We examine a generic three-stage game for two players with alternating moves, where the first player can choose the level of adjustment cost to be paid in the last period to modify the action she announced in the first period. In the resulting continuum of commitment options, convexifying the...

This paper (a) characterizes the unique Nash equilibrium of the unidirectional Hotelling–Downs game in which firms maximize their market shares, for any distribution of the consumers, and (b) analyzes equilibrium behavior in the variation of the game in which each firm aims to secure a larger...

We show that the price-setting subgame in the classic Hotelling’s model (1929) with the linear transport costs has the unique equilibrium solution for all location pairs under the assumption that duopolists secure themselves against being driven out of the market by undercutting. In contrast...

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 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...