some factors grant innovators with a temporary monopoly. Patenting is the most cited factor in the economic literature. This survey concentrates on another factor that confers innovators with firstmover advantage over their competitors, namely consumer switching costs, whereby a consumer makes...

We propose a search-matching model of the marriage market that extends Shimer and Smith (2000) to allow for labor supply. We characterize the steady-state equilibrium when exogenous divorce is the only source of risk. The estimated matching probabilities that can be derived from the steady-state...

We study the problem of an inventor who brings to the market an innovation that can be legally copied. Imitators may `enter' the market by copying the innovation at a cost or by buying from the inventor the knowledge necessary to reproduce and use the invention. The possibility of contracting...

In this note it is shown that the index coefficients and location parameters in the standard triangular binary-choice model are identifed under an assumption of symmetry on the joint density of the latent disturbances. Identifcation of average effects follows. The implied restrictions suggest...

Postel-Vinay and Robin’s (2002) sequential auction model is extended to allow for aggregate productivity shocks. Workers exhibit permanent differences in ability while firms are identical. Negative aggregate productivity shocks induce job destruction by driving the surplus of matches with low...

Cette thèse examine l'influence du système de commerce multilatéral sur l'évolution du droit des brevets dans les pays en voie de développement sur la période de 1990 à 2005. Elle analyse les développements économiques associés à ces reformes. Les rapports sont évalués utilisant...

L'idée de l'impossibilité d'un découplage absolu entre la croissance économique et son impact environnemental occupe le coeur de la démonstration de l'ouvrage récent du chercheur britannique Tim Jackson, Prospérité sans croissance. Après avoir mis en lumière certaines limites...

This paper investigates cross-market effects of policy instruments that were implemented in the table and quality wine market as one of the pillars of market intervention in Europe’s Common Market Organisation (CMO) for wine. We explore two hypotheses regarding the spill-over of distillation...

In this paper, I relate the degree of progressivity of the income tax scheme to the prevailing income inequality in the society. I find that, consistent with the data, more unequal societies implement more progressive income tax systems. I build a model of political coalition formation, where...

We study internalization of production externalities in perfectly competitive markets where production plans are decided by majority voting. Since shareholders want firms to maximize dividends of portfolios rather than profits, they are interested in some internalization. Two governances, namely...