We investigate the effect of a vertical merger on downstream firms' ability to collude in a repeated game framework. We show that a vertical merger has two main effects. On the one hand, it increases the total collusive profits, increasing the stakes of collusion. On the other hand, it creates...

We study an infinitely repeated oligopoly game in which firms compete on quantity and one of them is capacity constrained. We show that collusion sustainability is non-monotonic in the size of the capacity constrained firm, which has little incentive to deviate from a cartel. We also present...

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 studies the welfare consequences of a vertical merger that raises rivals costs when downstream competition is à la Cournot between firms with constant asymmetric marginal costs. The main result is that such a vertical merger can nevertheless improve welfare if it involves a...

In a recent paper, Alipranti et al. (2014, Price vs. quantity competition in a vertically related market, Economics Letters, 124: 122-126) show that in a vertically related market Cournot competition yields higher social welfare compared to Bertrand competition if the upstream firm subsidises...

Endogenous timing can help to derive the time structure of decision making instead of assuming it as exogenously given. In our study we consider a homogeneous market where, like in the model of Kreps and Scheinkman (1983), sellers determine sales capacities before prices. Sellers must serve...

Taxes levied on production processes (e.g. VAT), are today a very important source of government revenues in developed economies. Theories of optimal taxation conclude that these taxes are detrimental to production efficiency, when firms operate in perfectly competitive markets. These theories...

Platforms often use fee discrimination within their marketplace (e.g., Amazon, eBay, and Uber specify a variety of merchant fees). To better understand the impact of marketplace fee discrimination, we develop a model that allows us to determine equilibrium fee and category decisions that depend...

This paper discusses how international trade is organized from export to trans-boundary transport to import. All evidence suggests that the transport sector is independent, may exercise market power and features strong economies of scale. We develop a model of a transport industry that operates...

In this paper, we examine how the introduction of network externalities impact an open and vertically integrated platform's post-merger contractual relationship with third-party sellers distributing through its marketplace. Regardless of whether the platform uses linear contracts or two-part...