Increasing Returns and International Trade

The paper develops a model of international trade with increasing returns toscale by taking into account the possibility of cooperation among agents in an egalitarian economy. It is shown that each country gains from trade in a trading world in which there are arbitrary numbers of increasing-returns-to-scale goods, constant-returns-to-scale goods, factors of production, and countries.     

A three stage product review process

After examining the major product review literature, the authors identify additional concerns for operationalizing a product review system. A three phase product review process is developed.     

Price Effects of Dutch Hospital Mergers: An Ex-post Assessment of Hip Surgery

This study analyses price effects of six mergers in the Dutch healthcare industry. We investigate whether the merging hospitals raised their prices for hip surgery after the merger and, if so, how patients react to this higher price. For seven of the twelve hospitals involved, we found a statistically significant price increase for hip surgery, for three hospitals we found a significant price decrease. There is no clear relationship between price changes of hip surgery and changes in travelling behaviour of patients post merger.     

Measuring the Economic Effects of Competition Law Enforcement

Summary  Together with a move from a rules-based legal approach to a more economic approach in competition cases, the economic effects of competition law enforcement have received increasing attention. Measuring these effects is important for external accountability of the Competition Authority, for quality control of its decisions and for evaluating the effectiveness of the competition law. This raises many issues in measurement, including the choice of counterfactual, the choice of effects to be measured, and the proper use of available data. The papers in this Special Issue of De Economist discuss these and related issues, based on a broad range of experience in competition law enforcement.      

Supply and demand factors of Cleaner technologies: Some empirical evidence

This article identifies and analyzes factors that affect the willingness of firms and consumers to develop and adopt cleaner technologies. Cleaner technologies is used as a general term for pollution abatement technologies, re-use systems, and environmentally sound consumer products and materials. The article also contains the findings of three case studies on cleaner technologies (CFC substitutes, low-solvent paints and coatings, and membrane technology), in which the importance of the identified factors is investigated. From the case studies some general conclusions are drawn about these factors, and the way in which policy instruments can be used to stimulate innovation in and diffusion of cleaner technologies. No single policy instrument is considered to be optimal. Instead a policy mix is needed, involving a much wider use of economic instruments.This paper is based on a research project for the Ministries of Economic Affairs and the Environment in the Netherlands, and is a revision of an earlier paper Policy Instruments to Stimulate Cleaner Technologies, which was prepared for the EAERE conference in Stockholm, June 11–14th, 1991. The authors thank the referee for helpful comments.     

De eerste publicatiën over koloniale economie na nederlands herstel in 1813

s-Gravenhage, Februari 1914.     

A REGIONAL MODEL OF OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION IN THE UKCS

Existing exploration–discovery models are generally characterised by equations describing the behaviour of exploration, success rates, and discoveries. The present paper adds two equations describing the behaviour of finding costs and exploration efficiency. The model was disaggregated along regional lines. Applying the model to UK Continental Shelf data over the period 1964–2002 produced results that supported the new approach. Analysis of the model dynamics and simulation forecast reveals similarities, but also important differences in the responsiveness of activity in the regions to policy multipliers, implying that uniform policy instruments will produce unequal responses in areas with different levels of maturity.     

A note on Solow's survival problem

Solow's condition for survival in the face of natural resource scarcity needs only minor modification when extraction is costly.