infonet-economy

This paper reports quantitative information on the effects of tariffs and quotas on prices of individual goods. The analyses uses the natural experiment provided by a comprehensive unilateral trade policy reform in New Zealand to examine the response of foreign exporters to an incident of liberalisation that is unique in the developed world. The price effects of tariffs and quotas…

In this paper we have examined the scale and cost inefficiency of a sample of Swiss electricity distribution utilities. To do so, we have considered estimation of a stochastic frontier average cost model using the approach suggested by Schmidt and Sickles (1984) for panel data. A translog cost function was estimated using panel data for a sample of 30 municipal utilities over the…

Die vorliegende Untersuchung wurde ermöglicht durch das vom Bundesamt für Energiewirtschaft finanzierte Projekt „Auswirkungen einer grenzkostenorientierten Tarifrevision auf die Elektrizitätsnachfrage“. Wir danken dem Bundesamt für Energiewirtschaft, dem Bundesamt für Statistik sowie den Elektrizitätswerken der Städte Zürich, Bern und Basel für die tatkräftige Unterstützung des…

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate why private insurance of the risk of long-term care (LTC) has known little market success in major industrialized countries, even among the relatively well-to-do. Using a principal-agent framework, it shows that the purchase of LTC insurance by the parent (the principal) is likely to diminish the amount of LTC provided by the major…

The point of departure for this contribution is a problem common to all Western healthcare systems, namely the deficiency of their basic building block, the physician-patient relationship. This deficiency opens up a market for complementary agents in healthcare, ranging from medical associations to the central government. While Germany has traditionally put the emphasis on medical…

We analyse the stability properties of mixed equilibria in 2×2 asymmetric games under evolutionary dynamics. With the standard replicator dynamics these equilibria are stable but not asymptotically stable. We modified the replicator dynamics by introducing players of two types: myopies — like in the standard replicator dynamics — and best
responders. The behaviour of the latter…

The paper presents an empirical analysis of a model of endogenous growth and innovation with unequal incomes and hierarchical consumer demand. The theoretical model predicts a positive impact of income inequality on product diversity. The impact of inequality on per-capita growth may be positive or negative depending upon the assumptions about productivity growth, where the standard…