Infrastructure Quality in Deregulated Industries: Is there an Underinvestment Problem?

We investigate how various institutional settings affect a network provider’s incentives to invest in infrastructure quality. Under reasonable assumptions on demand, investment incentives turn out to be smaller under vertical separation than under vertical integration, though we also provide counter-examples. The introduction of downstream competition for the market can sometimes improve incentives. With suitable non-linear access prices investment incentives under separation become identical to those under integration.investment incentives, networks, quality, vertical externality.

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Infrastructure Quality in Deregulated Industries: Is there an Underinvestment Problem?

We investigate how various institutional settings affect a network provider’s incentives to invest in infrastructure quality. Under reasonable assumptions on demand, investment incentives turn out to be smaller under vertical separation than under vertical integration, though we also provide counter-examples. The introduction of downstream competition for the market can sometimes improve incentives. With suitable non-linear access prices investment incentives under separation become identical to those under integration

Quality Provision in Deregulated Industries: The Railtrack Problem

This paper studies a network provider's incentives to invest in infrastructure quality. In a simple but general framework, we investigate how various institutional settings affect investment incentives. We show that under reasonable assumptions on demand, investment incentives are smaller under vertical separation than under vertical integration. We consider two strategies for improving investment incentives under vertical separation. First, the introduction of competition for the market can sometimes improve incentives. Second, with non-linear access prices investment incentives under separation become identical to those under integration

Do soccer teams have to be compensated for releasing star players to the national teams?

Despite its long tradition the practice of releasing star players for association matches without compensating the clubs has become increasingly controversial. The clubs claim that their players play in the tournaments organized by the associations while earning club money. However, the clubs do not receive any shares of the relevant revenues. Additionally they claim that they have to bear costs that arise from fatigued or injured players. The clubs want to be compensated for these (external) costs arising from association games. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which it is necessary to compensate clubs for the releasing of star players to the national team. Using a contract theory based model one can show that compensation may not be necessary, since clubs are able to write efficient contracts with their player. Externalities do not occur under the assumption of efficient contracting.Soccer, Long-Term Contracts, Reputation

Should the Catholic Church abolish the rule of Celibacy? Should the Catholic Church abolish the rule of Celibacy?

Abstract Since the Middle Ages, celibacy has been a requirement for those becoming priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In the ongoing discussions about reforms, a wide range of church members have asked for the abolishment of the celibacy requirement in order to meet the changed social and moral standards of believers and to increase the quality and quantity of priests. However, this paper shows that from a strategic point of view, there are good reasons for the Catholic Church to keep, or even to increase, the role of celibacy for its priests. Using celibacy as a resource selection device, it allows the church to credibly signal its religious orientation to believers. Based on a game theoretic model, this paper analyzes the optimal use of celibacy in the market for religious services. Additionally, we discuss the relevant impacts of higher income levels, higher opportunity costs, increased aging and changed moral standards relating to homosexuality

Infrastructure Quality in Deregulated Industries: Is there an Underinvestment Problem?

We investigate how various institutional settings affect a network provider’s incentives to invest in infrastructure quality. Under reasonable assumptions on demand, investment incentives turn out to be smaller under vertical separation than under vertical integration, though we also provide counter-examples. The introduction of downstream competition for the market can sometimes improve incentives. With suitable non-linear access prices investment incentives under separation become identical to those under integration.investment incentives; networks; quality; vertical externality

Should the Catholic Church abolish the rule of Celibacy?

Since the Middle Ages, celibacy has been a requirement for those becoming priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In the ongoing discussions about reforms, a wide range of church members have asked for the abolishment of the celibacy requirement in order to meet the changed social and moral standards of believers and to increase the quality and quantity of priests. However, this paper shows that from a strategic point of view, there are good reasons for the Catholic Church to keep, or even to increase, the role of celibacy for its priests. Using celibacy as a resource selection device, it allows the church to credibly signal its religious orientation to believers. Based on a game theoretic model, this paper analyzes the optimal use of celibacy in the market for religious services. Additionally, we discuss the relevant impacts of higher income levels, higher opportunity costs, increased aging and changed moral standards relating to homosexuality.Religion, celibacy, strategic resource selection

Infrastructure quality in deregulated industries Is there an underinvestment problem?

Includes bibliographical references. Title from cover. Also available via the InternetAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:3597. 9512(no 3836) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo