This paper examines how quality incentives are related to the interoperability of competing platforms. Platforms choose whether to operate standardised or exclusively, prior to quality and subsequent price competition. We find that platforms choose a common standard if they can coordinate their...

We analyze the competitive effects of backward vertical integration by a partially vertically integrated firm that competes with non-integrated firms both upstream and downstream. We show that vertical integration is procompetitive under fairly general conditions. It can be anticompetitive only...

Proportional reduction is a common cartel practice, in which cartel members reduce their output by the same percentage. We develop a simple method to quantify this reduction relative to a benchmark market equilibrium scenario. Our measure is continuous, has a simple interpretation as the "degree...

We investigate the incentive for partial vertical integration, namely, partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers, when the retailers are privately informed about their production costs and engage in differentiated good price competition. Partial vertical integration...

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the...

In some markets vertically integrated firms sell directly to final customers hut also to independent downstream firms with whom they then compete on the downstream market. It is often argued that resellers intensify competition and benefit consumers, in particular when wholesale prices are...

Though there is a body of theoretical literature on research joint ventures (RJV) participation facilitating collusion, empirical tests are rare. Even more so, there are few empirical tests on the general theme of collusion. This note tries to fill this gap by assuming a correspondence between...

We develop a model to show that cartels that produce goods with lower durability are easier to sustain implicitly. This observation gen- erates the following results: 1) implicit cartels have an incentive to pro- duce goods with an inefficiently low level of durability; 2) a monopoly or explicit...

This paper derives conditions under which reputation enables certifiers to resist capture. These conditions alone have strong implications for the industrial organization of certification markets: 1) Honest certification requires high prices that may even exceed the static monopoly price. 2)...