This paper provides two characterizations of the retailer’s markup relative to the manufacturer’s markup in vertical relationships with homogeneous manufacturers and homogeneous retailers. We first show that retailer’s relative markup is equal to the ratio of the retail pass-through to the...

This paper examines the effects of obtaining a strategic advantage of becoming the leader in the market on insiders’ incentives to merge and consumer welfare. We show that being the market leader is privately profitable for the merging insiders. We also show that the leading merger would...

A new theory of loss-leader pricing is provided in which firms advertise low (below cost) prices for certain goods to signal that their other unadvertised (substitute) goods are not priced too high. The theory is applied to the pricing of upgrades. The results contrast with most existing...

We develop a model of monopolistic competition that accounts for consumers’ heterogeneity in both incomes and preferences. This model makes it possible to study the implications of income redistribution on the toughness of competition. We show how the market outcome depends on the joint...

Consider the classical double marginalization problem of single-product successive monopolies. We show that the ratio of the cost pass-through at the final sale relative to that at the wholesale level is characterized by the curvature of inverse demand in the final market. We also apply...

We examine the average equilibrium price when quantity setting oligopolies price discriminate. It is known that for the price discrimination extension of Cournot competition the average price is independent of the extent of price discrimination whenever the demand is linear. We show that this...

We show that the entry of private profit-maximising firms makes the consumers worse off compared to having a nationalised monopoly. Such entry increases the nationalised firm’s profit, industry profit, and social welfare, at the expense of the consumers. Our result is important for competition...

We present a model of competitive interaction among n symmetric firms producing a homogeneous good that includes both Bertrand and Cournot competition as special cases. In our model the intensity of competition is captured by a single parameter—the perceived slope of competitors’ supply...

In the dominant firm-competitive fringe model, where firms purchase input from a common supplier via two-part tariff contracts, we demonstrate that countervailing power may be neutral. Unlike Chen (2003), more countervailing power may not lead to lower consumer prices.

This paper analyzes location and price choices of firms and subsequent location choices of consumers in a linear city model when consumers have different perceptions of locations and firms. The study utilizes a continuous logit model to describe consumers’ location and supplier choices. A...