The paper examines the economic and regulatory factors that led to an explosion in the wholesale power prices, supply shortages, and utility insolvencies in California’s electricity sector. A necessary first step in determining the lessons learned from the California electricity crisis is a...

This paper examines the justifications, history, and practice of regulation in the US telecommunications sector. We examine the impact of technological and regulatory change on market structure and business strategy. Among others, we discuss the emergence and decline of the telecom bubble, the...

Participants in a market, buyers and sellers, may need the service of an intermediary who will put them into contact and give them information about their potential trading partner. The intermediary chooses what price it will charge to each side to have access to its service. It also chooses...

We examine the effects of market structure and the internal organization of firms on equilibrium R&D projects. We compare a monopolist's choice of R&D portfolio to that of a welfare maximizer. We next show that Sah and Stiglitz's finding that the market portfolio of R&D is independent of the...

In this paper, we explore the effects of localised externalities introduced through interaction structures upon the properties of the simplest market model: the discrete choice model with a single homogeneous product and a single seller (the monopoly case). The resulting market is viewed as a...

This paper aims at analysing, both theoretically and empirically, possible determinants of firm's demand of occupations. Even if traditionally neglected within economics literature, this issue can, in fact, be very useful for Economics, as this paper tries to shows. The theoretical analysis...

We discuss the formation of technical standards platforms in industries with network externalities where firms are free to choose their degree of technical compatibility with competitors. In our model, firms choose affiliation to a technical standards coalition in the first stage of a game, and...

Recent studies have focussed on the characteristics and policies of the state to explain the extent and causes of corruption, with little attention paid to the role played by firms. Consequently, the links between corporate governance and national governance have been unexplored. This paper...

This paper studies the relationship between NSF funding and the publications of US economists using data on 1473 applications to NSF during 1985-1990, 414 of which were awarded a research grant. We first outline a basic methodology for assessing the impact of the NSF support for basic research...

Economic growth continues to be a major objective of state governments in Mexico. What role do firm location, openness, education, and wage rates play in determining the ability of a state to increase the growth of its economy? This study examines the economic competitiveness of the Mexican...