U. S. insurers have achieved their strong position in the world insurance industry primarily through servicing demand in the large domestic markets. Future growth will require U.S. insurers to cultivate a more international focus. The next decade is likely to bring significant changes in the...

Significant US house price appreciation in the last few years has greatly helped to enlarge the size and scope of secondary markets for securities backed by non-prime mortgage loans. But while many households now have access to loans which otherwise might not have been available, were housing...

The Internet has introduced a variety of online buying services that expand the reach of sellers and reduce search costs for buyers. In markets in which traditional outlets establish prices through bargaining, these online intermediaries have also altered the price setting process. Perhaps the...

Quarterly data of magazine circulation are used to analyse the consumption behaviour of the readers of German popular magazines in a panel framework using OLS, 2SLS and generalized method of moments techniques, in order to test the rational addiction hypothesis in respect with goods without any...

We analyze the impact of market share on advertising and pricing decisions by firms that sell to loyal, non-shopping customers and can advertise to shoppers through an information intermediary or "gatekeeper." In equilibrium the firm with the smaller loyal market advertises more aggressively but...

The aim of this paper is to test the predictions of Sutton's model of independent submarkets for the Italian retail banking industry. This industry, in fact, can be viewed as made of a large number of local markets corresponding to different geographical locations. In order to do that, I first...

Nach den neuesten Ergebnissen des ifo Konjunkturtests Leasing fiel der Geschäftsklimaindex im vierten Quartal 2002 auf den niedrigsten Wert seit Beginn der Umfrage. Dies lag in erster Linie an den deutlich weniger zuversichtlichen Geschäftserwartungen, bei der Beurteilung der aktuellen...

This paper analyses the behaviour of banks' customers when a new technology (internet banking) is introduced. The determinants of consumer adoption of internet banking are characterised using survey data from Korea in both static and dynamic framework. There is evidence that adoption of internet...

The purpose of this paper is to address a fundamental question about higher education. If a country wanted to design a system of higher education, what would the optimal institutional structure of the system look like? This question is very broad so we limit our initial approach by analyzing one...