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...

We show that for a spatially differentiated economy reduced product variety is the likely outcome of mergers except in cases where exit costs in relation to (outlet-specific) fixed costs are high. Our empirical analysis of the Austrian retail gasoline market confirms that increases in...

This paper employs firm-level panel data of 57 incumbent and entrant firms for 23 European countries in the decade from 2003 to 2012. We examine the impact of service- and facility-based competition on firm level investment as well as the strategic effects underlying infrastructure investment...

We find very fast convergence in productivity for the 99 3-digit European industries over the 1985-1998 period. According to our estimates half of any productivity gap is closed on average in 10 years. The speed of convergence is much higher than obtained previously in the literature....

This paper employs firm-level panel data of 57 incumbent and entrant firms for 23 European countries in the decade from 2003 to 2012. We examine the impact of service- and facility-based competition on firm-level investment as well as the strategic effects underlying infrastructure investment...