Avec la crise financière qui éclata en 2007, les scandales financiers à répétition, les difficultés rencontrées actuellement par les banques sont d'autant d'éléments qui encouragent les autorités de concurrence nationales et européennes, à porter une attention plus particulière au secteur. Ces préoccupations traduisent la lecture des aspects économiques, juridique et de régulation de la Concurrence dans le secteur bancaire. Au moment, où les institutions européennes à l'image des divers États membres tentent de trouver un moyen de stopper les effets de la crise. La Concurrence est au cœur des débats. La recherche d'un équilibre entre Concurrence et stabilité économique se révèle indispensable. Dans la perspective d'accélération du processus d'intégration financière européenne, les thèmes sont récurrents : compétitivité des banques, régulations des activités bancaires, réformes structurelles du secteur bancaire.L'analyse suivie par cette thèse, se fixe pour objectif de démontrer l'importance pour les banques de bien appréhender les divers aspects de la Concurrence. Notamment dans ces périodes de turbulences financières, la Concurrence apparaît comme l'outil le plus efficace pour donner au secteur bancaire les moyens et le cadre adéquat à son développement. La Concurrence permet ainsi de déceler les enjeux tant économiques que sociaux à relever par le secteur bancaire. / With the financial crisis that erupted in 2007, repeated financial scandals, the difficulties currently faced by banks are all elements that encourage both european and national competition authorities to pay closer attention to the sector. These concerns reflect the reading of the economic, legal and regulation of Competition in the banking sector. When, where European institutions like the various Member States are trying to find a way to stop the effects of the crisis. Competition is at the heart of the debate. The search for a balance between Competition and economic stability is indispensable. From the perspective of accelerating the process of European financial integration, are recurring themes. Competitiveness of banks, banking regulations, structural reforms of the banking sector.The followed objective by the thesis analysis is to demonstrate the importance for banks to fully understand the various aspects of Competition. Including such periods of financial turmoil, the Competition appears as the most effective tool to give the banking sector means and adequate framework for its development. Competition allows detecting both economic and social challenges facing the banking sector.

The Master's Thesis is focused to the issue of competitiveness in Prague four star hotel. The goal of this work is to make strategic competitior analysis, map the current trends affecting tourism and on the basis of the evaluation results to formulate proposals and recommendations to the hotel's management. This work uses the selected analytical methods to determine the future direction of the hotel and eliminating its shortcomings.

The objective of the three essays of this doctoral dissertation is to investigate the strategic choices of organizational forms by competing firms in various environments. The first essay, which is a joint work with Professor Guofu Tan, provides an alternative theory of divestitures that relies on product-line complementarities and product market competition. We consider a simple environment in which there axe two firms, each supplying a group of complementary products and the products across groups axe imperfect substitutes. We model the firms' choices of divesting and pricing as a two-stage game. The duopohsts simultaneously choose their divestiture strategies in the first stage of the game and the independent divisions compete by setting prices in the second. It is shown that, when competing with each other, firms with complementary product-lines have incentives to split into multiple independent divisions supplying complementary products and services. Such divestitures increase prices and the parent firms' values but reduce aggregate social welfare. Moreover, the degree of divestiture, as we illustrate in the linear demand case, depends on the severity of competition and the nature of product-lines. Then, intensified competition due to deregulation, trade liberalization and entry may trigger divestitures. We further show that if two firms axe able to coordinate their divestiture strategies, they can achieve the joint monopoly prices and profits in a non-cooperative price game. The second essay analyzes the strategic incentive of oligopolists to create autonomous rival divisions when products are differentiated. We consider a two stage game where firms choose the number of autonomous divisions in the first stage and all the divisions engage in Cournot competition in the second. It is shown that product differentiation ensures the existence of an interior subgame perfect Nash equiubrium, and the equilibrium number of divisions increases with the degree of substitution among products and the number of firms. Further, if divisions are allowed to further divide, they always will, which leads to total rent dissipation. Thus, parent firms have incentives to unilaterally restrict their divisions from further dividing. In the free entry equihbrium, it is found that the possibility of setting up autonomous divisions is a natural barrier to entry. Incumbents may persistently earn abnormally high profits. In the cases where product differentiation is difficult, the only pure strategy free entry equilibrium is the monopoly outcome even if the entry cost is relatively low. The third essay develops a game theoretic model to analyze strategic leasing behaviors of landowners in a nonexclusively owned common oil pool. The oil field development is modeled as two more-or-less independent one-stage noncooperative game. The landowners choose leasing strategies in the first stage, and independent lease operators choose extraction strategies in the second. It is found that, in a nonexclusively owned oil field, it is individually rational for a landowner to unilaterally subdivide his landholding and delegate production rights to multiple independent firms, even though more dispersed production control leads to heavier common pool losses. Moreover, the degree of landownership concentration determines the degree of production concentration. The more fragmented the land ownership, the lower is the degree of production concentration i n equilibrium. The analysis offers an explanation for the puzzling landowners' leasing behaviors in U . S . onshore oil fields. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

