Screening markets for cartel detection - collusive marker in the CFD cartel-audit

Coordination Failure Diagnostics (CFD) is a model that analyses real market processes with the help of time pattern analysis and investigates whether they operate efficiently (See www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cfd). The CFD cartel-audit should enable the detection of cartels via characteristic market process patterns. This is based on the assumption that existing cartels cause failures in the observed process patterns. The CFD cartel-audit attempts to draw conclusions from these process patterns in order to find hidden cartels and to engage antitrust agencies into additional more detailed audits.cartel, cement, collusive marker, market screening, price fixing

Scaling, decoupling and transversality of the gluon propagator

In this note we discuss a couple of technical issues relevant to solving the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the gluon propagator in Landau gauge Yang-Mills theory. In the deep infrared functional methods extract a one-parameter family of solutions generically showing a massive behavior referred to as 'decoupling' but also including the so-called 'scaling' solution with a conformal infrared behavior as a limiting case. We emphasize that the latter cannot be ruled out by technical arguments related to the removal of quadratic divergencies and transversality.Comment: 3 pages; Contribution to the proceedings of `Quark Confinement And The Hadron Spectrum IX', Madrid, Sept. 201

A Behavioral Account of the Labor Market: The Role of Fairness Concerns

In this paper, we argue that important labor market phenomena can be better understood if one takes (i) the inherent incompleteness and relational nature of most employment contracts and (ii) the existence of reference-dependent fairness concerns among a substantial share of the population into account. Theory shows and experiments confirm, that even if fairness concerns were only to exert weak effects in one-shot interactions, repeated interactions greatly magnify the relevance of such concerns on economic outcomes. We also review evidence from laboratory and field experiments examining the role of wages and fairness on effort, derive predictions from our approach for entry-level wages and incumbent workers' wages, confront these predictions with the evidence, and show that reference-dependent fairness concerns may have important consequences for the effects of economic policies such as minimum wage laws.fairness, contracts, wages, effort, experiments

Similarity of percolation thresholds on the hcp and fcc lattices

Extensive Monte-Carlo simulations were performed in order to determine the precise values of the critical thresholds for site ($p^{hcp}_{c,S} = 0.199 255 5 \pm 0.000 001 0$) and bond ($p^{hcp}_{c,B} = 0.120 164 0 \pm 0.000 001 0$) percolation on the hcp lattice to compare with previous precise measuremens on the fcc lattice. Also, exact enumeration of the hcp and fcc lattices was performed and yielded generating functions and series for the zeroth, first, and second moments of both lattices. When these series and the values of $p_c$ are compared to those for the fcc lattice, it is apparent that the site percolation thresholds are different; however, the bond percolation thresholds are equal within error bars, and the series only differ slightly in the higher order terms, suggesting the actual values are very close to each other, if not identical.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Stat. Phy

Impact of Interatomic Electronic Decay Processes on Xe 4d Hole Decay in the Xenon Fluorides

A hole in a 4d orbital of atomic xenon relaxes through Auger decay after a lifetime of 3 fs. Adding electronegative fluorine ligands to form xenon fluoride molecules, results in withdrawal of valence-electron density from Xe. Thus, within the one-center picture of Auger decay, a lowered Xe 4d Auger width would be expected, in contradiction, however, with experiment. Employing extensive ab initio calculations within the framework of many-body Green's functions, we determine all available decay channels in XeFn and characterize these channels by means of a two-hole population analysis. We derive a relation between two-hole population numbers and partial Auger widths. On this basis, interatomic electronic decay processes are demonstrated to be so strong in the xenon fluorides that they overcompensate the reduction in intra-atomic Auger width and lead to the experimentally observed trend. The nature of the relevant processes is discussed. These processes presumably underlie Auger decay in a variety of systems.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, RevTeX4, extensively revised, the discussion of single ionization of XeFn was published separately: J. Chem. Phys. 119, 7763--7771 (2003), preprint arXiv: physics/030612