Competition in some product markets takes the form of a contest. If some firms cooperate in such markets, they must decide how to allocate effort on each of their products and whether to reduce the number of their products in the competition. We show how this decision depends on the convexity...

In this note we take a first step towards the analysis of collusion in markets with spatial competition, focusing on the case of pure location choices. We find that collusion can only be profitable if a coalition contains more than half of all players. This result holds for location games played...

In this note we consider the preferences of a profit maximizing firm for international ownership in a world in which firms compete in an international Cournot oligopoly, and in which countries use strategic trade policy. We find that firms prefer national ownership and show that full...

We study the profitability and welfare effects of merger in a strategic trade policy environment. Merger changes the strategic trade policy equilibrium. We show that merger can be profitable and welfare enhancing here, even though it is not profitable in a laissez-faire economy. A key element is...

Consider a committee that in the past has made a promise not to confiscate the profits from a foreign investor. After the investment has taken place, there is a material benefit if the committee decides to default on the earlier promise. But there are also some small moral costs for those who...

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic – investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result...

Ökonom Steffen Huck erklärt, warum Entscheider Wachstumskurven verstehen müssen.

In der Corona-Krise sind neue Verhaltensweisen in der Gesellschaft wichtig. Soziale Normen können je nach Ausprägung die Umsetzung behindern oder unterstützen.

Warum wir so schlecht auf die großen Entscheidungen in der Coronakrise vorbereitet sind.

So außerordentlich die Covid-19-Pandemie ist: Die Ungleichheiten, die die Strategien zu ihrer Eindämmung erzeugen, sind keine Ausnahme. Auch in Normalzeiten gibt es ein globales Ungleichgewicht bei der Priorisierung von Krankheiten.