Labour market reforms face very often opposition from the employed workers, because it normally reduces their wages. Also product market regulations are regularly biased towards too much benefitting the firms. As a result there remain many frictions in both the labour and product markets that hinder an optimal functioning of the economy. These issues have recently received a lot of attention in...

The Effects of Globalization on Worker Training We consider a three-stage game to examine how market integration affects firms’ incentives to provide general worker training. In stage 1, firms invest in productivity-enhancing training. In stage 2, they can make wage offers for each others’ workers. Finally, Cournot competition takes place. When two product markets become integrated, that is, re...

This study investigates the impact of electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) on sales distributions in various markets. The product information in eWOM helps customers to reveal their demands more clearly, thereby leading to the change of sales distributions in online markets. For the research, we categorize the markets based on the similarity level of product evaluation standards. If products in a ma...

Presently, a multiplicity of trading systems provide electronic markets with various market rules to professional and private investors in different sectors. This range only partially reflects the individual requirements dependent on the type of product and the environmental context of the trade. There is need for individual solutions satisfying these specific requirements regarding the tradabl...

Iran`s pharmaceutical products market as one of the major markets of the country has been faced with fluctuations over time. Suitable market selection is necessary for stability of pharmaceutical exports. Study of the global market structure of this product leads to policy makers in development, production, and trade of pharmaceuticals and finally increases country’s share of the world pharmace...

Evidence has shown that the provision of product information in electronic markets decreases the price elasticity of demand due to the ‘fit’ cost. This effect, however, could differ according to how consumers perceive the value of the product information to their quality evaluation procedures. If the information has very limited value, then they may not rely on it; thus, the demand elasticity m...

If goods or services in a market vary in quality and the consumer has due to information asymmetry no means to differentiate providers of high quality from providers of low quality, the market can become a ‘lemon market’. This term was introduced by Akerlof to characterise markets where providers of bad quality drive out providers of good quality, creating cost of dishonesty and market failures...

This paper examines competition in e-markets by comparing price levels and price dispersion in the on-line music market. The data consists of price information on CDs pure-play Internet and hybrid firms in North American and European markets. The sellers are divided in groups according to a geographical location, a brand valuation and a variety of product offerings. We find that pure price leve...

W study markets for information goods and find that they differ significantly from markets for traditional industrial goods. Markets for information goods in which products are vertically differentiated lack the segmentation inherent in markets for industrial goods. As a result, a monopoly will offer only a single product. Competition leads to highly concentrated information-good markets, with ...