This paper provides an analysis of factors facilitating or hindering collusion using data on the occurrence of price-fixing across UK manufacturing industries in the 1950s. The econometric results suggest that collusion is more likely the higher the degree of capital intensity and less likely in...

With exogenous participation, strong bidders should be discriminated against weak bidders to maximize revenues (Myerson 1981). When participation is endogenous and the set of potential entrants is large, optimal discrimination if any takes a very different form. Without incumbents, there should...

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...

We address the problem faced by innovators who have an idea for a marketable product but must hire employees to bring the product to the market. Information leakage implies that newly-hired employees become informed of the idea and may attempt to bring the product to the market themselves. We...

This Paper investigates whether the efficiency effect of product market dispersion is a function of the infrastructural and policy environment. We hypothesise that more developed transportation and communication infrastructure and lower government regulation may reduce transaction costs,...

A critical, but largely unexamined assumption in the debate over reform policy design, concerns the complementarity or substitutability of market competition and private ownership in increasing firm efficiency. We analyse a simple Cournot model that distinguishes two aspects of privatization...

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 study competition between a dealer (OTC) market and a limit order market. In the limit order market, investors can choose to be "makers" (post limit orders) or "takers" (hit limit orders) whereas in the dealer market they must trade at dealers' quotes. Moreover, in the limit order market,...

Understanding the development of chainstores is important given the large GDP share of services and the continuing importance of chains in bringing these services to market. Service chains provide a puzzle because they take a long time to develop even when there are obvious expansion...

In industries with network effects, incumbents’ installed bases create barriers to entry that discourage entrepreneurs from developing new innovations. Yet, entry is not the only commercialization route for entrepreneurs. We show that the option of selling to an incumbent increases innovation...