The standardization of partially substitutable components destined to meet a set of needs is studied. The monocriterion approach to standardization proposed in the last century is highlighted by taking into account several criteria and an economic valorization through modeling by linear...

Les normes techniques, élaborées par les principaux acteurs économiques, sont d'application facultative. Leur adoption par les entreprises s'explique par les garanties qu'elles fournissent. Le commerce intracommunautaire et, dans une moindre mesure, le commerce international sont régis par...

On s’intéresse à la standardisation de composants partiellement substituables destinés à satisfaire un ensemble de besoins. L’approche monocritère de la standardisation proposée au siècle dernier est enrichie par une prise en compte explicite de plusieurs critères et d’une...

Several formulations to the mixed-model assembly line have been proposed in the literature. Such a problem is concerned with the production of a variety of product models. Vehicles fall into that category. The underlying assumptions of those models are often restrictive, therefore limiting their...

In this paper we investigate evidence for the "skill bias" of organizational change (OC). These include the decentralization of authority, delayering of managerial functions and increased multi-tasking. We use several sources of panel data on British and French establishments. Three findings...

When will a monopolist have incentives to foreclose a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of his products with those of rivals? We develop a framework where leveraging extracts more rents from the monopoly market by 'restoring' second degree price discrimination. In...

In this paper we discuss some of the most important economic issues raised in European Commission vs. Microsoft (2004) concerning the market for work group servers. In our view, the most important economic issues relate to (a) foreclosure incentives and (b) innovation effects of the proposed...

This paper contains an empirical analysis demand for “work-group” (or low-end) servers. Servers are at the centre of many US and EU anti-trust debates, including the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger and investigations into the activities of Microsoft. One question in these policy decisions is...

In this paper we investigate the evolution of quality adjusted prices for servers motivated by two facts. First, the productivity acceleration in the US economy since the mid 1990s is closely linked to spread of information technology of which networked computing is a large component. Second,...