We investigate how bank competition affects the efficiency of credit allocation, using a model of spatial competition. Our analysis shows that bad loans are more likely the larger the number of banks competing for customers. We study further how many banks will be active if market entry is not...

This paper investigates how multinational firms choose the capital structure of their foreign affiliates in response to political risk. We focus on two choice variables, the leverage and the ownership structure of the foreign affiliate, and we distinguish different types of political risk, such...

The game theoretic discussion of best price clauses has alway implicitly been based on a durable good model with one generation of consumers. This paper argues that the intuition derived from this set up is misleading. By comparison with an overlapping generation model it is shown that the one...

The paper analyzes the optimal decision of a raider who can choose between a hostile and a friendly takeover. Empirical evidence shows that the transaction costs of a hostile takeover are much higher than those of a friendly one. The question therefore arises why a raider should ever wish to...

Recently, Blanchard and Kremer (BK) argued that disorganization has led to the output decline in the former Soviet Union. In this paper we introduce liquidity and credit constraints into the BK model and show how these problems can alleviate the hold-up problem. We argue further that barter...

Starting with the international debt crisis in the early 1980s, the volume of international barter trade increased substantially. This paper examines how barter can help highly indebted countries to finance imports if they cannot use standard credit arrangements. We argue that payment in goods...

A countertrade contract ties an export to an import. Usually, countertrade is seen as a form of bilateralism and reciprocity and thus as an inefficient form of international exchange. In this paper we argue that there are circumstances where the tying of two technologically unrelated trade flows...

The paper surveys recent results of auction theory, bargaining theory and political economy in order to compare different methods of privatization. We assume that a government is not only interested in maximizing revenues from privatization, but also in achieving an efficient allocation of...

This Paper discusses the economic merits of direct or indirect governmental support for open source projects. Software markets differ from standard textbook markets in three important respects that may give rise to market failures: (i) large economies of scale, (ii) crucially important...