International cost efficiency benchmarking played a central role in informing the Office of Rail Regulation’s (ORR) determination of Network Rail’s future funding during the 2008 periodic review (PR08) of the company’s finances. This paper sets out how international benchmarking can inform a regulator’s decisions on efficiency and, in particular, how international econometric studies can be use...

We develop general econometric models of ascending (English) auctions which allow for both bidder asymmetries as well as common and/or private value components in bidders' underlying valuations. We show that the equilibrium inverse bid functions in each round of the auction are implicitly deened (pointwise) by a system of nonlinear equations, so that conditions for the existence and uniqueness ...

While there is a large literature on the economic theory of international standards, and their presumed effects, we know much less about how international standards work in practice. This paper reviews the body of empirical work that has investigated the specific question: How international standards impact on international trade? Do they help or hinder trade? The work reviewed ranges from econ...