Topic Markets

Paying by the Hour: The Least Appealing Option for Clients of Lawyers

In this study, we analyze a client’s choice of contract in auctions where Dutch law firms compete for cases. The distinguishing feature is that lawyers may submit bids with any fee arrangement they wish. We find robust evidence that bids offering hourly rates are less attractive to clients. Our findings tentatively contradict lawyers’ often-made argument that hourly rates are in a client’s best in ...

Clients Prefer Flat Fee Contracts: Ten Questions to Jo Seldeslachts

EU Competition Policy Enforcement Supports Investment in the Energy Sectors

Energy sectors—primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution—require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms’ incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors and private investment is still quite scarce, ...

Cost Structure and Economies of Scale in German Water Supply

Potable water supply in Germany is highly fragmented. A consolidation of the industry could, therefore, lead to lower cost of water supply and price savings for the customers. In this paper we estimate a total cost function for potable water supply based on a unique sample of German water utilities observed between 2004 and 2010. Newly available data allows for a detailed cost modeling approach. Capital ...

The 5th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and supported by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an international...

Global Food Markets: Global Food Security - Challenge for Production and Consumption

Scarce resources, the rising demand for agricultural products and growing land-use competition between the production of energy and food have increased the importance of strategies for food security. In the research project “Global Food Markets: Global Food Security – Challenges for Production and Consumption” both supply and demand-oriented approaches that can realize...

The 4th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an international forum for high quality research in Industrial Organization in the...

Leibniz ScienceCampus Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP)

Promoting consumers’ rights, prosperity, and wellbeing are core values of the European Union. A wide array of laws, institutions, and regulations – which can be generally termed as consumer policies – aim at protecting consumers by ensuring adequate and truthful information in the marketplace as well as preventing firms from engaging in unfair and competition-impairing practices....

Productivity in Electricity Retail after Market Liberalisation: Analysing the Effects of Ownership and Firm's Governance Structure

This paper, which is one of the first to estimate productivity in retail electricity for a European country after liberalisation, analyses the effect of ownership and governance structure by using a unique dataset of German electricity retailers from 2003 to 2012. An innovative service production function for the retail sector is derived with labour and external services as the main inputs. A structural ...

What Clients Want: Choices between Lawyers' Offerings

We analyze a client's choice of contract in auctions where Dutch law firms compete for cases. The distinguishing feature is that lawyers may submit bids with any fee arrangement they prefer: an hourly rate, a fixed fee or a \mixed fee," which is a time-capped fixed fee plus an hourly rate for any additional hours should the case take longer than expected. This format of selling legal services is unusual ...