Investment liberalizing countries are often concerned that cross-border mergers & acquisitions might have an adverse effect on domestic firms and benefit multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, given that domestic assets are sufficiently scarce, we identify a preemption effect and an asset...

This paper determines the equilibrium market structure in a mixed international oligopoly, where the state assets are sold at an auction. The model suggests that low greenfield costs and low trade costs induce foreign acquisitions. The intuition is that domestic firms can then not prevent...

Children who can count on support from altruistic parents may not try hard to succeed in the labor market. Moreover, parental altruism makes withdrawal of such support non-credible. To promote work effort, parents may want to instill norms which later cause their children to experience guilt or...

In intermediate goods markets, both buyers and sellers normally have market power, and sales are based on bilaterally negotiated contracts specifying both price and quantity. In our model, pairs of buyers and sellers meet in bilateral but interdependent Rubinstein-Ståhl negotiations. The...

This report studies the importance of efficiency gains from horizontal mergers. A general theme throughout this report is that efficiency gains, and their pass-on to consumers, may vary substantially from merger to merger. For this reason it seems appropriate to reconsider current practice in...

The poorest nations of the world suffer from extreme disease burdens, which go largely untreated because weak incomes and the prevailing system of intellectual property rights fail to provide sufficient incentives to develop new treatments and distribute them at low cost. Recent price reductions...

Standards and technical regulations which govern the admissibility of imported goods into an economy raise costs of exporters entering new markets, and may have a particularly high impact on firms seeking to export from developing countries. Yet standards may also have a positive side, such as...

Government firms and authorities often sell services in the free market via affiliated consulting firms (CFs). In this study, I analyze whether these agents have an unfair competitive edge compared to private CFs. The theoretical analysis shows that private and state-owned CFs operate under...

This paper deals with the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in firms. We outline a simple model of team production and provide preliminary results on linear incentive schemes in the presence of a social norm that may cause multiple equilibria. The effect of the social norm...

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are important in transmitting technology across national borders. Not only do they allow for transfer of technology within the firm, but it is also believed that they are important channels for international R&D spillovers as well. This paper analyzes empirically...