The degree of collusiveness of a market with consumer switching costs is studied in an infinite-horizon overlapping-generations model of duopolistic competition. In contrast to previous models of switching costs, this paper assumes that firms compete for the demand for a homogeneous good by...

In the course of ordinary business, commercial banks frequently encounter entrepreneurs seeking loans for the purpose of financing new or continuing projects. These entrepreneurs are frequently unrealistic, their perception having been biased by wishful thinking. Bankers are left with a...

This paper attempts to give a meaning to the empty concept of subsidiarity. It examines various kinds of government activity with respect to the optimal layer of government in Europe at which these activities should be performed. The paper criticizes Europe's industrial policies and its...

European competition laws condemn as ‘exploitative abuses’ the pricing policies of dominant firms that may result in a direct loss of consumer welfare. Article 82(a) of the EC Treaty, for example, expressly states that imposing ‘unfair’ prices on consumers by dominant suppliers...

RAND commitments - i.e., promises to license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms - play a key role in standard setting processes. However, the usefulness of those commitments has recently been questioned. The problem allegedly lies in the absence of a generally agreed test to determine...

When banks have an informational monopoly about their borrowers, the latter incentives can be thwarted by the fear that the return on their effort will be partly appropriated by their banks via high future interest rates. Banks can correct this incentive problem through a commitment to share...

We explore potential methods for assessing whether licensing terms for intellectual property declared essential within a standard setting organization can be considered fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND). We first consider extending Georgia-Pacific to a standard setting context. We...

A few recent contributions have claimed that in high-tech industries—where innovation is often cumulative and products include many components which are protected by patents in the hands of many different patent holders—the cost of obtaining all necessary licenses is too high. Some have even...

In this paper we show that the delegation of monetary policy to an independent and more conservative central banker is an optimal policy in an international context with monetary spillovers between countries, even in the absence of time inconsistency (credibility) issues. We also study the...

In this paper we develop a fully game-theoretic version of the right-to-manage model of firm-level bargaining where strategic interactions among firms are explicitly recognized. Our main aim is to investigate how equilibrium wages and employment react to changes in the labour and product...