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 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...

Fjell and Heywood (2004) show that privatization is not necessarily welfare neutral in mixed oligopolies under a production subsidy if firms move sequentially. We find that the neutrality holds for any time structure if instead an output floor is introduced.

We revisit the classic discussion of the endogenous choice of a price or a quantity contract, but in a mixed duopoly. We find that choosing the price contract is a dominant strategy for both firms, whether the goods are substitutes or complements.

We investigate a mixed oligopoly with misleading advertising competition. We find that, a welfare-maximizing public enterprise always engages in misleading advertising and that, an increase in the number of firms increases the profit and advertising level of each private firm.

I demonstrate that providing information about product quality is not necessarily the best way to address asymmetric information problems when markets are imperfectly competitive. In a vertical differentiation model I show that a Minimum Quality Standard, which retains asymmetric information,...

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 analyze how network regulation affects investment into network infrastructure and complementary services. While regulation negatively affects investment incentives in the regulated network market, the effects of network regulation on investment in complementary services can be either negative...

We show that the waterbed effect, i.e. the pass-through of a change in one price of a firm to its other prices, is much stronger if the latter include subscription rather than only usage fees. In particular, in mobile network competition with a fixed number of customers, the waterbed effect is...

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...