Policy makers are increasingly concerned about the combination of market power and massive data collection in digital markets. This concern is fueled by the theoretical prediction that more market power causes firms to collect ever more data from their users. We investigate the relationship...

We uniquely examine the relationship between firm-sponsored training and product quality competition. Using an oligopolistic model of both price and quality competition, we show that an increase in the sensitivity of demand to product quality will strengthen firms’ incentives to train their...

The theory of voluntary disclosure of information posits that market forces lead senders to disclose information through a process of unravelling. This prediction requires that receivers hold correct beliefs and, in equilibrium, make adverse inferences about non-disclosed information. Previous...

We analyze firms' incentives to disclose deficiencies of their goods when consumers lack information. We distinguish two types of information: First, only some consumers are aware of the existence of deficiencies, which reduce the quality of the goods. Second, only some consumers have the...

This paper investigates the relationship between the diffusion of EU standards and product quality upgrading using highly disaggregated import data to the EU in the food industry. Results show that, on average, the diffusion of EU voluntary standards boosts the rate of quality upgrading. However...

We show that increasing the intensity of product market competition can reduce discrimination against female managers, even in an environment in which all employers have a preference for discrimination. The reason is that due to the glass ceiling effect, female managers will, on average, be more...

This paper surveys the recent literature devoted to the analysis of the interactions between the adoption of voluntary or negotiated agreements as a tool of environmental policy and market structure. The goal of this survey is twofold. On the one hand, we would like to identify the market...

This paper investigates the market structure of Arab GCC banking industry during the years of 1993 to 2002 using the most frequently applied measures of concentration kbank concentration ratio (CRk) and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and evaluates the monopoly power of banks over the ten years...

We provide an evaluation of the impact of public subsidy schemes that aimed to support the development of basic broadband infrastructure in rural areas of Germany. Such subsidies are subject to state aid control by the European Commission (EC). While the EC increasingly recognises the role of...

Monetary policy aims at affecting corporate borrowing by influencing the marginal costs of firms, but its potency can be conditioned by the degree of market competition. We first identify conditions under which changes in marginal costs may have different effects on credit constraints and output...