Banks continue to differ in many ways, for instance with respect to business models, growth strategies, or financial health. Neglecting these differences confuses inefficiency with heterogeneity while sub-sample estimation prohibits efficiency comparisons across different samples. We use a...

Korruption ist ein globales Phänomen, das vor allem für viele Entwicklungsländer als Wachstumsbremse wirkt. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie man mittels eines einfachen industrieökonomischen Modells die Wirkungsmechanismen der Korruption analysieren kann. Korruption hält Unternehmen vom Markteintritt...

This paper presents a duopoly model of e-business technology adoption. A leader and a follower benefit from a new ebusiness technology with uncertain quality depending on its innovation and adoption cost and both firms' adoption timing. When innovation and adoption require large set-up costs,...

Die Theorie des Wettbewerbs als Entdeckungsverfahren behauptet, daß die Ergebnisse des Wettbewerbes nicht vorhergesagt werden können, weil hierzu Tatsachen benötigt würden, die durch ihn erst entdeckt werden sollen. Dann wäre es allerdings unmöglich, Aussagen über Wettbewerb empirisch zu...

Substantial increases in retail concentration (particularly in Europe) raise concerns about the welfare implications for consumers. In a formal model, we argue that retailer market power reduces upstream firms incentives to introduce new products. On the basis of a survey of firms in German food...

What happens to demand if a magazine launches a website? This question is empirically analyzed for the German women?s magazine market, a particularly large segment of the German magazine where fierce competition is reigning. Models for differentiated product demand are estimated on panel data...

All countries are eager to attract as much foreign investments as possible. At the same time FDI may have not only positive, but also negative economic effects for receiving countries. Positive effects are associated with technology transfer, efficient allocation of resources, and training of...

The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

This paper studies the impact of process and product innovations introduced by firms on employment growth in these firms. A simple model that relates employment growth to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products is developed and estimated...

This paper studies ATM coalitions in retail banking. We ask when it is profitable for banks to make agreements which ban direct ATM transaction fees. In the case of a coalition banks loose income from ATM transactions but relax competition in the banking market. We find that such agreements are...