This paper investigates the endogenous choice of the strategic variable, price or quantity, taken in a mixed duopoly by a public and a private firm prior to market competition. While Matsumura and Ogawa (2012) in a standard mixed duopoly find that price is the unique equilibrium, we show that,...

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...

This note shows that the argument of Beladi and Chao (2006) [Beladi, H., Chao, C., 2006. Does privatization improve the environment? Economics Letters 93, 343–347] that privatization can harm the environment by inducing lower pollution tax is incorrect. It then modifies the model to restore...

We analyse the relative welfare effects of an R&D and an output subsidy in a mixed duopoly. We show that an R&D subsidy is beneficial for society as a whole, and socially superior to an output subsidy, when spillovers are sufficiently high. Otherwise, an output subsidy is socially superior.

We analyze a mixed oligopoly with free entry by private firms, assuming that a public firm maximizes an increasing function of output, subject to a break-even constraint. We establish an irrelevance result: whenever a mixed oligopoly is viable, then aggregate output, aggregate costs and welfare...

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...

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.

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 studies the ambiguous welfare effects of compatibility in a platform market with endogenous content provision. Compatibility can be particularly harmful if it leads to reduced content but can be beneficial if content is sufficiently increased.