Despite a long debate over the methods regulators can use to treat deferred income taxes from accelerated depreciation, there appears to be no formal analysis of the conditions under which customers and investors will prefer each method and under which a transition among the methods will leave...

This article reports the results of experiments analyzing the Walrasian tâtonnement mechanism. The tâtonnement mechanism has the following characteristics: there is only one price at any time; there is an information mechanism notifying all traders of the price; there is a mechanism for...

The article analyzes a model of a regulated firm that is better informed about its cost function than is the regulator. By auditing at a cost, however, the regulator is assumed to be able to observe the realized cost of the firm. If the regulator "finds" that the firm had misrepresented its...

This article develops and tests a model of integration of a marketing function, personal selling. The model, derived from transaction cost analysis as developed principally by Williamson, is formulated as a logistic function, which is estimated with data from the electronic components industry....

Under the OCS Lands Act, firms are strictly liable for damages from oil spills. To the extent that this liability rule causes firms to internalize environmental risks, incentives for damage avoidance behavior are provided. Using data from the 1979 Georges Bank lease sale, we use a robust...

A model of parties' litigation and settlement decisions under imperfect information is studied. The model shows how informational asymmetry influences parties' decisions, and how it might lead to parties' failure to settle. The model is used to identify how the likelihood of settlement and the...

Using data on the adoption of automatic teller machines by firms in the banking industry, this study examines the relationship between the decision to adopt new technology and its determinants. Since banking firms differ considerably in terms of the competitive environments in which they...

Vertical restraints imposed by manufacturers on the prices, locations, and sales of retail firms represent a puzzling departure from the simple price-mediated exchange of conventional markets. In this article we analyze the theoretical basis for these restraints. In a setting where retailers...

Prior knowledge of certain public information events can lead to abnormal returns on securities. Insiders generally have access to information before the public. Several studies have shown that abnormal returns are earned by portfolios which are constructed on the basis of the trading behavior...

This article develops a model of industrial structure and product variety when tastes are diffuse and when a firm must incur a fixed cost and design a product before producing. Pricing and output decisions occur subsequently. While standard Cournot-Nash and Bertrand-Nash equilibrium concepts...