'This is a high-quality book on an important and central topic in the theory of industrial organisation. It is a cohesive and extremely well written volume which is destined to become a standard work on the subject.' - Mark Casson, University of Reading, UK This original new book offers a comprehensive and engaging perspective on the theory of vertical differentiation. It enables the reader to grasp the key concepts and effects that product quality has both on firms' behaviour and market structure, and the ways in which this relationship has evolved. With contributions from prominent figures in the field, the book investigates a number of important topics, such as the choice of the optimal product range, profit sharing, the existence of equilibrium in duopoly games, positional effects attached to status goods, international trade, collusion, advertising and the dynamics of capital accumulation for quality improvement and product innovation. Using both static and dynamic approaches, these aspects are assessed in relation to the manifold issues of regulation, competition policy and trade policy. Product differentiation and its influence on consumer behaviour and the performance of firms is a core topic in the existing literature in the fields of industrial organization, international trade and economic growth. This book will be an essential read for researchers, students and professional scholars working in these areas, especially those with an interest in antitrust regulation.

"The discrete choice approach provides an ideal framework for describing the demands for differentiated products and can be used for studying most product differentiation models in the literature. By introducing extra dimensions of product heterogeneity, the framework also provides richer models of firm location and product selection."--BOOK JACKET.

Market Evolution: Competition and Cooperation is a selection of papers presented at the recent meeting of the European Association of Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE). The volume brings together twenty high-quality papers reflecting frontier research in modern industrial organization. The contributions cover a broad spectrum of increasing theoretical, empirical and policy issues, including analyses of the nature of the firm, product differentiation, research and development, strategic alliances, information sharing in the banking sector, exchange rate pass-through in international competition, labor unionization and product rivalry, buyer-supplier bargaining, multimarket competition and related entry, entry and exit processes, multinational enterprises in the Third World, European integration and the restructuring of Eastern Europe. From a theoretical perspective, many chapters apply game theory to the analysis of firm behaviors and market competition. Moreover, a large number of the studies contain a significant empirical part, mainly by employing econometric techniques, to test the hypotheses derived from modern industrial organization theories. Data from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the European Union are presented and analyzed.

This Festschrift is dedicated to ROLF FUNCK on occasion of his 60th birthday on February 7, 1990. It was a wholehearted desire of the authors who all are obliged to ROLF FUNCK in their research work to please and to honour him and to express their deep gratitude. I gladly took the initiative of preparing this Festschrift since I have been closely associated with ROLF FUNCK for many years of his academic life. We first met in 1958 when he was Assistant Professor (Wissenschaftlicher Assistent) and I was student at the University of Munster. A few years later, when ROLF FUNCK, still very young, moved to the University of Karlsruhe as Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Economic Policy and Research, he offered me the opportunity of working with him and this started a long period of successful scientific collaboration. Nowadays we meet only occasionally at conferences, in committees etc. , but I always recall with pleasure the warm-hearted and stimulating atmosphere he created at his In stitute in Karlsruhe. I express my thanks to the authors and to the publisher, the Springer Verlag, for their cooperation as well as to the sponsors who provided the necessary funds for the publication of this Festschrift. For her enthusiasm in compiling and processing the articles on the PC and producing the final draft I am indebted to Mrs. Ilona Lohr.

Within both the social and environmental sciences, much of the data collected is within a spatial context and requires statistical analysis for interpretation. The purpose of this book is to describe current methods for the analysis of spatial data. Methods described include data description, map interpolation, and exploratory and explanatory analyses. The book also examines spatial referencing, and methods for detecting problems, assessing their seriousness and taking appropriate action are discussed. This is an important text for any discipline requiring a broad overview of current theoretical and applied work for the analysis of spatial data sets. It will be of particular use to research workers and final year undergraduates in the fields of geography, environmental sciences and social sciences.