This paper develops a simple model, which shows how economic fluctuations can stimulate growth. It is shown that firms tend to invest more in productivity growth during recessions, since the opportunity cost (in terms of forgone profits) of investing capital or labour resources in technological...

This study discusses the nature of adjustment costs, which underpin the dynamic theory of input demand. We examine the implications of the conventional assumption that they are quadratic-symmetric. A recent rapidly-growing literature based on microeconomic data shows that this assumption is...

We study the enforcement of competition policy against collusion under Leniency Programs, which give reduced fines to firms revealing information to the Antitrust Authority. Such programs give firms an incentive to break collusion, but may also have a pro-collusive effect, since they decrease...

We construct a price-theoretic model of firms' integration decisions under perfect competition and study their interplay with consumer demand and welfare. Integration is costly to implement but is effective at coordinating production decisions. The price of output influences the ownership...

In this article, we estimate the structure of costs of hiring, terminating, and retiring employees in France using a representative sample of French establishments. The estimates are estimated using a panel data set for two years (1992 and 1996) that matches two sources: the Wage Structure...

We embed signaling in the classical Cournot model in which several firms sell a homogeneous good. The quality is known to all the firms, but only to some buyers. The quantity-setting firms can manipulate the price to signal quality. Because there is only one price in a market for a...

Intermediaries and wholesalers play an important role in international trade. This paper develops a model of international trade with heterogeneous firms that offers an explanation of the existence of wholesalers. All exporting firms have to pay a fixed cost of establishing a distribution...

When a multi-plant firm must close one unit due to declining demand it can choose between two alternatives. On the one hand, the firm can announce a certain span of time in which the plants are evaluated according to relative performance with the least performing plant being shut down in the end...

The regulation on prescribing and dispensing of antibiotics has a double purpose: to enhance access to antibiotic treatment and to reduce the inappropriate use of drugs. Nevertheless, incentives to dispensing physicians may lead to inefficiencies. We sketch a theoretical model of the market for...

A firm's decision to employ agency workers may be perceived as a replace- ment of directly employed workers or as way to curb union power, which trade unions would oppose. Alternatively, trade unions may encourage the (tem- porary) employment of agency workers in a firm, if they manage to...