Dynamic oligopolistic competition has implications both for the strategic management of firms and for the design of an effective competition policy. Consequently, the present book considers the issue from a private and social perspective. It discusses the potential pro- and anticollusive effects of long-term business strategies, especially for cooperation and reinvestment in production, financing and management compensation, in markets with fluctuating demand. The method of supergame theory is applied to integrate long-run decisions and different types of demand into the analysis. Aside from its contributions to the theoretical literature, the book provides valuable insights into the design of competition policy. The observed development of prices is an indicator of the extent of collusion in the market and can thereby be used to assess antitrust regulation in certain business areas, and to focus the resources of competition authorities on markets where conditions are conducive to collusion.

The structure of this book follows the decision-making process of Original Equipment Manufacturers investigating the potential of closed loops, including fundamental questions managers must answer when planning a circular supply chain: Does a closed loop fit corporate objectives? Is it profitable? How should OEMs deal with free-rider competition? Which product/technology/location setup leads to a profit-maximizing supply chain? The book includes case studies from the tire and the computer industry.

Due to the accelerating demographic change of the population the reform of the existing pension systems constitutes one of the greatest political challenges in most European countries. A theoretical discussion of different pension reforms must incorporate not only the demographic aspect but also the role of financial market risk and the impact on production and employment. These notes develop a dynamic macroeconomic model which incorporates these aspects within a flexible theoretical framework. The proposed approach provides a large scale population model and features a sound description of the production side as well as of the financial side of the economy and their interactions with the pension system. Within this framework various adjustment policies of the pension system are studied under different population scenarios. The consequences for the economy and the welfare of consumers are analyzed and compared.

This book presents a macroeconomic dynamic model à la Solow-Swan, including the market for labor, in a discrete time structure. The model is expanded to include expenditure on R&D and public expenditure on infrastructure. For each of the three models the results are shown in time series figures, which demonstrate that even small changes in the parameters produce responses in the time behavior of the main variables: from steady growth, to regular cycles, to chaotic-like time paths.

This book presents in detail methodologies for the Bayesian estimation of sing- regime and regime-switching GARCH models. These models are widespread and essential tools in n ancial econometrics and have, until recently, mainly been estimated using the classical Maximum Likelihood technique. As this study aims to demonstrate, the Bayesian approach o ers an attractive alternative which enables small sample results, robust estimation, model discrimination and probabilistic statements on nonlinear functions of the model parameters. The author is indebted to numerous individuals for help in the preparation of this study. Primarily, I owe a great debt to Prof. Dr. Philippe J. Deschamps who inspired me to study Bayesian econometrics, suggested the subject, guided me under his supervision and encouraged my research. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Martin Wallmeier and my colleagues of the Department of Quantitative Economics, in particular Michael Beer, Roberto Cerratti and Gilles Kaltenrieder, for their useful comments and discussions. I am very indebted to my friends Carlos Ord as Criado, Julien A. Straubhaar, J er ^ ome Ph. A. Taillard and Mathieu Vuilleumier, for their support in the elds of economics, mathematics and statistics. Thanks also to my friend Kevin Barnes who helped with my English in this work. Finally, I am greatly indebted to my parents and grandparents for their support and encouragement while I was struggling with the writing of this thesis.

This book revises the well-known capacity control problem in revenue management from the perspective of a risk-averse decision-maker. Modelling an expected utility maximizing decision maker, the problem is formulated as a risk-sensitive Markov decision process. Special emphasis is put on the existence of structured optimal policies. Numerical examples illustrate the results.