This paper adopts the hedonic price model to study the impact of attributes on beer prices in the U.S. beer market. The price of beer is modeled as a function of beer characteristics. Our primary purpose is to investigate the attributes that lead to premium beer prices. Understanding factors that...
In this essay I investigate the effect of United States March 2018 steel tariffs on producers’ capital. I use intertemporal event study methodology to appraise the effect of announcement of the tariffs on March 01, 2018 on the stock returns of major US steel companies listed at New York Stock...
This dissertation addresses issues of strategic behavior of firms in oligopoly markets. In the first study we analyze how generic advertising affects brand advertising and firm profits in differentiated oligopoly markets. We develop two models, one with vertical differentiation and another with horizontal differentiation. In the case of vertical differentiation,...
In this paper, I estimate efficiency and productivity change in the U.S. banking industry. The data consist of annual observations of 25 banks from 2004 to 2008. The paper follows a two-stage procedure. In the first-stage, utilizing the non-parametric methodologies, input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and DEA based Malmquist...
This dissertation investigates the effect of endogenous and exogenous events on firm behavior and performance. These are fundamental questions in economics. The contribution of this study is threefold. First, it provides estimates of the impact of mergers on railroad efficiency, which has important antitrust implications. Second, it provides new estimates...
This dissertation addresses two main issues involving alcohol markets. In the first, we employ both parametric and nonparametric methods to analyze the market structure and estimate the degree of market power in the U.S. brewing industry. In the nonparametric case, we use the variations in the excise tax to test...
This dissertation addresses issues of strategic behavior of firms in lobbying, brand and generic advertising, and advertising-price relationships in imperfectly competitive markets.
In the first study, we investigate conditions under which lobbying can improve social welfare and show that this type of lobbying will be undersupplied from society’s perspective. We...
High concentration and low efficiency have plagued the Chinese banking industry since the establishment of the national banking system in China. Recently, foreign banks have been allowed to enter the Chinese market, and small and medium-sized commercial banks have expanded their market share. At the same time, Chinese bank efficiency...
This dissertation focuses on the behavior of security returns around certain events that occurred in the Saudi stock market. In the first study, we measure and analyze the reaction of security returns around a major horizontal merger that occurred in the banking industry in Saudi Arabia. The objective of this...
This dissertation addresses issues concerning the behavior of firms, which has significant effects on performance. In the first study, we empirically investigate the effect of the reduction in number of firms on price competition in the U.S. macro-brewing industry. The number of macro brewing firms decreased from 766 in 1935...