We consider a vertically related market characterized by downstream imperfect competition and by the monopolistic provision of an essential facility-based input, whose price is set by a social-welfare maximizing regulator. Our model shows that the regulatory knowledge about the cost for...

Strategic delegation to an independent regulator with a pure consumer standard improves dynamic regulation by mitigating ratchet effects associated with short term contracting. A consumer standard alleviates the regulator's myopic temptation to raise output after learning the firm is...

This paper addresses the issue of how to design the institutional structure of an industry which provides two differentiated products. One good is supplied by a regulated monopoly and the other is produced in a competitive (unregulated) segment. Two possible institutional patterns are compared....

Within a standard three-tier regulatory model, a benevolent principal delegates to a regulatory agency two tasks: the supervision of the firm's (two-type) costs and the arrangement of a pricing mechanism. The agency may have an incentive to manipulate information to the principal to share the...

We examine the issue of whether two monopolists which produce substitutable goods should be regulated by one (centralization) or two (decentralization) regulatory authorities, when the regulator(s) can be partially captured by industry. Under full information, two decentralized agencies - each...

In an industry where regulated firms interact with unregulated suppliers, we investigate the welfare effects of a merger between regulated firms when cost synergies are uncertain before the merger and their realization becomes private information of the merged firm. The optimal merger policy...

We investigate the incentive for partial vertical integration, namely, partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers, when the retailers are privately informed about their production costs and engage in differentiated good price competition. Partial vertical integration...

Strategic delegation to an independent regulator with a pure consumer standard improves dynamic regulation by mitigating ratchet effects associated with short term contracting. A pure consumer standard alleviates the regulator's myopic temptation to raise output after learning the firm is...

We investigate regulation as the outcome of a bargaining process between a regulator and a regulated firm. The regulator is required to monitor the firm's costs and reveal its information to a political principal (Congress). In this setting, we explore the scope for collusion between the...