We propose a computational model to study (the evolution of) post-secondary education. “Consumers” who differ in quality shop around for desirable colleges or universities. “Firms” that differ in quality signal the availability of their services to desirable students. As long as they...

I compare certification and self-regulation, two widely used quality assurance mechanisms in markets where consumers do not observe the quality of goods. Certification is a mechanism in which an external firm offers a certificate to producers who undergo a testing procedure, issues the...

In the classical literature on vertical differentiation, goods are assumed to be single products each offered by a different firm and consumed separately one from another. This paper departs from the standard setup and explores the price competition in a vertically differentiated market where a...

We study price discrimination in a monopolistic software market. The monopolist charges different prices for the upgrade version and for the full version. Consumers are heterogeneous in taste for infinitely durable software and there is no resale. We show that price discrimination leads to a...

In this paper we analyze the evolution of firm efficiency in the Czech Republic. Using a large panel of more than 190,000 Czech firm/years we study whether firms fully utilize their resources, how firm efficiency evolves over time, and how firm efficiency is determined by ownership structure. We...

We compare the social welfare generated by a domestic government in the two types of policy setups: a "commitment" regime in which the government sets its policy instrument before the strategic choice is made by the domestic firm and a "non-commitment" regime where the policy variable is set...

I model knowledge (patent) licensing and evaluate intellectual property regulation in an endogenous growth framework where the engine of growth is in-house R&D performed by high-tech firms. I show that high-tech firms innovate more and economic growth is higher when there is knowledge licensing,...

We introduce an intra-industry setup in order to reconsider the consequences of government (in)ability to precommit to its policies when it is constrained to only one policy instrument (second-best policies). This setup nests the standard frameworks of strategic trade policy — the...

The paper applies the evolutionary concept to an analysis of the role of intellectual property rights protection in the model of two countries North and South (and two firms) where only the Northern firm conducts innovative activity. The concept of social evolution and learning in oligopolistic...