The author presents a brief classroom demonstration illustrating Bertrand price undercutting. The demonstration is appropriate for micro principles and intermediate- and upper-level undergraduate classes, as well as graduate classes in micro, industrial organization, and game theory.

Traditionally, enforcement of consumer protection laws meant to provide quality assurance of goods and services was considered a responsibility of the state in its various guises. Unfortunately, enforcement is an expensive, and hence particularly problematic proposition in transition economies...

The relationship between risk in the environment, risk aversion and inequality aversion is not well understood. Theories of fairness have typically assumed that pie sizes are known ex-ante. Pie sizes are, however, rarely known ex ante. Using two simple allocation problems-the Dictator and...

We investigate the decisions of individuals in simple and complex environments. We use a version of the Guessing Game (Beauty-contest Game) as a vehicle for our investigation, employing mathematically talented students. We find that our subjects think in complex environments more carefully...

We propose a computational model to study (the evolution of) post-secondary education. “Consumers” who differ in quality shop around for desirable colleges or universities. “Firms” that differ in quality signal the availability of their services to desirable students. As long as they...

Gneezy, List and Wu [Q. J. Econ. 121 (2006) 1283-1309] document that lotteries are often valued less than the lotteries’ worst outcomes. We show how to undo this result.

Theory and empirics suggest that by curbing competition, incumbent electricity companies which used to be and here are referred to as Vertically Integrated Utilities (VIUs), can increase their profitability through combined ownership of generation and transmission and/or distribution networks....