This paper presents evidence on the amount of price rigidity that exists in individual transaction prices. Using the Stigler-Kindahi data, I examine the behavior of individual buyers' prices for certain products used in manufacturing. My most important findings are: 1.The degree of price...

Since the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act (1897) and the Sherman Act (1890), regulation and antitrust have operated as competing mechanisms to control competition. Regulation produced cross-subsidies and favors to special interests, but specified prices and rules of mandatory dealing....

In this article, I explain the inadequacy of our current state of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of antitrust policy towards mergers. I then discuss the types of data that one must collect in order to be able to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of antitrust policy. There are two...

This paper analyzes the concept of barriers to entry. It explains that the concept is a static one and explores the inadequacy of the concept in a world with sunk costs, adjustment costs and uncertainty. The static concept addresses the question of whether profits are excessive. The more...

This paper examines what industrial organization economists know and don't know about how markets clear. It reviews the empirical evidence which shows that, at least for some industries, price behavior is peculiar with prices failing to adjust over long periods of time. The paper discusses...

This paper investigates how the tying of complementary products can be used to preserve and extend monopoly positions. We first show how a firm that is a monopolist of a product in the current period can use tying to preserve its monopoly position in future periods. We then show using related...

This paper discusses and criticizes the usual definitions of barriers to entry. The failure of the concept of barrier to entry to incorporate a time dimension means that it is a concept that is in need of additional embellishment in order to be useful in a practical problem or for antitrust or...

To say that the price of some good is inflexible over time has little meaning if the "good" is changing over time. In this paper we concentrate on delivery lags as being the only dimension other than price that varies. We show how one can predict the relative importance of price and delivery lag...

This paper investigates the role of product upgrades and consumer switching costs in the tying of complementary products. Previous analyses of tying have found that a monopolist of one product cannot increase its profits and reduce social welfare by tying and monopolizing a complementary product...

This paper examines a model in which demand is uncertain and production must occur before demand is known for sure. By investing resources in information gathering activity, demand can be forecast. The paper investigates the relationship between the incentive to plan and market structure and...