This paper analyzes electric utility stock price reactions to events preceding the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, a development that precipitated the onset of competition in the wholesale sector of the electric utility industry and accelerated the pace toward statelevel deregulation...

This paper presents a model in which a firm attempts to gain market power by pricing above the competitive market price and simply trying to persuade ill-informed consumers not to search for other lower priced firms. Fictitious price comparisons, or false sale signs could be used in this way to...

By incorporating the additional existence of switching costs into an oligopoly model of search by Stahl (1989), this paper dispels the misleading idea that search costs can simply be treated as a form of switching cost. Due to the assumption that search costs, unlike switching costs, are...

Within a one-shot, duopoly game, we show that firms cannot use false in-store price comparisons to deter rational consumers from further beneficial price search in an effort to create market power. However, by introducing a consumer protection authority that monitors price comparisons, we...

Learning-i.e. the acquisition of new information that leads to changes in our assessment of uncertainty-plays a prominent role in the international climate policy debate. For example, the view that we should postpone actions until we know more continues to be influential. The latest work on...

By incorporating the additional existence of switching costs into an oligopoly search model by Stahl (1989), this paper dispels the misleading idea that search costs can simply be treated as a form of switching cost. Due to the assumption that search costs, unlike switching costs, are incurred...