This article examines the incentive to merge in a Bertrand competition model with generalized substitutability and price competition. The model suggests that acquisition of firms by their rivals can result in maximal concentration of the industry.

We study customization in the Hotelling model with two firms. In addition to providing ideal varieties, the perceived uniqueness of a customized product contributes independently to consumer utility. We show that only when consumer preferences for uniqueness are high customization occurs in...

In an oligopolistic framework with price competition, we examine the effect of abatement taxes, as well as emission caps on the incentives for adopting a green technology. We identify two new strategic effects, namely the relative efficiency effect, and the competition softening effect, that...

This note qualifies the statement made in Bouët (2001), European Economic Review 45, 323-336, by showing that within the model proposed by the author the effect of a VER on research and development does depend on the mode of competition

In this note, we analyze the equilibrium outcomes of pricing games with product differentiation in relation with the extent of market coverage. It is a received idea in the IO literature that the horizontal and vertical models of product differentiation are almost formally equivalent. We show...

This note qualifies the statement made in Bouët (2001), European Economic Review 45, 323-336, by showing that within the model proposed by the author the effect of a VER on research and development does depend on the mode of competition

The impact of input price changes on industry concentration in a Cournot oligopoly depends on the type of firm heterogeneity and on the curvature of the demand function. Firms might be heterogeneous in their ability to use the input undergoing the price change, or in their ability to use...

This paper explores the asymmetric adjustment speed of gasoline price in twelve European Union (EU) countries transmitted directly in a single stage formulation. The empirical results shed new light on the taxation effect and its role to the price asymmetry nexus, pointing that in many EU...

The paper examines the differential exercise of market power over the business cycle in the context of selected sectors in the Canadian manufacturing industry during the 1992-1/2007-4 period. In particular, empirical implications of non-collusive models previously explored by Wilson and Reynolds...

This note analyzes the impact of indirect network effects in emerging two-sided markets on prices, quantities, profits and market entry assuming market enlargement induced by indirect network effects. Only if indirect network effects are small, the conventional results of market entry apply,...