The present paper aims at explaining strike incidence, measured by the proportion of strikers observed in each sector, and strike severeness, proxied by a measure of mean strike hours lost per worker in each industry. We find that Industry concentration dissuades striking – more concentrated...

When a monopolist has discretion over the timing of infrastructure investments, regulation of post-investment prices interferes with incentivizing socially optimal investment timing. In a model of regulated lumpy investment under uncertainty, we study regulation when the regulator can condition...

Why do people choose bank deposit contracts over a direct participation in asset markets? In their seminal paper, Diamond and Dybvig (1983) answer this question by claiming that bank deposit contracts can implement allocations that are welfare superior to asset markets equilibria. The present...

The financial sector of emerging economies in Africa is characterized by a non-competitive banking sector which dominates any direct participation of agents in asset markets. Based on a variant of Diamond and Dybvig's (1983) model of financial intermediation, we formally explain both stylized...

In the paper we look at the bank lending routines of Swedish banks and their consequences for <p> external financing of start-ups. Results from a questionnaire sent out to start-ups listed in the files of the Swedish interest organization “NyföretagarCentrum” were used. We looked at firms...</p>

Corporate self-regulation is a crucial non-market strategy, and has generally been understood as a response to regulatory threats. However, self-regulation can also influence the nature of regulatory threats, especially when firms have private information about their costs of abatement. We study...

Are new versions of products necessarily better? We analyze product innovation by a firm that engages in research and development designed to improve an existing product, the outcome of which is uncertain. If the firm adopts the innovation its modified product appears to consumers as new and...

How do financial constraints influence innovative activities of firms? In a two-period model of price competition with differentiated products we first analyze the incentives to innovate when both firms are self-financed. We then assume that one of the firms is financially constrained and...

In this note I give a full characterization of all deterministic direct mechanisms in the public good provision problem with independent private values that are dominant strategy incentive compatible, ex-post individually rational, and ex-post budget balanced.

We consider a principal agent problem in a decentralized organization. The agent holds private information with respect to an uncertain demand within a single selling season. As such his task is to determine the optimal order quantity. Being head of a profit center, however, he naturally focuses...