A change of legislation in 2004 of the Dutch Exceptional Medical Expenses Act (EMEA) allowed for more competition among suppliers of home care. The new law made it possible for the 32 regional healthcare purchasing agencies to contract suppliers selectively and to negotiate over prices and...

Starting with a 'greenfield' situation, we discuss reasons for market failure in road infrastructure provision. We show why it may not be optimal from a welfare perspective to leave road provision fully to the market and government intervention in this sector can improve welfare. Government...

The success or failure of reforms aimed at liberalising markets depends to an important degree on consumer behaviour. If consumers do not base their choices on differences in prices and quality, competition between firms may be weak and the benefits of liberalisation to consumers may be...

The current institutional reforms in the Dutch healthcare sector may increase the extent of vertical relations (such as vertical contracts and vertical integration) between insurers and healthcare providers. Vertical relations may have both welfare increasing and welfare reducing effects. In...

The paper focuses on the relationship between competition and quality in the Dutch hospital sector. We analyse the period of 2004-2008, in which a healthcare reform took place in the Netherlands, introducing competition in the healthcare sector. The increased attention to hospital quality and...

We examine vertical integration and exclusive vertical restraints in health-care markets where insurers and hospitals bilaterally bargain over contracts. We employ a bargaining model in a concentrated health-care market of two hospitals and two health insurers competing on premiums. Without...

This paper studies the knowledge spillovers generated by renewable-energy technologies, unraveling the technological fields that benefit from knowledge developed in storage, solar, wind, marine, hydropower, geothermal, waste and biomass energy technologies. A <a href="http://www.cpb.nl/en/publication/on-which-technologies-do-renewable-energy-innovations-build-on">CPB Background Document...

This paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change. First, we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change, explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in...

This study assesses the role of feed-in tariffs (FITs) and renewable energy certificates (RECs) in creating incentives for cross-border investments and for investments in particular technological portfolios via M&A. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="color: #000000;">The analysis explores the dataset on M&As in alternative energy sources...</span></span>

We explore whether a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) is likely to correct the market failures that have contributed to the financial crisis, to what extent FTT succeeds in raising revenues, and how the FTT compares to alternative taxes in terms of efficiency. We find little evidence that the...