A startling fact of firm level productivity analysis is the large and persistent differences in both labour productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) between firms in narrowly defined sectoral classes. The competitiveness of an industry is potentially an important factor explaining this...

Unilateral minimum quality standards are endogenously determined as the outcome of a non-cooperative standard-setting game between the governments of two countries. Cross-country externalities from the implementation of minimum quality standards are shown to give rise to a Prisoners' Dilemma...

A two-sided, pair-wise matching model is developed to analyse the strategic interaction between two information intermediaries who compete in commission rates and network size, giving rise to a fragmented duopoly market structure. The model suggests that network competition between information...

This book focuses on the actuality of implementing CRM. It is about the organization's ability to provide a seamless and personalized experience to each customer rather than a transactional or product-focused approach where the future of the relationship is not an over-riding consideration. This...

Managers understand the rationale for investing in new products, but now face an even more compelling need: to invest in targeting new markets, specifically those in less developed countries (LDCs). The argument presented here for initiating or increasing marketing efforts in these nations makes...

Why do major economic powers seek more and more free trade agreements (FTAs) with smaller partners? Recently, Japan has joined the bandwagon by signing its first bilateral FTA. The decision, highly contested domestically, represents a sea change in Japanese trade policy and a challenging case...

In this paper we explain the apparent diversification discount of conglomerates without assuming inefficent-cross subsidisation through internal capital markets. Instead we assume that an internal capital market efficiently redistributes scare resources across a conglomerates divisions between...

This paper investigates the relationship between consumer demand and firms'' mark-up for several products in the UK, using two independent datasets. It uses data on consumer expenditures and the retail price index to estimate Almost Ideal Demand Systems on micro-data and compute time-varying...

On the international scene, away from national legal rules, the use of different currencies is largely due to the process of the ''''Invisible Hand''''. How do currencies flow when their circulations are not tightly guided and canalised? The paper develops a three-country model of the world...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavior during trade liberalization. Firm productivity in a given product is modeled as a combination of firm-level “ability” and firmproduct- level “expertise”, both of which are stochastic and...