The purpose of the electricity market liberalization is disruption of the rigid market structure, in which monopoly from regulation abuses its position at the expense of consumers. Rigid market structure was characteristical for the czech electricity market from 1990 to 2001, when the "energetics act" came into force. This act caused gradual liberalization of the market entrance until nowadays situation, when consumers can freely choose their electricity provider. The aim of this thesis is based on comparison of non-price and price competition advantages of alternative and traditional electricity providers to find out, if the main electricity producer ČEZ is able to hold its dominant market share. The analysis showed that, thanks to liberalized market entrance, ČEZ has no longer so stable position on the market and that its market share e.g. on market of wholesale electricity supplies is not due to competition dominant. Its market share from the point of view of number of points of supply remains major.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a beginning graduate student in mathematics with the general theory underlying competition between rational, intelligent opponents. This competition can be described as a game of opposing strategies; hence, the name game theory.

This qualitative exploratory study was designed to discover the impact emerging exponential technologies (EmX technologies) have and will increasingly have on the talent and business models of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) firms. This research indicated the importance of talent and the extent to which talent is likely to be augmented or replaced due to these technologies. The dichotomy between talent and technology was of particular interest as KIS firms have generally based their ability to compete purely on their recruited and trained talent. The rationale for this study is that the researcher found limited academically published research addressing the impact of how KIS firms could increasingly use EmX technologies to enhance their competitive advantage in the market, while many of these firms face intensified client expectations and increased competitor rivalry. It was the researcher’s assumption that this research would aid KIS firms to obtain a more profound understanding of how they could use EmX technologies to modify their business models as a means of gaining a competitive advantage over their competitors. A judgement sample of ten senior executives in KIS firms was selected and in-depth interviews were employed as the primary data-collection method. The data was coded and organised according to the research questions. The analysis and interpretations of findings was structured to answer each of the research questions. This research revealed that EmX technologies are likely to evolve KIS firms’ business models to ensure greater use of these technologies through adopting digital strategies that better enable their talent; enhance their products and services and how they are delivered and alter their methodologies, processes and structures to gain an initial competitive advantage. Resultantly, KIS firms are likely to obtain reputational benefits of being ‘idea leaders’, which aids in differentiating them in the market; they would be able to better scale their businesses and achieve cost efficiencies. However, KIS firms would need to keep innovating as their competitors rapidly imitate any successful implementations. Various talent and business model recommendations were made to KIS firms in this study to help them take advantage of EmX technologies in an effective way. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Cette étude propose une analyse substantielle des relations entre le droit de la concurrence et l’innovation. L’innovation est un processus dont les effets sur les marchés sont difficilement prévisibles et qui constitue un objet singulier pour le droit de la concurrence. Les pouvoirs de marché, les aides d’État, la coopération inter-entreprises et les concentrations peuvent être des facteurs de promotion de l’innovation, alors que le droit de la concurrence y est rétif. Pourtant, on peut envisager de réorienter le droit de la concurrence, au-delà de son rôle de « gardien des marchés », comme un outil de promotion de l’innovation. Le droit européen de la concurrence devrait alors assumer ce nouvel objectif, et rechercher un équilibre subtil entre l’incitation à l’innovation et la stimulation de l’innovation / This thesis provides proposes a substantial analysis of the relationship between competition law and innovation. Innovation is a process whose effects on markets are difficult to predict and which is a singular object for competition law. Market powers, state aid, inter-firm cooperation and mergers could be promotive factors factors in promoting for innovation, while competition law is restive inflexible. However, it is possible to consider envisage reorienting reframing competition law, beyond its role as « guardian of the markets », to a tool to promote innovation. European competition law should undertake take on this new objective and seek a subtle balance between incentivising and stimulating innovation

This paper investigates the determinants of informality (tax evasion in particular) utilizing rich cross-country data of firm-level survey from the World Bank, and hypothesizing that competition is a significant factor determining tax evasion behaviors. Competition pressure is a key stimulus to induce questionable manipulations of tax reporting behaviors. However its effect works at a decreasing speed. It is also hypothesized that business obstacles facing firms such as tax administration and corruption play significant roles in explaining tax evasion. This paper further hypothesizes that firm characteristics such as size, age, ownership are important evasion determinants. Empirical results are found supporting these hypotheses above. The analysis controls for country-level effects, for instance the quality of the legal environment. Industry sectors are also controlled and found significant in explaining corporate tax evasion levels.

