The effects of (private, small-scale) copying on the pricing behavior of producers of information goods are studied within a unified model à la Mussa-Rosen (1978). When the copying technology involves a marginal cost and no fixed cost, producers act independently. In this simple framework, we...

R&D cooperation is reconsidered in situations where firms direct R&D activities towards a new product that cannibalizes the firms' existing products. For soft cannibalization, the welfare-maximizing arrangement between firms involves, for low R&D costs, the formation of a separate entity that...

This paper analyzes the role of yardstick competition for improving political decisions. We examine how performance comparisons across jurisdictions affect the agency problem resulting from uncertainty about politicians (adverse selection) and their policies (moral hazard). We study two forms of...

This paper analyzes the formation of market sharing agreements among firms in oligopolistic markets and procurement auctions. The set of market sharing agreements defines a collusive network, and the paper provides a complete characterization of stable and efficient collusive networks when firms...

This paper investigates the relation between asymmetries in the distribution of shares in joint ventures and asymmetries between the parent companies. When the joint venture and the parent companies are controlled by separate entities, we provide a simple formula to compute the optimal ownership...

Formal standards arise out of deliberations of standards-writing organizations, while de facto standards result from unfettered market processes. Therefore, the formers are of a higher quality and legitimacy, but are slower to develop than the latters. To address this trade-off, we analyze a...

This is a successive oligopoly model with two brands. Each downstream firm chooses one brand to sell on a final market. The upstream firms specialize in the production of one input specifically designed for the production of one brand, but they also produce the input for the other brand at an...