The financial crisis has been attributed partly to perverse incentives for traders at banks and has led policy makers to propose regulation of banks' remuneration packages. We explain why poor incentives for traders cannot be fully resolved by only regulating the bank's top executives, and why...

This paper empirically explores the relationship between competition design and productive efficiency in the railway industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to construct efficiency scores, and explain these scores, using variables reflecting institutional factors and competition...

As European energy markets move towards deregulation, energy prices shift from classic ‘cost plus' prices towards market prices. Read also the accompanying <a href="http://www.cpb.nl/en/pressrelease/3213211/competition-lowers-energy-expenditures-end-users">press release</a>. We develop a model for the retail and wholesale energy markets in Europe, based on Bertrand competition in a two part...

In January 2005, the Dutch government introduced the Childcare Act which replaced the former financing system which had elements of both supply- and demand-financing with a fully demand-financing system. Whereas previously public funds partly flowed to suppliers in the form of subsidies...

This paper analyses the welfare effects of vertical integration of networks and trade in energy markets. Vertical integration reduces the effect of double marginalisation, thus increasing welfare. On the other hand, vertical integration hinders equal competition, rendering the vertically...

This CPB Document provides a framework for the evaluation of non-profit organisations. This framework addresses the question under which conditions, and, if so, in what way non-profits should be stimulated. Essentially, in order to answer these questions, three steps can be followed: (i)...

This report develops a roadmap for reliability policy in network industries. Based on economic theory, we analyse the relationship between reliability and various types of government policy: privatisation, liberalisation, regulation, unbundling, and 'commitment policy'. We let government...

Using Dutch transaction-level data on international trade we find that the intensive margin drives Dutch trade growth year by year. After 6 years, new trade relations cover about 50 percent of Dutch exports. Each year 40 percent of the relations are new, but only 25 percent survives after two...

This paper analyses the export market entry decisions of Dutch firms and their subsequent growth or market exit. When entering new markets, firms have to learn market conditions and have to search for new trade relations under uncertainty. We show that firms follow a stepping stone approach for...

In GRAVITY WITH GRAVITAS: A SOLUTION TO THE BORDER PUZZLE, Anderson and Van Wincoop (2003) estimate what trade between US states and Canadian provinces would have been if the border between Canada and the United States had not existed. They showed that computing the border effect requires...