BACKGROUND A major factor influencing tobacco use is its price. Fiscal policies on tobacco are a key ingredient of any comprehensive control strategy, as they can be used to raise prices. The European Union (EU) developed directives to ensure some harmonisation of the fiscal pressure on tobacco across its member states. OBJECTIVES To provide a simple comparison of tobacco prices in the EU, ad...

In a recent editorial in Biostatistics, Peng (2009) introduced a system for making data and computer code from papers in the journal publicly available so that other researchers can reproduce the statistical analyses in the paper. The editors explain in a short accompanying note (Diggle and Zeger, 2009) that ‘we wish to encourage the practice of making research published in the journal reproduc...

Open access policies in telecommunications, including interconnection and unbundling, are implemented by regulators in an effort to increase competition in the sector. Lack of cooperation from incumbents is pervasive, given their incentives to engage in non-price discrimination and the moral hazard resulting from the inability of regulators to monitor the contract. We build a relationship betwe...

The main elements of electricity price can be divided into three components. These are, wholesale price of energy, price of network services and taxes, each composing approximately third of the final price. It seems that wholesale price is determined quite efficiently, while the price of network services have not been under much interest. However, total welfare can be disturbed significantly, i...