The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of market oriented institutional reforms in German network industries. A disaggregated approach is chosen, which differentiates between network services, infrastructure management and network infrastructure. The gradual opening of network...

In order to analyze the remaining role for sector-specific regulation the focus of this paper is on those elements of the Internet periphery and Internet service provision, which are strongly based on telecommunications, in particular Internet access and Internet backbone. Section 2 deals with...

The Risk Adjustment Reform Act of 2001 mandates that a health-status-based risk adjustment mechanism has to be implemented in Germany's Statutory Health Insurance system by January 1, 2007. German parliament decided this as with the existing demographic risk adjustment model, that means there is...

The objectives guiding health care reforms in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands were to increase efficiency and consumer satisfaction in the provision of health care services. This paper sums up incentives and instruments of competition for consumers, sickness funds and health care...

If health care expenditure for the elderly grows faster than for younger people, the expenditure profiles become "steeper" - we call that "steeping". Three instruments for measuring "steeping" are presented: (1) trend of the relation between per-capita-expenditure of the old and the young; (2)...

Due to increasing health consciousness among consumers, there is an ever-growing demand for food and beverages with health-improving components. Not only 'light' and low fat products are in demand, but increasingly so-called well-being products and food which can prevent certain diseases. The...

We review the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office Germany) decision on the proposed merger between Springer and ProSiebenSat.1 from an economic point of view. In doing so, it is not our goal to analyse whether the controversial decision by the Bundeskar-tellamt has been correct or flawed...

In the present paper we examine the German cinema market using time series data of 49 years. Applying estimation techniques such as OLS, 2SLS and SUR, we identify interrelations between the number of screens, the average real prices and the demand for movies per inhabitant. Furthermore, we test...

This paper explores the relation between the regulation of monopolistic upstream prices and the incentives of a vertically integrated input monopolist to discriminate third parties on the downstream market. Currently, this is an issue in network industries like telecommunications, electricity...