We show that demand uncertainty leads to vertical product differentiation even when consumers are homogeneous. When a firm anticipates that its inventory or capacity may not be fully utilized, product variety can reduce its expected costs of excess capacity. When the firm offers a continuum of...

A hedonic model featuring quality-quantity tradeoffs reveals a number of surprising market behaviors that can result from price regulations that are imposed on competitive markets for products that have adjustable non-price attributes. Quality need not clear a competitive market in the same way...

In this paper, we untangle the searchable and experiential dimensions of quality responses to entry by counterfeiters in emerging markets with weak intellectual property rights. Our theoretical framework analyzes the market equilibria under competition with non-deceptive counterfeiting and...

An upstream manufacturer can use minimum retail price maintenance (RPM) to exclude potential competitors. RPM lets the incumbent manufacturer transfer profits to retailers. If entry is accommodated, upstream competition leads to fierce down- stream competition and the breakdown of RPM. Hence,...

In response to the "standardless" approach used in LePage's v. 3M, the Antitrust Modernization Commission (AMC) and others advocate using a discount allocation approach to assess whether bundled loyalty discounts violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act. This approach treats loyalty discounts like...

The standard economic model of efficient competitive markets relies on the ability of sellers to charge prices that vary as their costs change. Yet, there is no restructured electricity market in which most retail customers can be charged realtime prices (RTP), prices that can change as...

Recent empirical evidence indicates that capital structure changes affect pricing strategies. In most cases, prices increase following the implementation of a leveraged buyout of a major firm in an industry, with the more levered firm charging higher prices on average. Notable exceptions exist...

This paper studies the impact that capital market imperfections have on the natural" selection of the most efficient firms by estimating the effect of the pre-deregulation level of" leverage on the survival of trucking firms after the Carter deregulation. Highly leveraged" carriers are less...

It is important to understand the factors that influence a country's transition from the production of low-quality to high-quality products since the production of high-quality goods is often viewed as a pre-condition for export success and, ultimately, for economic development. In this paper,...

Prices are typically used as proxies for countries' export quality. I relax this strong assumption by exploiting both price and quantity information to estimate the quality of products exported to the U.S. Higher quality is assigned to products with higher market shares conditional on price. The...