This study provides a systematic analysis of the VIP-room contractual system of Macau’s traditional casino industry. It examines the system’s historical background, its organizational structure, its operational mechanisms, and its role in Macau’s casino industry. This analysis examines the evolving and likely future changes in the VIP-room sector—as well as the mass market sector—caused by the ...

We estimate changes in market structure in the US electric power industry during the last three decades using two independent approaches. First, we estimate an industry-wide conjectural-variations parameter. We find that industry concentration was generally rising during the 1970s, but has been gradually and consistently falling since the early 1980s. To check the robustness of these results, w...

Labor Market Institutions, Wages, and Investment Labor market institutions, via their effect on the wage structure, affect the investment decisions of firms in labor markets with frictions. This observation helps explain rising wage inequality in the US, but a relatively stable wage structure in Europe in the 1980s. These different trends are the result of different investment decisions by firm...

Article history: Received 27 January 2012 Received in revised form 25 June 2013 Accepted 25 June 2013 Available online 8 July 2013 This paper examines the effect of capital structure on the competitive position of firms in the product market, as measured by themarket share. Theoretical predictions suggest that this effect depends onwhether Cournot or Bertrand competition determines firms' inter...

This paper examines the extent to which financial development and financial structure may explain cross-country diffusion of information communication technology (ICT). Using panel data for 76 emerging and advanced countries for the period 1990–2003, it finds that credit and stock market development tends to foster ICT diffusion, but financial structure does not appear to have any significant r...

This paper investigates the effects of market size on the ability of price to aggregate traders’ private information. To account for heterogeneity in correlation of trader values, a Gaussian model of double auction is introduced that departs from the standard information structure based on a common (fundamental) shock. The paper shows that markets are informationally efficient only if correlati...

The relationship between social responsibility and corporate strategy ensures the competitiveness of companies in the 21 century zero impact market. This strategy is based on the idea that the environment affects the organization of business. JEL classification numbers: R400

This research considers how the perceived costs of achieving water quality objectives are sensitive to three issues surrounding model structure and policy design. These issues Ž . Ž . include: i the extent of the regulated market, ii the responsibility of the regulated market Ž . for background pollution, and iii the use of alternative policy instruments. A large-scale process model is used to ...

This paper derives a two factor model for the term structure of interest rates that segments the yield curve in a natural way. The first factor involves modelling a non-negative short rate process that primarily determines the early part of the yield curve and is obtained as a truncated Gaussian short rate. The second factor mainly influences the later part of the yield curve via the market ind...

It is shown that R & D joint ventures make it more likely that firms will be able to sustain tacit product-market collusion, all else equal. JEL classification: LI3; 032