This paper focuses on the question of whether or not a reduction of the knowledge barrier is good for welfare. Based on a dynamic monopoly setting with simultaneous investment decisions in process as well as in product Research & Development (R&D), we show that a reduction of the knowledge...

This paper summarizes and connects the main findings of the habilitation project. The important social developments analyzed, result from the demographic change that many economies will face in the future. Especially on the regional level, problems arise due to increasing disparities in...

Korruption ist ein globales Phänomen, das vor allem für viele Entwicklungsländer als Wachstumsbremse wirkt. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie man mittels eines einfachen industrieökonomischen Modells die Wirkungsmechanismen der Korruption analysieren kann. Korruption hält Unternehmen vom Markteintritt...

This paper develops a simple framework to analyze the links between corruption and the unofficial economy and their implications for the official economy. In a model of self-selection with heterogeneous entrepreneurs, we show that the entrepreneurs' option to flee to the underground economy...

This paper provides a simple model of corruption dynamics with the ratchet effect. Corrupt officials have ex post the incentive to price discriminate entrepreneurs based on the entry decisions made in an earlier period. The inability of government officials to commit to future money demands...

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government...

This paper deals with innovative activities of firms, the resulting market success as well as the interdependencies between both. In a first theoretical part, different cases of those interdependencies are investigated by the way of a simple model based on replicator dynamics. It is shown that...

Statistical cluster techniques are applied in the development of two new taxonomies of manufacturing industries. The first focuses on the distinction between exogenous, location dependent comparative cost advantages, such as the relative abundance of capital or labour, and endogenously created...

This paper aims at establishing the existence of systematic differences in the nature of competitive strategies available to individual firms across industries. By means of qualitative content analysis, we extracted a matrix of 76 industries times 12 strategies reported as being characteristic...

This paper theoretically analyzes the role of reference prices on competition and welfare in a context of a circular city model with free entry and reference prices, in which paying market prices above a reference negatively affects the utility of consumers. Agents interact in a three-stage...