We show how a brand manufacturer’s control over retail prices can lead to efficiencies when consumers rely on prices as a signal of quality. For this we first show how higher prices can be associated with both higher quality perception as well as higher actual quality. We next identify a...

In a dynamic model of optimal security design, we show when firms should preserve "equity capacity" through choosing high target leverage or "debt capacity" through choosing low target leverage. Thereby, firms reduce a problem of underinvestment or overinvestment when they must raise future...

An upstream supplier that is constrained both by downstream competition and the threat of demand-side substitution faces a tradeoff between maximizing joint-profit and extracting surplus. Although joint-profit maximization calls for relatively high marginal wholesale prices in order to dampen...

Our analysis starts from the observation that with progressive consolidation in retailing and the spread of private labels, retailers increasingly take over functions in the vertical chain. Focusing on innovation, we isolate various reasons for why when a large retailer grows in size, this can...

We consider an economy where production generates externalities, which can be reduced by additional firm level expenditures. This requires firms to raise outside financing, leading to deadweight loss due to a standard agency problem vis-à-vis outside investors. Policy is constrained as firms...

I take an efficient contracting approach to answer the question how much "job protection" to offer employees, in particular those at the top of organizations. Given their privileged information or formal authority, senior managers who are not given such protection are likely to take...

We analyze the role of different contract types and access regulation on innovation and competition in telecommunications in the context of Next Generation Access Networks. Within a standard duopoly model, we show that ex-post access contracts lead less often to the duplication of investment,...

Firms frequently offer refunds, both when physical products are returned and when service contracts are terminated prematurely. We show how refunds act as a "metering device" when consumers learn about their personal valuation while experimenting with the product or service. Our theory predicts...

Savings accounts are owned by most households, but little is known about the performance of households’ investments. We create a unique dataset by matching information on individual savings accounts from the DNB Household Survey with market data on account-specific interest rates and...