We discuss strategic ways that sellers can use tying and bundling with requirement conditions to extract consumer surplus. We analyze different types of tying and bundling creating (i) intra-product price discrimination; (ii) intra-consumer price discrimination; and (iii) inter-product price...

This paper empirically analyzes how the use of vertical price restraints has impacted retail prices in the market for e-books. In 2010 five of the six largest publishers simultaneously adopted the agency model of book sales, allowing them to directly set retail prices. This led the Department of...

We study merger waves in vertically related industries where firms can engage in both vertical and horizontal mergers. Even though any individual merger would have been profitable, firms may refrain from merging for fear of negative impacts from other mergers. When they do merge, however, they...

We discuss and evaluate the incentives for vertical expansion and vertical mergers in the payments systems industry paying particular attention to the implications of the existence of network effects in this industry. We assess the incentives of large merchants to extend vertically into payments...

Platforms use price parity clauses to prevent sellers charging lower prices when selling through other channels. Platforms justify these restraints by noting they are needed to prevent free-riding, which would undermine their incentives to invest in their platform. In this paper, we study the...

This paper analyses the dynamics of hotel prices listed on Booking.com in the period 2014-16. This period is characterised by the most important antitrust decisions regarding the use of price parity clauses by online travel agencies (OTAs) in the EU. First, we document the dynamics of hotel...

This study analyzes and contrasts the U.S. and EU antitrust standards on bundling (in its various forms) and tying. The analysis is applied to the U.S. and EU cases concerning Microsoft's practice of integrating (tying) new products (Internet Explorer in the U.S. and Windows Media Player in the...

We examine the intersection of patents and antitrust where a patent holder uses the monopoly power it possesses in the market for a patented product to exclude competitors in an adjacent market and attempt to monopolize or monopolize the adjacent market. The present scheme for awarding patents...

Consumers buy internet access from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to reach online content providers. Under net neutrality, an ISP is not allowed to discriminate between content providers, even though it might have an incentive to do so. An ISP might want to sell a “fast lane” to content...

We study a two-sided market in which a platform connects consumers and sellers, and signs private contracts with sellers. We compare this situation with a two-sided market with public contracts. We find that the platform provider sets positive (negative) royalties to sellers and earns a negative...