recent health care reform (GKV-Wettbewerbsstärkungsgesetz GKV-WSG), a range of new products have been introduced that could erode the advantageous...

Summary This paper focuses on fraud detection in surveys using Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data as an example for testing newly methods proposed here. A statistical theorem referred to as Benford’s Law states that in many sets of numerical data, the significant digits are not uniformly...

Summary Immigrant-native wage differentials are observed in many countries, so in Germany. However, the available empirical literature for Germany defined the groups in consideration, immigrants and natives, by citizenship. This limits the explanatory power of the estimates since citizenship...

Abstract A monopolist who originally charges a uniform price across all markets may switch to discriminatory pricing upon the entry of a competitor. As a result, intensified competition may lead to more dispersed prices as well as higher prices for some or all consumers.

Summary In all health care systems exists governmental regulation, as the market for health is unanimously regarded as imperfect. The German health care market is a good example for a strongly regulated market in nearly each submarket, partially the determination of prices. Reimbursement of...

Summary The paper addresses entry barriers for a new technology - hydrogen powered cars or cars with fuel cell engines - if the network of its filling stations is missing. We use Hotelling’s model of product differentiation to characterize a situation where an incumbent firm produces the old...

Abstract We analyze the impact on consumer prices of some information characteristics of price-comparison search platforms. An equilibrium model where vendors compete in prices and consumers do not observe prices, but can obtain price information through a search platform, is developed. The...

Abstract The existing theoretical literature on mass customization maintains that customization reduces product differentiation and intensifies price competition. In contrast, operations management studies argue that customization serves primarily to differentiate a company from its competitors....

The main purpose of generic advertising is to enlarge the total market demand rather than capturing further slices from competitors. Several studies point out emergence of free-riding behavior under independent contribution and suggest use of coordination mechanism. However, existing literature...

Purpose – This research aims to examine the role of national culture dimensions in the nature of tier competition between high-tier brands and low-tier brands. Design/methodology/approach – It starts with a conceptual framework based on prospect theory to explain the asymmetric inter-tier...