Does competition spur productivity? And if so, how does it accomplish this? These have long been regarded as central questions in economics. This article reviews the literature that makes progress toward answering both questions.

Edgeworth price cycles refer to an asymmetric pattern of prices that result from a dynamic pricing equilibrium among competing oligopolists. The resulting time series takes on a sawtooth shape – many small price decreases interrupted only by occasional large price increases. Maskin and Tirole...

The purpose of this paper is to model competition in freight transport and to work out the role of the government in providing infrastructure for the competitors. Freight transport could in principle be provided by the firm itself by using firm-owned trucks or transportation services could be...

We analyze the expected effects of building a rail tunnel between Lyon and Turin on i) the market shares of the established and the new suppliers, and ii) consumer surplus. The prospective project consists of a 53km rail tunnel providing freight shippers with a new alpine path. We calibrate an...

Networks, mergers and economies of scale, three aspects of the same strategy, which concerns the thrust towards oligopolistic concentration by Liner Shipping Companies engaged in the maritime container transport. Correlated with this process, attention has focused on evolution in transport...

This paper explores the access charge for the use of the Italian rail infrastructure. Access problems arise when the provision of a complete service to end users requires the combination of two or more inputs, one of which is non-competitive (OECD, 2004). It is a well-known fact that excessive...

The objective of the paper is to elaborate a simulation model to analyze inter- and intra-modal competition in the transport industry, based on game theory models. In our setting, consumers choose a transport mode and an operator to travel on a given city-pair; operators strategically decide on...

This paper analyzes the impact of the high-speed train (HST) roll-out on air carriers' route network decisions in China. Using unique hand-collected data on the timing of the HST roll-out and airline networks, we estimate a dynamic oligopoly model of air-route entry and exit that accounts for...

The research focuses on the different organization structures of the public transport authorities in Europe and in Italy. It provides evidences of the effects that the different models may have on the competition among operators within the tendering procedures

Since the publication by Williamson (1968) of his seminal paper on antitrust there has been a growing recognition by regulators of the need to assess tradeoffs between merger-related efficiency gains and merger-induced increases in market power. This paper addresses that need by presenting a...