The research assesses how the two Big Eight mergers of 1989 affected the market for audit services. A data set of 1,978 firms over a 12-year period is used to test four theories of how the mergers could have affected competition and consumer welfare. The study finds that the mergers reduced the...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in the Australian state of Victoria have a higher prevalence of psychological distress than their non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counterparts. We sought to explain this inequality, focussing on the social determinants of health. We used...

Economists at the Federal Trade Commission pursue the agency’s competition and consumer protection missions. In this year’s essay, in antitrust, we discuss two recent mergers that involved Rx drugs: First, we describe key elements of the inquiry into the Express Scripts/Medco transaction in...

Umbrella branding, the practice of labeling more than one product with a single brand name, is commonly used by multiproduct companies. Spillovers occur when information about one product affects the demand for other products with the same brand name. This article provides a methodology to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the cost of the internal control audit for small firms and assess whether the costs are scalable or, alternatively, whether they are higher in relation to firm size for small firms than for larger firms. Design/methodology/approach – The...