In a world with private information about the quality of technology we find that there are situations where relatively more technologically superior firm will license its technology but relatively less technologically superior firm will not license its technology. This finding is opposite to the...

This essay seeks to locate the ideas of G. B. Richardson within the present-day discussion of the theory of the boundaries of the firm. Richardson differs from the mainstream of transaction-cost economics in that, like Coase and Knight before him, he sees the problem of market contracting as a...

A fundamental aspect of any open payment system is the interchange fee that is paid from the merchant's bank to the cardholder's bank. Using a model in which there is partial participation by heterogeneous consumers and merchants, this paper characterizes the output maximizing, profit maximizing...

This paper presents a dynamic partial equilibrium model that endogenizes firms' investment decision on innovation: product innovation causes horizontal expansion growth, and process innovation causes vertical expansion growth. Market structure in different markets emerges as a consequence of...

One important determinant of the speed and success of transition will be the efficiency of transformation and development of the infrastructure sectors. A great deal of attention has been paid to issues such as privatisation, restructuring, user prices, and terms of access in these sectors,...

The phenomenon of offshoring, that is, the outsourcing of highly- qualified services into low wage countries was until now considered an economy-specific solution to counteract the constant rise in costs caused by the intensified global competition. At the same time, this form of cross-country...

O artigo apresenta os fundamentos teóricos da Economia dos Custos de Transação e faz um sumário das críticas feitas à mesma, apontando para uma agenda de pesquisa pluralista.

This paper characterizes the set of NASH equilibria in a price setting duopoly in which firms have limited capacity, and in which unit costs of production up to capacity may differ. Assuming concave revenue and efficient rationing, we show that the case of different unit costs involves a...

As residential energy markets open to competition, consumers can choose from a range of tariffs offered by different suppliers. We examine the relationship between the fixed charge levied on each consumer, and the variable charge per unit of energy used across all these tariffs. Data are the...