The generalized assignment problem (GAP) examines the maximum profit assignment of jobs to processors such that each job is assigned to precisely one processor subject to capacity restrictions on the processors. Due to the fact that the GAP is an NP-hard integer program dual prices are not...

Angesichts der Vervielfachung der Verkehrsleistung und des Individualverkehrs sowie der damit verbundenen Städtebau- und Umweltprobleme kommt immer wieder der Vorschlag einer Korrektur des modal split zugunsten des ÖPNV auf, und zwar insbesondere bezüglich der Berufs- und Ausbildungsverkehre....

Der Zins-Pass-Through, also die Geschwindigkeit, mit der Geschäftsbanken einen Geldmarktimpuls an ihre Kunden weitergeben, ist aus zwei Gründen wirtschaftspolitisch relevant. Zum einen ist er eine wichtige Determinante für die Wirksamkeit der Geldpolitik, da er die erste Stufe der...

This paper uses a unique sample of 175 Spanish equity offerings from 1985 to 2002 to test who benefits from IPO underpricing and why. Institutions receive nearly 75% of the profits in underpriced issues, while they have to bear only 56% of the losses in overpriced offerings. Superior information...

This paper reports the results of an ad hoc survey on price-setting behaviour conducted in February 2004 among 2,000 Belgian firms. The reported results clearly deviate from a situation of perfect competition and show that firms have some market power. Pricing-to-market is applied by a majority...

In this paper we explore the link between the intensity of product market competition and inflation rates across EU countries and sectors. We consider long-term averages of inflation rates in order to remove the cyclical behavior of inflation over time and as alternative proxies of competition...

This paper explores the price-setting behavior of Austrian firms based on survey evidence. Our main result is that customer relationships are a major source of price stickiness in the Austrian economy. We also find that the majority of firms in our sample follows a timedependent pricing...

We study optimal pricing rules for a public large-value payment system (LVPS) that produces a public good (like prevention of systemic risk) but faces competition by a private LVPS for the private provision of large value payments. We show that the marginal cost of the public LVPS has to be...

In this paper we analyse the ability of time and state dependent price setting rules to explain durations of price spells or the probability of changing prices. Our results suggest that simple time dependent models cannot be seen as providing a reasonable approximation to the data and that state...

Price setting in German metal-working industries is analysed using a monthly panel of individual price data for more than 2,000 plants covering the period from 1980 to 2001. Motivated by several models in the literature, a duration model is estimated. Price changes can be explained by a...