It is an empirically established fact that managers use cost based percentage margins when they price their goods. As a consequence, percentage mark-ups should be determined as equilibrium choices. This paper incorporates this empirical observation into the analysis of competition among...

The paper surveys theories of the intertemporal allocation of funds through demand deposits and anonymous markets, first separately and then in an integrated model. It reviews some work on the role of market frictions and asset characteristics, and suggests that the interplay between these two...

Intra-subsaharan African trade appears to be very low, an outcome that is often attributed to the size of the exporting and the importing economies. If that were the explanation, there would be no untapped trade potential. We argue instead that the main determinants of this "missing trade" are...

This model adds to the standard neoclassical model of business fluctuations by introducing a more realistic capital structure problem, where firms have to balance the tax benefits of debt with the costs of potential financial distress.Therefore, firms solve a dynamic problem with both an...

The paper studies property insurance in Britain. It emphasises the following points. In the case of terrorism insurance the government decided to provide cost free stop loss insurance, to prevent the market from breaking down. When the country was hit by subsidence damages, the premiums and...

Early retirement is predominantly considered as the result of incentives set by social security and the tax system. But people seem to retire early even in the absence of such distortions as the Swiss example demonstrates. We look for determinants of early retirement, in particular the role of...