Many policy makers seem to prefer domestic alternatives to cross-broder mergers. Can such sentiments make sense? We contruct a model where cross-border mergers drive down union-set wages, where domestic mergers have larger non-labour cost synergies than international ones, and where policy...

We study the competitive effects of restricting direct access to secondary care by gatekeeping, focusing on the informational role of gatekeeping general practitioners (GPs). We consider a secondary care market with two hospitals choosing the quality and specialisation of their care. GPs...

We analyse how equilibrium locations in location-price games à la Hotelling are affected when firms acquire inputs through bilateral monopoly relations with suppliers. Assuming a duopoly downstream market, we consider the case of two independent input suppliers bargaining with both downstream...

We study effects of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in a market with two pharmaceutical firms providing horizontally differentiated (branded) drugs. Patients varying in their susceptability to medication are a priori uninformed of available medication. Physicians making the prescription...

We analyse how the presence of trade unions affects the pattern of mergers in an international oligopoly and the welfare implications thereof. We find that an international merger results in lower wages for all firms. A national merger results in higher wages, highest for the non-merging firms....

We study a policy game between exporting and importing countries in vertically linked industries. In a successive international Cournot oligopoly, we let the governments in the importing and exporting countries use tax instruments strategically to shift rents up or down the vertical value-chain....

The international integration of regulated markets poses new challenges for regulatory policy. One question is the implications that the overall international regulatory regime will have for cross-border and/or domestic merger activity. In particular, do non-coordinated policies stimulate...

We study the relationship between regulatory regimes and pharmaceutical firms’ pricing strategies using a unique policy experiment from Norway, which in 2003 introduced a reference price (RP) system called “index pricing” for a sub-sample of off-patent pharmaceuticals, replacing the...

We find that trade unions have a rational incentive to oppose the adoption of labour-saving technology when labour demand is inelastic and unions care much for employment relative to wages. Trade liberalisation typically increases trade union technology opposition. These conclusions are reached...

We consider a therapeutic market with potentially three pharmaceutical firms. Two of the firms offer horizontally differentiated brand-name drugs. One of the brand-name drugs is a new treatment under patent protection that will be introduced, if the profits are sufficient to cover the entry...