A pervasive trend that characterised the past two decades of European economic growth is that the share in the economy of commercial services, and particularly business services, grows monotonically, and this mainly to the expensive of the manufacturing sector. The structural shift reflects a...

This memorandum surveys the empirical literature about the effects and determinants of clusters. It finds that clusters generally lead to more innovations, knowledge spillovers, faster diffusion of technologies and knowledge, and competitive advantages. The presence of a skilled labour force...

This study analyzes under which circumstances it may be desirable for the government to stimulate open source software as a response to market failures in software markets. To consider whether policy intervention can increase dynamic efficiency, we discuss the differences between proprietary...

The 1999 Dutch Notary Act has initiated an ambitious deregulation process in the market for notary services in the Netherlands. We evaluate the impact of this liberalisation policy on (i) the level of competition in the profession and (ii) the quality of services. We compare the level of...

The paper empirically investigates whether a lack of competition determines the poor productivity performance of the European business services. It uses detailed panel data for 13 EU countries over the period 2000-2005. We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate the productivity...

This study presents recently available data on the microstructure of Dutch exports and the relation between export participation and productivity at the firrm and establishment-level. We test whether recent theories of international trade with heterogeneous firms can explain the patterns in the...

This paper is the first that applies a recently introduced measure of competition, the Boone indicator, to the banking industry. This approach is able to measure competition of bank market segments, such as the loan market, whereas many well-known measures of competition can consider the entire...

International trade in services is hampered by non-tariff barriers that originate from national regulations. Not only the level of regulation in home or export country matters, but also the inter-country differences in regulation for service markets. Regulatory measures tend to affect fixed...

In 2001 the European Commission proposed the introduction of a European system of trading in greenhouse gases. This proposal is currently subject to fierce debates. Opponents to the proposal of the Commission do not question the efficiency effects of emissions trading in general. The economic...

The Dutch retail trade demonstrated a relatively meagre performance in terms of productivity (growth) during the 1990s, especially seen from an international perspective. This study analyses the productivity performance of the Dutch retail trade in more detail, and focuses on competition and...