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...

In this paper, we study how the presence of a news aggregator affects competition among (horizontally differentiated) newspapers in the Internet. For this purpose, we build a model of multiple issues which allows each newspaper to choose quality on each issue. Our model provides a micro...

We examine the profitability and welfare implications of targeted price discrimination in two-sided markets. First, we show that equilibrium discriminatory prices exhibit novel features relative to discriminatory prices in one-sided models and uniform prices in two-sided models. Second, we...

We study the effects of competition and interoperabilty in platform markets. To do so, we adopt an approach of competition in net fees, which is well-suited to situations where users pay additional charges, after joining, for on-platform interactions. Compared to other approaches, net fees...

We compare four approaches to network neutrality and network management regulation in a two-sided market model: (i) no variations in Quality of Service and no price discrimination; (ii) variations in Quality of Service but no price discrimination; (iii) variations in Quality of Service and price...

This paper provides a thorough analysis of oligopolistic markets with positive demand-side network externalities and perfect compatibility. The minimal structure imposed on the model primitives is such that industry output increases in a firm's rivals' total output as well as in the expected...

There are examples of entry in two-sided markets, where first entrants occupy a ‘central location’ and serve agents with ‘intermediate tastes,’ while later entrants are niche players. Why would the first entrant choose to become a ‘general’ platform, given that later entrants will...

We analyze a duopoly game in which products are initially differentiated in variety and quality. Each consumer has a most preferred variety and a quality valuation. Customization provides ideal varieties but has no effect on product qualities. The firms first choose whether to customize their...

In this paper we estimate a structural model of search for differentiated products, using a unique dataset of consumer online search for hotels. We propose and implement an identification strategy that allows us to separately estimate consumer's beliefs, search costs and preferences. Learning...

In this paper we study the implications of service level guarantees (SLGs) in a model of oligopoly competition where providers compete to deliver a service to congestion-sensitive consumers. The SLG is a contractual obligation on the part of the service provider: regardless of how many customers...