This paper discusses the general characteristics of online markets from a competition theory perspective and the implications for competition policy. Three important Internet markets are analyzed in more detail: search engines, online auction platforms, and social networks. Given the high level...

This paper provides an empirical analysis how tariff diversity affects fixed-line broadband uptake, utilizing a new data set with 1497 fixed-line and 2158 mobile broadband tariffs from 91 countries across the globe. An instrumental variable approach is applied to estimate demand, controlling for...

We analyze horizontal mergers when the acquirer holds a passive partial ownership stake (PPO) in the target firm prior to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing...

This paper analyzes the effect of inter urban buses competing on a few routes against trains within an established railway network. In line with expectations, we show that this can lead to unprofitable train service on these routes. However, within an established railway network with every track...

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro data on internal migrants from the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000 - 2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances...

In recent years Open Innovation (OI) processes have been receiving growing attention from the empirical and theoretical economic literature, where a debate is taking place on the aspects of complementarity or substitutability between internal R&D and OI spillover. By means of a differential game...

This paper analyzes a contest in which defenders move first, have private information about the value of the objects they are trying to protect, and determine the observability of their defense efforts. The equilibrium consistent with the intuitive criterion depends on the distribution of...