In an effort to stimulate a more exciting and entertaining style of play, the National Hockey Association (NHL) changed the rewards associated with the results of overtime games. Under the new rules, teams tied at the end of regulation both receive a single point regardless of the outcome in...

Many contributions to the literature on competition in banking use the Panzar and Rosse test (1987). This test encompasses a variety of market outcomes assuming firms maximize profits. However, when applied to the banking industry, this assumption may not be always valid as banks sometimes may...

This paper analyses the detfirminants of household firms?participation in land rental markets in transition countries and what affects their access to land through rental markets. We derive several theoretical hypotheses on the impact of households?management ability, land endowment, land...

We develop a model of policy communication by aid agencies, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations and we show how the need for fundraising affects the policy communication strategy of these organizations. To attract more funds, organizations may bias their communication. The bias depends on...

Economists most often analyse the effects of protectionist or antidumping policies in the context of tariffs or voluntary export restraints - the latter are very similar to quotas in fact. Antidumping policies in the European Union however make frequent use of price undertakings. Whereas the...

In today's increasingly competitive business environment, many firms in declining industries have been confronted with the need to restructure. However, lobbies in these industries have often managed to attract government subsidies instead. The current paper looks at the decision of loss-making...

In this paper we analyse the effects of soft budget constraints in an international context. Firstly, we show that soft budget constraints in an exporting country lead to higher levels of trade protection in the recipient country. Secondly, the model predicts that protectionist trade policy...

This paper presents a political economy model of public standards in an open economy model. We use the model to derive the political optimum and to analyze different factors that have an influence on this political equilibrium. The paper discusses how the level of development influences the...