This paper characterizes price competition between an expert and a non-expert. In contrast with the expert, the non-expert’s repair technology is not always successful. Consumers visit the expert after experiencing an unsuccessful match at the non-expert. This re-entry affects the behaviour of...

This paper examines the impact of firms' conduct on market structure. It studies the evolution of concentration in UK manufacturing following the abolition of cartels using a theoretical framework based on Sutton's theory of market structure and a panel data set of four-digit industries over...

This Paper examines the effect of price competition on innovation, market structure and profitability in R&D-intensive industries. The theoretical predictions are tested using UK data on the evolution of competition, concentration, innovation counts and profitability over 1952-77. The...

We experimentally examine the effects of flexible and fixed prices in markets for experience goods in which demand is driven by trust. With flexible prices, we observe low prices and high quality in competitive (oligopolistic) markets, and high prices coupled with low quality in non-competitive...

Two producers offer differentiated goods to a representative consumer. The buyer has distinct marginal valuations for the quality of the products. Each producer knows perfectly the consumer’s taste for its own product, but remains uninformed about its taste for the rival’s product. When each...

We study the effects of exclusive contracts and market-share discounts (i.e., discounts conditioned on the share a firm receives of the customer’s total purchases) in an adverse selection model where firms supply differentiated products and compete in non-linear prices. We show that exclusive...

We introduce product differentiation into the analysis of price competition in markets where suppliers test customers in order to assess whether they will pay for received goods or services. We find that, if the degree of differentiation is sufficiently high, suppliers may improve the average...

This paper analyzes a model of capacity choice followed by price competition under demand uncertainty. Under various assumptions regarding the nature and timing of demand realizations, we obtain general predictions concerning the role of demand uncertainty on equilibrium outcomes. We show that...

We examine price competition under product-specific network effects, in a duopoly where the products are differentiated horizontally and vertically. When consumers' expectations are not affected by prices, firms may share the market equally, or one firm (possibly the low-quality one) may capture...

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the...