We experimentally examine the effects of price competition in markets for expe-rience goods where sellers can build up reputations for quality. We compare price competition to monopolistic markets and markets where prices are exogenously fixed (somewhere between the endogenous oligopoly and...

This paper uses a unique panel data set of an insurer's transactions with repeat customers. Consistent with the asymmetric learning hypothesis that repeated contracting enables sellers to obtain an informational advantage over their rivals, I find that the insurer makes higher profits in...

This paper employs the Panzar and Rosse (1987) and the Bresnahan models to determine the level of competition in the South African banking sector. This level of competition was tested during the period 1998 to 2008 for the Panzar and Rosse approach and from 1992 to 2008 for the Bresnahan model....

Public Duties in Islam is the English translation of Ibn Taymiyah’s al-Hisba fi'l Islam by Muhtar Holland. It is a useful addition to Islamic economic literature in English language. Notwithstanding a few small errors, the translation reads well and the notes are excellent. This book is a good...

The internet has facilitated the creation of new markets characterized by large scale, increased customization, rapid innovation and the collection and use of detailed consumer and market data. I describe these changes and some of the economic theory that has been useful for thinking about...

We reconsider the problem of cartel stability in a linear symmetric Cournot oligopoly by assuming that every coalition of firms defecting from a cartel can choose its quantity before the remaining firms. We show that differently from Salant et al. (1983) the only profitable cartel includes all...

What is the best way to reward innovation? While prizes avoid deadweight loss, intellectual property selects high social surplus projects. Optimal innovation policy thus trades off the ex-ante screening benefit and the ex-post distortion. It solves a multidimensional screening problem in the...

This paper evaluates the impact on the Italian electricity market of replacing the current explicit auction mechanism with market coupling. Maximizing the use of the cross-border interconnection capacity, market coupling increases the level of market integration and facilitates the access to...

The paper aims to show the uneven process of integration of Polish manufacturing into the Single Market due to differentiational changes in competitiveness across industries (third digit level of NACE Rev. 1.1 classification) in 1996-2001. It starts with a discussion on the nature and...