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This paper empirically analyses whether full ownership separation strengthens rail in comparison with other transport modes - a major goal of European and national transport policies. Data from nine European countries in the period 1994-2009 are evaluated, with the end result that the positive effects of full separation cannot be confirmed. On the contrary, full separation significantly reduces the share of rail in passenger transport, while in the freight segment, the regressions yield ambiguous results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines in which cases economic forces or historical singularities prevail in the determination of the spatial distribution of retail shops. We develop a model of location choice in discrete space. The main force towards an agglomerated structure is the reduction of transaction costs for consumers if retailers are located closely, whilst competition and transport costs work towards a disperse structure. We assess the importance of the initial conditions by simulating the resulting distribution of shops for identical economic parameters but varying initial settings. If the equilibrium distributions are similar we conclude that economic forces have prevailed, while dissimilarity indicates that ‘history’ is more important. The (dis)similarity of distributions of shops is calculated by means of a metric measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we take into account the spatial dimension of markets, prices of incumbent firms may be higher and consumer surplus may be lower with competition than with monopoly. This result obtains unambiguously, even in the supposedly highly competitive case of Bertrand competition. Moreover, we are able to show that consumers of the commodity may be worse off with duopoly, if the distance between the firms' sites is sufficiently large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing theoretical literature fails to explain satisfactorily the differences between the pay of workers who are covered by collective agreements and others who are not. This study aims at providing a model framework that is amenable to an analysis of this issue. Our general-equilibrium approach integrates a dual labor market and a two-sector product market. The results suggest that the so-called “union wage gap” is largely determined by the degree of centralization of the bargains and, to a somewhat lesser extent, by the expenditure share of the unionized sector's goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the size of trade unions relative to the labor force impacts on the desirability of different organizational forms of self-financing unemployment insurance (UI). For this purpose, we compare the outcome of a model with a uniform payroll tax to a model where workers pay taxes according to their systematic risk of unemployment. Our results highlight the importance of the bargaining structure for the assessment of a particular UI scheme. Most importantly, it depends on the relative size of the unions whether efficiency favors a uniform or a differentiated UI scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study on discriminatory pricing in two-dimensional competitive markets. Features of spatial economic models; Specifications on the parameters; Indepth look at the assumptions and basic model; Description of two-dimensional economic areas; Statistical information supporting the findings; Additional related information.