Active Labour Market Policy in East Germany: Waiting for the Economy to Take Off We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database coming from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that over a horizon of 2.5 y...

Despite the credibility of the market orientation concept, it is still not being fully realised by practitioners. Many perceive their companies to be orientated to the consumer, but the evidence is contrary and the development of a genuine market orientation remains elusive. This paper identifies eight common reasons why managers misinterpret their companies’ market orientation levels and ident...

Markov forecasting is a prediction method which the application in probability theory of Markov chain theory and method to study the change rules of the economic phenomenon and in order to predict the future situation. The purpose of this paper is to apply Markov chain theory to the actual market share analysis, it established Markov forecasting model of market share. This model was applied to ...

This paper addresses labour market aspects of new immigrants in host countries with a specific emphasis on the Netherlands. In general, it can be stated that in the Netherlands immigrant groups have not been absorbed very wel1 in the labour market and that to some extent the dual labour market approach is applicable to the Dutch situation. Furthermore, future labour market developments in weste...

A traditional understanding of a `buyer's market’ and a `seller's market’ associates them with a certain type of economic system, asserting that a market economy systems inevitably result in a buyer's market and a planned economy systems bring about a seller's market. This paper introduces a new concept – the `policy-buyer's market’ or more fully the policy-created buyer’s market. It points out...

The primary inquiry of this study is to identify and understand the underlying factors that enable smallholder farmer groups to improve their market situation. The specific objective of this paper is to examine to what extent certain group characteristics and asset endowments facilitate collective action initiatives to improve group marketing performance. This objective is approached through an...

We consider market situations with two corners. One corner consists of a single seller with one or more identical objects, and the other corner consists of buyers who all want at most one object. We suppose that the valuation of an object for the different buyers is known by all buyers. We consider two cooperative games corresponding to such a market situation. First we study properties of the ...

Internet Auction is a one of the most successful e-Commerce markets. Recently, it has been reported that the trades having buyout options are increasing. A " buyout option " is available in many Internet auction sites. When a seller uses a buyout option, a " buyout price (buy price) " of the good is set by the seller. If a buyer submits a bid equal to the buyout price, the auction immediately e...

On the Evolution of Market Institutions: The Platform Design Paradox* This paper analyses a situation where market designers create new trading platforms and traders learn to select among them. We ask whether 'Walrasian' platforms, leading to market-clearing trading outcomes, will dominate the market in the long run. If several market designers are competing, we find that traders will learn to ...