We show that the standard analysis of vertical relationships transposes directly to investment timing. Thus, when a firm undertaking a project requires an outside supplier (e.g. an equipment manufacturer) to provide it with a discrete input, and if the supplier has market power, investment...

We model investments in capacity in a homogeneous product duopoly facing uncertain demand growth. Capacity building is achieved through adding production units that are durable and lumpy and whose cost is irreversible. There is no exogenous order of moves, no first-mover or second-mover...

We show that collective bargaining can enhance retailers’ buying power vis-àvis their suppliers. We consider a model of vertically related markets, in which an upstream leader faces a competitive fringe of less efficient suppliers and negotiates secretly with several firms that compete in a...

Collusion sustainability depends on firms’ aptitude to impose sufficiently severe punishments in case of deviation from the collusive rule. We characterize the ability of oligopolistic firms to implement a collusive strategy when their ability to punish deviations over one or several periods...

What is the best way to reward innovation? While prizes avoid deadweight loss, intellectual property selects high social surplus projects. Optimal innovation policy thus trades off the ex-ante screening benefit and the ex-post distortion. It solves a multidimensional screening problem in the...

Motivated by the higher price sensitivity and service homogenisation in the airline industry in recent years, we propose a new methodology to deal with transaction prices and to estimate the effect of alliances in the US domestic market. The assumption that airlines compete on price allows us to...

The growing importance of shared networks, shared platforms and shared standards leads to a renewed discussion of the essential facilities doctrine of antitrust. This is an area where European law and American law have diverged. In Trinko (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court came close to abolishing...

We study the effect of encouraging private actions for breaches of competition law. We develop a model in which a plaintiff, who may have private information about whether a breach of law has been committed, decides whether to open a case against a defendant. If opened, the case may be settled...

This study examines the effect on respondents' willingness to pay to reduce mortality risk by the order of the question in a stated preference study. Using answers from an experiment conducted on a Swedish sample where respondents’ cognitive ability was measured and where they participate in a...

We study a nonexclusive insurance market with adverse selection in which insurers compete through simple contract offers. Multiple contracting endogenously emerges in equilibrium. Different layers of coverage are priced fairly according to the types of insurees who purchase them, giving rise to...