In this paper we analyze how the technology used by downstream firms can influence input and output market prices. We show via an example that both these prices increase under a decreasing returns technology while the contrary holds when the technology is constant.

This paper analyses price competition under product differentiation when goods are defined in a two dimensional characteristic space, and consumers do not know which firm sells which quality. Equilibrium prices consist of two additive terms, which balance consumers' relative valuation of goods'...

The press industry depends in a crucial way on the possibility of financing an important fraction of its activities by advertising receipts. We show that this induces the editors of the newspapers to moderate the political message they display to their readers in order to make their newspaper...

We study the introduction of new products in a vertically differentiated industry. Innovative firms have to engage into reducing time-to-market investments in order to shorten the time interval between innovation and sales. Still, these investments generate irreversible costs which have to be...

This paper analyses how the level of social protection is determined when its choice depends on political competition. First this is done under autarky. Then the analysis is extended to take account of the existence of an international capital market. We show that social protection never...

Media industries are important drivers of popular culture. A large fraction of leisure time is devoted to radio, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and television (the illustrative example henceforth). Most advertising expenditures are incurred for these media. They are also mainly supported...

We obtain explicitly the optimal path of prices for a monopolist operating in a network industry during a finite number of periods. We describe this optimal path as a function of network intensity and horizon length and show that the prices are increasing in time and that, for very low network...

We raise the problem of the minorities survival in the presence of positive network externalities. We rely on the example of thematic clubs to illustrate why and in which circumstances such survival problems might appear, first considering the case of simple network externalities and then the...

We analyse the optimal pricing choice of an incumbent firm that sells a good with network externalities and is threatened by the entry of a higher quality variant. In the framework of a vertical differentiation model, we find a necessary and sufficient condition under which quality improvement...