Contractual and regulatory provisions for access affect incentives to invest in an upgraded network and, in particular, a next-generation access network. Investment decisions are made under uncertainty and have to be made over time. This papers provides a framework for taking uncertainty, risk...

Die Netzstrukturen im Bereich der Telekommunikation entwickeln sich weiter und erfordern neue Investitionen. Die notwendige Regulierung kann dabei verschiedene Formen annehmen und zu unterschiedlichen Zeitpunkten ansetzen. Die Autoren beschreiben die Netzinfrastruktur in Deutschland und zeigen...

Launching and stimulating competition in telecommunications markets is an important policy goal. It contains two elements: to encourage entry and to make competition effective such that consumers benefit. The first one requires that entrants can make profits after investing in infrastructure so...

Digital products have the property that they can be copied almost costlessly. This makes them candidates for non-commercial copying by final consumers. Because the copy of a copy typically does not deteriorate in quality, copying products can become a wide-spread phenomenon - this can be...

In this paper we develop a theory of patenting in which a firm preserves its reputation to only apply for a patent whenever a truly patentable idea has been generated. Firms have a short-run incentive to deviate and receive additional rents from unworthy pending patents, as well as potential...

In this guide, we discuss the impact of digitalization on the music industry. We rely on market and survey data at the international level as well as expert statements from the industry. The guide investigates recent developments in legal and technological protection of digital music and...

Consider a two-product firm that decides on the quality of each product. Product quality is unknown to consumers. If the firm sells both products under the same brand name, consumers adjust their beliefs about quality subject to the performance of both products. We show that if the probability...

Is the reputation of a firm tradeable when the previous owner has to retire even though ownership change is observable? We consider a competitive market in which a share of owners must retire in each period. New owners, observing only recent profits, bid for the firms on sale. Customers are...

This paper analyzes the effects of specific and ad valorem taxation in an industry with downstream and upstream oligopoly. We find that in the short run, i.e. when the number of firms in both markets is exogenous, the results concerning tax incidence tend to be qualitatively similar to models...