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...

Policy design in oligopolistic settings depends critically on the mode of competition between firms. We develop a model of oligopoly intermediation that reveals the mode of competition to be an equilibrium outcome that depends on the relative degree of rivalry between firms in the upstream and...

We develop a model of competition between retailer chains with a structural estimation of the demand and supply in the supermarket industry in France. In the model, supermarkets compete in price and brand offer over all food products to attract consumers, in particular through the share of...

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...

This paper explores a new role for venture capitalists, as knowledge intermediaries. A venture capital investor can communicate valuable knowledge to an entrepreneur, facilitating innovation. The venture capitalist can also communicate the entrepreneur's innovative knowledge to other portfolio...

Innovative start-ups and venture capitalists are highly clustered: Silicon Valley is probably the best-known example. Clusters differ in the contracts they use, and in how they perform. I explore the link between spillovers, contractual design and performance. I find that more "incomplete"...

This paper empirically analyzes how the adoption of Information Technologies (IT) has changed the organization of global supply chains. We focus on international mergers, which are a growing and important component of foreign direct investment. We use data on North-South vertical mergers and...

Contractual execution generates hard information, available to the contracting parties, even when contracts are secretly executed. Building on this simple observation, the paper shows that incomplete contracts can be preferred to complete contracts. This is because (i) execution of incomplete...

This article examines how firms facing volatile input prices and holding some degree of market power in their product market link their risk management and production or pricing strategies. This issue is relevant in many industries ranging from manufacturing to energy retailing, where risk...

This article examines how …rms facing volatile input prices and holding some degree of market power in their product market link their risk management and their production or pricing strategies. This issue is relevant in many industries ranging from manufacturing to energy retailing, where risk...