In the late 1990s, several proposals for a structural reform that would bring competition and market prices to the Russian gas industry were intensely debated. Splitting up Russian gas monopolist Gazprom into several producing companies was a considered option. In this paper, I examine...

We consider a firm A initially owning a software platform (e.g. operating system) and an application for this platform. The specific knowledge of another firm B is needed to make the platform successful by creating a further application. When B's application is completed, A has incentives to...

This paper provides a theoretical model for explaining the separation of ownership and control in firms. An entrepreneur hires a worker, whose effort is necessary for running a project. The worker\'s effort determines the probability that the project will be completed on time, but the worker...

Evidence of owners of small businesses engaging in tax motivated shifts in organizational form is scarce. The main reason is lack of micro data enabling us to track tax-payers' movements across organizational modes. By exploiting new panel data that combine information from several public...

This study investigates whether excess effort to climb a career ladder justifies policy interventions. The answer depends on whether the government is able to levy a higher tax burden on career workers than on non-career workers. Both a tax on top income aimed at lowering the rewards of...

“Vertical market power” is a contradiction in terms because “market power” is essentially horizontal—that is, it depends on relationships of firms within markets. FERC invokes the term to assess “convergence” mergers between electricity generators and natural gas suppliers. It...

Widespread concern over transmission capacity requires theoretical support to infer inadequacy from observed trends indicating reductions in the ratio of transmission to generation capacity over time. If integrated utilities had been regulated with allowed returns exceeding capital costs,...

What difference does government support of business R&D make to the rate of innovation? Addressing this important question has deep theoretical roots and broadening practical applications in OECD countries. The analysis of output additionality has been hampered by incomplete data combined with...

This paper revisits the estimation of private returns to R&D. In an extension of the standard approach, we allow for endogeneity of production decisions, heterogeneity of R&D elasticities, and asymmetric treatment of intramural and extramural R&D. Our empirical analyses are based on an extended...

We investigate the accuracy of ex ante assessments of vulnerability to income poverty using cross-sectional data and panel data. We use long-term panel data from Germany and apply different regression models, based on household covariates and previous-year equivalence income, to classify a...