A popular interpretation of the Rational Expectations/Efficient Markets hypothesis states that, if the hypothesis holds, then market valuations must follow a random walk. This postulate has frequently been criticized on the basis of empirical evidence. Yet the assertion itself incurs what we...

We propose a general framework to assess merger policy effectiveness based on standard oligopoly theory and stock market reactions. We focus on four different dimensions of effectiveness: 1) legal certainty, 2) decision errors, 3) reversion of anti-competitive rents, and 4) deterrence. We apply...

Insufficient capital buffers of banks have been identified as one main cause for the large systemic effects of the recent financial crisis. Although higher capital is no panacea, it yet features prominently in proposals for regulatory reform. But how do increased capital requirements affect...

This paper reconsiders the issue of share price reactions to dividend announcements. Previous papers rely almost exclusively on a naive dividend model in which the dividend change is used as a proxy for the dividend surprise. We use the difference between the actual dividend and the analyst...

This paper aims to find evidence for the positive impact of cluster structures on employment development in Germany. It develops a new way of measuring the co-location of suppliers and buyers of intermediate goods in a region as well as the importance for the employment development in individual...

We use publicly available price data from the German cement industry to estimate the cartelinduced price increase. We apply two different comparator-based approaches - the 'before and-after' approach and the 'difference-in-differences' approach - and especially study the impact of various...

We study the competitive effects of five liquidations and six mergers in the domestic U.S. airline industry between 1995 and 2010. Applying fixed effects regression models we find that route exits due to liquidation lead to substantially larger price increases than mergerrelated exits. Within...

Decades of research on behavioral economics have established the importance of factors that are typically absent from the standard economic framework: reference dependent preferences, hyperbolic preferences, and the value placed on non-financial rewards. To date, these insights have had little...