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...

This study analyzes one-leader and multiple-follower Stackelberg games with demand uncertainty. We demonstrate that the weight on public information regarding a follower’s estimation of demand uncertainty determines the strategic relationship between the leader and each follower. When the...

We study a decentralized trading model as in Peters (1984a), where heterogeneous market participants face a trade-off between price and trade probability. We present a novel proof of existence of a unique demand vector in Nash equilibrium, based on a recursive approach that exploits the...

The US housing market exhibits seasonal boom and bust cycles where prices and the speed of trade (turnover rate) rise in summers and fall in winters. We present a search model that analytically generates the observed cycles. The proposed mechanism is based on swings in market thickness rather...

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.

This paper analyzes the unilateral choices of application compatibility by platforms and the endogenous affiliations of two different groups (content providers and users). We find a novel result that for both platforms to unilaterally choose application compatibility is not an equilibrium unless...