We analyse the effects of different regulatory schemes (price cap and profit sharing) on a firm's investment of endogenous size. Using a real option approach in continuous time, we show that profit sharing does not delay a firm's start-up investment relative to a pure price cap scheme. Profit...

In this paper we analyse some distributional effects of the reforms of water and energy services in Italy. We first document the new regulation setting in these services, illustrating the dynamics of utility prices and of household expenditure in the period 1998-2005. We then propose a way to...

We investigate how the general principles of the Treaty have been applied to the car sector in the EU, given the specific soft law provisions which are typical of the sector. A detailed quantitative analysis from 1990 to 2008 highlights a reduction of aid over time. A shift from sectoral to...

One of the reasons why workers'enterprises (WE) still represent a relevant chunk of the economy may lay in some affinities with conventional profit maximizing firms. To provide a solid basis to this presumption, we compare the entry policies of WEs and conventional firms when size is set at...

Quality of health care is the product of several factors as the literature has long recognized. In this article we focus on the relationship between quality and investment in health technology by analysing the optimal investment decision in a new health care technology of a repre sentative...

This paper look at why most migration flows include observable jumps, a phenomenon that is in line with migration irreversibility. We have presented a real option model where the migration choice depends on both the wage differential between the host country and the country of origin, and on the...

From 1997 to 2001 we observe a faster growth in the number of Nonemployer businesses (mostly Partnerships) vis-…-vis Firms in the USA, a country with the mildest asymmetries between the two types of enterprise with respect to taxation, administrative entry barriers and other institutional...

Our aim in this paper is to provide a general framework in which to determine the optimal penalty fee inducing the contractor to respect the contracted delivery date in public procurement contracts (PPCs). We do this by developing a real option model that enables us to investigate the...

To avoid the extremely high profit levels found in recent experience of public utilities' regulation, some regulators have introduced a profit-sharing (PS) rule that revises prices to the benefit of consumers. However, in order to be successful, a PS rule should satisfy appropriate incentive...

We examine the effect of competition on investment decisions in an industry in which each firm has a completely irreversible investment opportunity and the product market has positive externalities for a small market size and negative externalities for a large market size. In the latter case,...