Consumer cooperatives represent a highly successful example of democratic form of enterprises operating in developed countries. They are usually medium to large-scale companies competing with the profit-maximizing firms in the retail sector. This paper describes this situation as a mixed...

The paper presents a game-theoretic model in order to investigate to what extent an employee privatization program of a State owned firm can be feasible under certain assumptions concerning the players' objective functions and the market structure in which the firm operates. The public managers...

The aim of the present paper is to show that the existence of a concrete outside option for firms' executives can induce, under specific circumstances, every firm to adopt restrictive output practises. In particular, the paper characterizes the conditions for which, under Cournot oligopoly,...

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...

New approaches in health care, such as e.g. Integrated Delivery Systems, affect the role and tasks of medical suppliers. More and more, medical suppliers are incorporated into the process of guiding patients to medical specialists and hospitals and thus managing the course of disease. In this...

The aim of this paper is to explain consulting failure from a systems-theoretical perspective and to provide a new framework for analysing consultant–client relationships. By drawing on Luhmann’s systems theory, clients and consultants are conceptualised as two autopoietic communication...

This paper analyses a model of vertical product differentiation with one incumbent and one entrant firm. It is shown that if firms can produce only one quality level welfare in this entry game can be lower than in monopoly. This is the case if qualities are strategic complements because the...