This dissertation combines three essays on the industrial organization of education markets. While these markets share many features with other sectors of the economy, industry-specific frictions may modify the way in which the market equilibrium is determined in education. These three essays study how particular frictions interact with consumers' decisions and the strategic behavior of firms. The first chapter develops a framework to study school competition under a distinct feature of education, which I call social interactions. The second and third chapters consider the role of information frictions in school choice. Chapter 2 focuses on the equilibrium effects of information interventions. Chapter 3 micro-funds the information frictions and provides a framework for identification. Chapter 1, Competition Under Social Interactions and the Design of Education Policies, studies families' preferences for peers in the school and the implications of those preferences for the distribution of academic outcomes. I develop an equilibrium model of school competition and student sorting under social interactions. In the model, families differ by human capital and income. Academic achievement depends on own characteristics, school productivity, and the characteristics of the peers. Geographic differentiation gives schools local market power to increase prices and decrease quality in the absence of close substitutes. On top of that, social interactions generate interdependencies in demand that add a new dimension for school differentiation. This modifies school incentives through two channels: increased differentiation strengthens market power for some schools (direct channel) and incentivizes a screening strategy that exploits heterogeneous responses to prices and quality to intensify that differentiation (strategic channel). To study the empirical importance of these mechanisms, I estimate the model using administrative microdata from Peru. I address endogeneity of prices, quality, and peers by combining a regression discontinuity in the assignment of a scholarship with instruments that exploit the timing and local variation of a generous teacher payment reform and shocks to student sorting generated by a teachers' strike. I find that social interactions have sizable effects, increasing the income gap in academic achievement by 30 percentage points. I use the predictions of the model to analyze the effects of counterfactual education policies in equilibrium. I then decompose the mechanisms to provide guidance on how to design education policies that improve the distribution of outcomes. Chapter 2, Approximating the Equilibrium Effects of Informed School Choice, joint with Francisco Gallego and Christopher Neilson, studies the potential small and large scale effects of a policy designed to produce more informed consumers in the market for primary education. We develop and test a personalized information provision intervention that targets families of public Pre-K students entering elementary schools in Chile. Using a randomized control trial, we find that the intervention shifts parents' choices toward schools with higher average test scores, higher value added, higher prices, and schools that tend to be further from their homes. Tracking students with administrative data, we find that student academic achievement on test scores was approximately 0.2 standard deviations higher among treated families five years after the intervention. To quantitatively gauge how average treatment effects might vary in a scaled up version of this policy, we embed the randomized control trial within a structural model of school choice and competition where price and quality are chosen endogenously and schools face capacity constraints. We use the estimated model of demand and supply to simulate policy effects under different assumptions about equilibrium constraints. In counterfactual simulations, we find that capacity constraints play an important role mitigating the policy effect but in several scenarios, the supply-side response increases quality, which contributes to an overall positive average treatment effect. Finally, we show how the estimated model can inform the design of a large scale experiment such that reduced form estimates can capture equilibrium effects and spillovers. Chapter 3, Information Frictions and School Choice: Evidence from a Quality Disclosure Policy studies the role that information frictions can play in school choice. We exploit the design of an information policy implemented in Chile, under which each household received a map with the location of every school in its municipality and a coded signal for their relative quality measured by their performance in the national standardized test. We exploit the discontinuities in the assignment of the schools and find that parents significantly respond to the information disclosed, providing evidence of information frictions. We then propose a structural model that allows us to distinguish between two types of frictions: inaccurate beliefs about school quality and restricted consideration sets. Our structural model of school choice explicitly considers these frictions and exploits the variation generated by the policy. We distinguish between two types of them. The first one is related to the idea that parents have inaccurate believes on school quality. The second one is related to heterogeneity in search costs that may lead parents to rationally restrict the sets of schools they put attention to, and ignore alternatives which could have been better than their first choice among the alternatives they considered. We provide a detailed description of the model and a sketch on how to estimate it. Finally, we discuss the dynamic implications of information disclosure policies under market incentives. We propose a reputation model in which school owners have reputation concerns. The model suggests that low-powered incentives may be more desirable when gaming -the second type of effort- exists: high-powered incentives have the benefit of inducing more productive effort, but also more gaming. This implies that the regulator should take into account the fact that providing schools with high-powered incentives for increasing good effort also has the shadow cost of increasing gaming.

Title: Marketing Research of Customer Satisfaction at CrossFit HomeTown. Methods: For this thesis, a questionnaire has been used as a quantitative method, specifically the SERVQUAL method to assess the level of customer satisfaction. An in- depth interview has been used to obtain information about the gym. Objective: The aim of this thesis is to find out customer satisfaction for CrossFit HomeTown in Prague and recommend possible changes leading to higher customer satisfaction based on the obtained results from the research. Results: The results of the customer satisfaction research for CrossFit HomeTown show, that not all researched areas fulfil the customers' expectations. There were certain limitations in promotional materials -0,44; lectures beginning on time -0,5; willingness to solve problems -0,41 and interest in customer needs -0,55. Total final gap attains a negative degree of -3,18. The first recommendation is to improve promotional practices. Firstly, the gym should improve their website, mobile application and YouTube channel. Second recommendation is to implement a text-message informational system, through which the gym would notify the customers in case the start of their session has been postponed. Thirdly, with willingness to solve problems, the gym should consider doing a...