We develop a model of vertical innovation in which firms incur a market entry cost and choose a unique level of quality. Once established, firms compete for market shares, selling to consumers with heterogeneous tastes for quality. The equilibrium of the pricing game exists and is unique within...

This paper explores the impact of product liability on vertical product differentiation when product safety is perfectly observable. In a two-stage competition, duopolistic firms are subject to strict liability and segment the market such that a low-safety product is marketed at a low price to...

Subordination of business to political influence has remains pervasive in China. We construct a Schumpeterian-type model of growth with managerial time allocation between productive activities and building up political connections. The model predicts the impact of different patterns of state...

We investigate the effect of a ban on third-degree price discrimination on the sustainability of collusion. We build a model with two firms that may be able to discriminate between two consumer groups. Two cases are analyzed: (i) Best-response symmetries so that profits in the static Nash...

It is widely recognized that a cost-efficient way to achieve the climate targets of the Paris agreement requires investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, to trigger sizeable investment in CCS the carbon price must exceed the historic carbon prices. This paper examines whether a...

Trade reforms in transition economies are analyzed in a model of trade and vertical product differentiation. We first show that trade liberalization in transition economies reduces the local firm s output and raises the prices of all variants. Second, we find that neither free trade nor the...