This paper considers the possibility that a seller can contract with one uninformed buyer prior to an auction involving two potential buyers. In a more general setting than previous literature, strategic ex-ante contracts not only extract rent from entrants, but could also mitigate the...

One result of the deregulation of utilities in New Zealand has been the bypass of existing networks. We investigate two cases of bypass in the distribution of natural gas, and compare the welfare properties of regulation vs.\ the `laissez-faire' equilibrium. We demonstrate that installing a...

In this paper, we consider the network as an alternative trading environment to the market. The main distinctive feature of the network transaction is the dependence of buyers' purchasing behavior, which makes all consumers not equally valuable to a seller. We characterize the optimal behavior...

The access pricing problem emerges when a vertically integrated firm (the incumbent) provides an essential service in the upstream market, to an entrant. Both firms produce a final service and compete in the downstream market. The standard treatment of this problem has been to add the access...

Consider the case of a firm with private valuation information bargaining with a supplier over the price and quantity of a good. If the firm and the supplier bargain directly, the bargaining outcome may not yield a first-best outcome due to the presence of information rents. The question we...

This paper derives firm boundaries as the outcome of an equilibrium coordination mechanism. The analysis is premised on the notion that efficient production and distribution are achieved through a mechanism that coordinates three basic activities: i) input acquisition, ii) production, iii)...

Most existing theories of the firms define a firm as a collection of physical assets, and hence can not explain the firm from a human-asset perspective, which is of particular importance for understanding human-capital intensive firms. To fill in the gap, this paper proposes an alternative...

This paper provides a framework that aims at distinguishing the technological economies of vertical integration from the vertical economies resulting from market imperfections. To illustrate our analyze, we use consistent panel data econometric methods to estimate cost functions on a sample of...

This paper presents a formal model of tunneling and propping in a pyramidal ownership structure. Tunneling refers to controlling shareholders shifting funds from one firm to another in the same pyramid. Propping is tunneling that is done to save the receiving firm from bankruptcy. We compare the...

We explain why organizations that limit the voice of their agents can benefit from granting them an exit option. We study a hierarchy with a principal, a productive supervisor and an agent. Communication is imperfect in that only the supervisor can communicate with the principal, while the agent...