Inside the RoboCup Rescue Simulation League, the mission is to use robots to rescue as many victims as possible after a disaster. The research challenge is to let the robots cooperate as a team. This year in total 15 teams from 8 different countries have been active in the competition. This paper highlights the approaches of the winners of the virtual robot competition, the infrastructure compe...

What is the e®ect of national antitrust policies in a world with international trade? Traditionally, economic analysis of mergers has assumed a closed economy, which as we show in this paper, may lead to errant policy in an open economy. We use a very simple model to highlight some key issues in optimal competition policy when trade is important, and compare the nationally optimal number of ̄rm...

This study analyzes the evolution of competitive conditions in the Banking industries of fourteen Central and Eastern European (CEE) transition economies using firm-level data. The results of the competition analysis suggest that the banking markets of CEE countries cannot be characterized by the bipolar cases of either perfect competition or monopoly over 1993-2000 except for FYR of Macedonia ...

Infrastructure investments expansion typically adds to the productive capacity in an economy, and thus to its economic growth. Network industries account for between one–tenth and onequarter of economy wide investments (OECD 2009 B). Telecom industry is one of the network industries, and broadband is a new technology that is widely used all over the world. It is the popular mode of access to th...

We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, as well as earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean revert faster in countries where there is more product and capital market competition, as predicted by economic theory. Countr...

Product cycle theory has developed countries inventing goods and developing countries copying them. Once copying takes place, developed countries abandon the market – either outright, or through vertical differentiation – because of developing country cost advantages. Matching US imports and exports at the product level, I find evidence of both reactions – moving up and moving out – across manu...

This article scrutinizes the effects of economic competition on environmental standard levels in low-regulating states that intensifY their economic interlinkage with high-regulating countries. In doing so, it pursues rwo objectives. First, we provide a detailed empirical account of the impact of economic integration on the development of environmenral standards in Hungary and Mexico. Second, w...

september/october 2004 M MANY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America are freeing up their electric energy industries in search of benefits from competition. This activity is more pronounced in Eastern Europe because restructuring of the electric energy industry is a requirement for accession to the European Union (EU). Some developing countries in Asia are restr...