In this paper we analyze a network market in which it is beneficial for a producer to invite competitors to share a market, even when this is not needed in order to affect consumer beliefs. Because of the nature of such goods, the demand curve for network markets typically rises and then falls....

In this paper we considered a new solution to the credibility problem present in network industries. This problem arises because the value of a network good to its owner depends positively on the number of consumers who buy the good. Because of this property, it is in the interest of the...

Analyzing scanner price data that cover 27 product categories over an eight-year period from a large Mid-western supermarket chain, we uncover a surprising regularity in the data—small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases. We find that this asymmetry holds for price...

The literature on costs of price adjustment has long argued that changing prices is a complex and costly process. In fact, some authors have suggested that we should think of firms’ price-setting activities as “producing” prices, similar to the way firms use production processes to produce...

The price system, the adjustment of prices to changes in market conditions, is the primary mechanism by which markets function and by which the three most basic questions get answered: what to produce, how much to produce and for whom to produce. To the behaviour of price and price system,...

There has been increasing interest in understanding how firms undertake non-price adjustment activities, especially in situations where prices may be rigid despite changes in market conditions. Using scanner price data for over 4,500 different food products from a large US supermarket chain, we...

The price of fish depends on quality attributes such as size and freshness. In turn, quality attributes are related to fishery management. This article presents a hedonic analysis where attribute prices of size and quality ratings are estimated for the Swedish Baltic Cod Fishery. Using...

Offshoring is an important aspect of firms' internationalization. However, offshoring comes at a cost, especially where information or trust is lacking. Immigrant employees could reduce such offshoring costs through their knowledge of their former home countries and via access to foreign...

A large theoretical literature on value capture following Brandenburger and Stuart (1996) uses cooperative games under complete information to study how and why firms earn supernormal profits. However, firms often have different information, beliefs, or creative foresight. We extend value...

This paper analyzes a dynamic relational contract for employees with reciprocal preferences. I develop a tractable model to investigate how "direct" performance-pay (promising a bonus in exchange for effort) and generous upfront wages (which activate the norm of reciprocity) interact over the...