In several countries, healthcare services are provided by public and/or private subjects, and they are reimbursed by the Government, on the basis of regulated prices. Thus, providers take prices as given and compete on quality to attract patients. In some countries, regulated prices differ...

This article proposes a differential-game model, in order to analyze markets in which regional regulation is operative and competition is based on quality. The case we have in mind is healthcare public service, where consumers (patients) choose the provider mainly basing on the providers'...

This paper proposes a generalization of Shleifer's (1985) model of yardstick competition, to a dynamic framework. Specifically, we consider a differential game and we show that the yardstick mechanism is effective to replicate the first-best solution if players adopt open-loop behaviour rules...

We study a Bertrand game where two sellers supplying products of different and unverifiable qualities can outwit potential clients through their (costly) deceptive advertising. We characterize a class of pooling equilibria where sellers post the same price regardless of their quality and low...