This article analyzes the effects of international trade policies on an imperfect competitive domestic market, taking into account not only consumers but also upstream and downstream firms. We first study the impact of a classic import tax decrease and we find that upstream firms are harmed and...

While vertical integration is traditionally seen as a solution to the hold-up problem, this paper highlights instead that it can generate hold-up problems — for rivals. We first consider a successive duopoly where competition among suppliers eliminates any risk of hold-up; downstreamfirms thus...

We study how the presence of a news aggregator affects quality choices of newspapers competing on the Internet. To provide a microfoundation for the role of the aggregator, we build a model of multiple issues where each newspaper chooses quality on each issue. This model captures the...

We develop a model of interlocking bilateral relationships between upstream firms (manufacturers) that produce differentiated goods and downstream firms (retailers) that compete imperfectly for consumers. Contract offers and acceptance decisions are private information to the contracting...

The recent subprime crisis and the ongoing Euro zone crisis have generated an enormous interest in the credit rating industry not only among economists but also among average citizens. As a consequence, we have seen an explosion of the economic literature on the industry. The objective of this...