This paper explores how social interactions among consumers shape markets. In a two-country model, consumers meet and exchange information about the quality of the goods. As information spreads, the demands evolve, affecting the prices and quantities manufactured by profit-maximizing firms. We...

Standard welfare analysis of horizontal mergers usually refers to two effects: the anticompetitive market power effect reduces welfare by enabling firms to charge prices above marginal costs, whereas the procompetitive efficiency effect increases welfare by reducing the costs of production...

We demonstrate that the popular Farrell-Shapiro-framework (FSF) for the analysis of mergers in oligopolies relies regarding its policy conclusions sensitively on the assumption that rational agents will only propose privately profitable mergers. If this assumption held, a positive external...

Despite still being younger than a decade, the theory of multisided market has offered numerous valuable insights for the analysis of industries in which a supplier serves two distinct customer groups that are indirectly interrelated by externalities. Examples include payment systems, matching...

Newspapers have been experiencing declining circulation figures and diminishing advertising revenues for several years - both effects might pose a threat to the continuing existence of (print) newspapers. In an earlier paper, Lindstädt & Budzinski (2011) argued from a theoretical viewpoint that...

Newspapers have experienced declining circulation figures and declining advertising revenues for several years. In particular, declining advertising figures put a threat on newspapers - this is especially severe in the US where 73% of their revenues are generated through advertising. On the...

This paper examines capacity-constrained oligopoly pricing with sellers who seek myopic improvements. We employ the Myopic Stable Set solution concept and establish the existence of a unique pure-strategy price solution for any given level of capacity. This solution is shown to coincide with the...

Nonprofit organizations have been recently mandated to disclose the details of their executives' compensation packages. Contract information is now accessible not only to current and prospective donors, but also to rival nonprofit organizations competing for donations in the fundraising market....

We study how the supply of environmentalism, which is defined by psychic benefits (costs) associated with the purchase of high-environmental (low-environmental) qualities, affects the way firms choose their products and the ensuing consequences for the global level of pollution. Contrary to...

Anti-consumerism is a doctrine that aims to discourage excessive consumption because of its damaging effect on the environment. It can either focus on creating psychic costs for consumers (a 'stick') or psychic benefits for non-consumers (a 'carrot'). This paper examines the impact of these two...