This article studies competition in markets with transport costs and capacity constraints. We compare the outcomes of price competition and coordination in a theoretical model and find that when firms compete, they more often serve more distant customers who are closer to the competitor's plant....

By studying the effect of different patterns of demand in an evolutionary selection model this paper shows how product differentiation reduces competitive selection pressure and thus increases the chances for the coexistence of firms. With the example of a duopoly it shows that: (1) a monopoly...

We study competition in the German interurban bus industry two years after its liberalization in January 2013. In addition to a brief characterization of the liberalization process and several general market developments, we provide a detailed analysis of selected market characteristics such as...

We provide an empirical assessment of the German interurban bus industry two years after its deregulation in January 2013. In addition to a general description of key developments of the industry, we use a unique route-level price data set to study both competitive interaction in general and the...

We investigate the impact of consumer search and competition on pricing strategies in Germany’s electricity retail. We utilize a unique panel dataset on spatially varying search requests at major online price comparison websites to construct a direct measure of search intensity and combine...

Consumer boycotts often provide a disciplinary mechanism against firms deviating from established social norms. Such actions tend to be organized by people through reference groups with a social mission. The intensity of the group identity is, however, private information. Therefore, the...

Recent empirical findings by Elsas (2005) and Degryse and Ongena (2007) document a U-shaped effect of market concentration on relationship lending which cannot be easily accommodated by the investment and strategic theories of relationship lending. In this paper, we suggest that this...

We analyze the strategic behavior of firms when demand is determined by a rule of thumb behavior of consumers. We assume consumer dynamics where individual consumers follow simple behavioral decision rules governed by imitation and habit as suggested in consumer research. On this basis, we...