Can a merger from duopoly to monopoly be detrimental for profits? This paper deals with this issue by focusing on the interaction between decreasing returns to labour (which imply firms’ convex production costs) and centralised unionisation in a differentiated duopoly model. It is pointed out...

We study the optimal manipulation rules of a public firm’s objective function in a mixed duopoly with imperfect product substitutability. We compare the solutions under quantity and price competition, and the way in which they are affected by the degree of product substitutability. This...

We study the decision of two firms within an oligopoly concerning whether to enter into a horizontal agreement to exploit complementarities between their R&D activities and, if so, whether to merge or form a research joint venture (RJV). In contrast to horizontal merger, there is a probability...

We study fi…rms' preferences towards intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in a North-South context, using a simple duopoly model where a 'North' and a 'South' firm compete in a third market. Unlike other contributions in this fi…eld, we explicitly introduce the South's capability to...

A differential oligopoly game with advertising is investigated, where different dynamics occur between two groups of agents, the former playing a competitive Nash game and the latter cooperating as a cartel. Sufficient conditions for stability and a qualitative analysis of the profit ratio and...

Using international data, we investigate whether the quality of industrial relations matters for the macro economy. We measure industrial relations inversely by strikes Ð which proxy we cross-check with an industrial relations reputation indicator Ð and our macro performance indicator is the...

We offer the first direct evidence of an implicit contract in a goods market. The evidence comes from the market for Coca-Cola. We demonstrate that the Coca-Cola Company left a written evidence of its implicit contract with its consumers—a very explicit form of an implicit contract. The...

If producers have more information than consumers about goods’ attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices don't change. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity per...

There is evidence that 9-ending prices are more common and more rigid than other prices. We use data from three sources: a laboratory experiment, a field study, and a large US supermarket chain, to study the cognitive underpinning and the ensuing asymmetry in rigidity associated with 9-ending...

We estimate firm–level idiosyncratic risk in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Our proxy for risk is the volatility of the portion of growth in sales or TFP which is not explained by either industry– or economy–wide factors, or firm characteristics systematically associated with growth...