Bundled discounts by pairs of otherwise independent firms play an increasingly important role as a strategic tool in several industries. Given that prices of firms competing for the same consumers are strategic complements, one would expect their discounts levels also to be strategic...

We analyze the impact of passive partial ownership (PPO) on horizontal mergers. We show that antitrust authorities ignoring the effects of previous PPO acquisitions invite sneaky takeovers: a PPO is strategically used prior to a full takeover to get a merger approved which is in fact detrimental...

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...

The objective of a leniency program is to reduce sanctions against collusion if a participant voluntarily confesses his behavior or cooperates with the public authority’s investigation. Constructing a model in which the detection probability varies over time, Harrington (2008) pointed out that...

We show that the Bertrand oligopoly model with cost asymmetries may admit multiple Nash equilibria when firms hold passive ownership stakes in each other. The equilibrium price may be as high as the monopoly price of the most efficient firm.

In many industries, output is fixed by exogenous constraints, so firms compete by allocating a given stock of supplies between different markets. This paper shows that collusion in such industries leads firms to shift output from high-margin markets to low-margin markets. As a result, welfare is...

We demonstrate that cost pass-through can be used to inform demand calibration, potentially eliminating the need for data on margins, diversion, or both. We derive the relationship between cost pass-through and consumer demand using a general oligopoly model of Nash–Bertrand competition and...

This paper investigates how horizontal mergers affect the optimal entry barrier (tax) in the presence of free entry and exit. We show that the government should raise the entry tax when a merger reduces the total number of firms entering.

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...

We analyze price competition between two brands. Buyers consist of switchers and two segments of customers with limited brand loyalty. We identify a unique symmetric mixed-strategy price equilibrium and find that competition is most relaxed when there exists some switchers.