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The Internet has enabled consumers to act as their own travel agents and to verify independently the accuracy of the information provided by airlines through the CRSs and travel agents. As a result, the relationships between consumers and the suppliers of air-travel information have been radically altered, and we document these changes. We identify the relevant market for air-travel information, which includes CRSs, online travel agencies, and the websites and call centers of individual carriers. We determine market concentration and market shares using the Herfindhal-Hirschman Index. Based on our analysis, we argue that there is no longer any need to regulate independent CRSs. However, airlines that own CRSs continue to have an incentive to withdraw their flight and fare information from rival CRSs and, to prevent this from happening, the mandatory participation rule adopted in 1992 should be maintained.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

Transaction costs on the housing market are, arguably, inevitable. They are also diverse. While fees and taxes are easily identified and observed, transaction costs can arise from the functioning of the market and its regulatory framework. For instance, there are costs related to obtaining information. Lack of information creates uncertainty, which increases risk, which increases transaction costs. Thus, market transparency affects the level of transaction costs. For the regulatory framework to be effective, rules must be effectively enforceable; accordingly, the judicial and administrative institutions must function properly. Thus, there is a clear, albeit complex, relation between transaction costs on the one hand and market transparency, government efficiency, regulatory quality, and property rights protection on the other.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss transaction processes and transaction costs in real estate conveyances for both the seller and the buyer with respect to taxes, fees, and obtaining information. To that end, we compare the transaction processes and costs involved in Croatia and Sweden, respectively.

Neither Croatia nor Sweden displays prohibitive costs, yet Croatian transaction costs are significantly higher than those in Sweden. This is hardly surprising given that the Croatian transaction process features at least one additional party to be remunerated compared to the Swedish process. Thus, it would seem that the Swedish regulatory regime – where the estate is charged with handling the legal aspects of the transaction – render lower transaction costs.

There is also the issue of how and to whom fees are paid. For instance, there are more bank fees in Croatia, whereas in Sweden more of the fees are paid to the state. On the other hand, Croatia is one of the few countries where no capital gains tax is levied on real estate conveyances, whereas Sweden has a capital gains tax of 22 per cent – a tax that may hamper movement from one region to another with differences in property prices. Overall, however, with the exception of the capital gains tax for the seller, it is clear that the Swedish transaction process carries lower and more predicable costs than its Croatian counterpart.

Platforms in two-sided markets are known to provide subsidies to either buyers or sellers, in order to take advantage of cross-group externalities inherent in such industries. Online travel agents can be thought of as platforms facilitating trade between passengers and travel service providers (airlines). This chapter evaluates the effects of a buyer subsidy provided by one major US online travel agent – a low-price guarantee offered by Orbitz. We find evidence consistent with increased airline participation with this travel agent upon implementation of the low-price guarantee policy. Our results also confirm the theoretical claims that most-favored customer low-price guarantee policies are procompetitive.

The increased use of checks in nonlocal payments at the end of the nineteenth century presented problems for their clearing and collection. Checks were required to be paid in full (at par) only when presented directly to the drawn-upon bank at its counter. Consequently, many, primarily rural or small-town, banks began to charge remittance fees on checks not presented for collection in person. Such fees and the alleged circuitous routing of checks in the process of collection to avoid them were widely criticized defects of the pre-Federal Reserve payments system. As the new Federal Reserve established its own system for check clearing and collection, it also took as an implicit mandate the promotion of universal par clearing and collection. The result was a bitter struggle with non-par banks, the numbers of which initially shrunk dramatically but then rebounded. A 1923 Supreme Court decision ended the Fed’s active (or coercive) pursuit of universal par clearing, and non-par banking persisted thereafter for decades. Not until the Monetary Control Act of 1980 was universal par clearing and true monetary union, in which standard means of payment are accepted at par everywhere, achieved.

An innovation's social value depends on various factors that are independent of how the particular innovation is used with other technologies. Examples of such factors are the size of the market the innovation will serve and the manner in which the innovation is managed. However, an innovation must often be implemented with complementary inventions whenever it is exercised and its benefits are realized. In such cases, an innovation's value depends, in part, on the ownership structure of the related inventions. This paper makes its contribution by examining how an innovation's social value is affected when it must be applied in concert with other essential inventions. In this paper, I propose a measure that helps predict an innovation's social value. I also suggest a practical procedure to implement this measure and I evaluate a key feature of this procedure.

Libraries and professional publishers have long had a complicated relationship. This chapter seeks to explore some elements of this relationship in order to suggest new ways of regarding each of the parties and to generate an active dialog with the aim of improving collaboration and cooperation between them.