This paper provides a framework to classify and evaluate the impact of net neutrality regulations on the allocation of consumer attention and the distribution of surplus between consumers, ISPs and content providers. While the model provided largely nests other contributions in the literature,...

Significant attention has been paid to why a durable goods producer with little or no market power would monopolize the maintenance market for its own product. This paper investigates an explanation for the practice based on consumer switching costs and the decision concerning maintaining versus...

A buyer wishes to purchase a good from a seller who chooses a sequence of prices over time. Each period the buyer can also exercise an outside option, abandoning their search or moving on to another seller. We show there is a unique equilibrium in which the seller charges a constant price in...

Standard policies to correct market power and selection can be misguided when these two forces co-exist. Using a calibrated model of employer-sponsored health insurance, we show that the risk adjustment commonly used by employers to offset adverse selection often reduces the amount of...

In 2011, price peaks in retail gasoline prices caused public outrage and attracted the attention of German regulatory agencies. After having examined the market, competition authorities concluded that tacit collusion existed but could not easily be prosecuted under given competition law. In...

We discuss network neutrality regulation of the Internet in the context of a two-sided market model. Platforms sell broadband Internet access services to residential consumers and may set fees to content and application providers on the Internet. When access is monopolized, cross-group...

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock's (1980) classic model where the influence activities are "black-boxed." Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be...

This is a preliminary draft of an Invited Symposium paper for the World Congress of the Econometric Society to be held in Seattle in August 2000. We discuss the strong connections between auction theory and 'standard' economic theory, and argue that auction-theoretic tools and intuitions can...

The goal of this paper is to reexamine the optimal design and efficiency of loyalty rewards in markets for final consumption goods. While the literature has emphasized the role of loyalty rewards as endogenous switching costs (which distort the efficient allocation of consumers), in this paper I...