In many industries it is quite common to observe firms delegating the production of essential inputs to independent ventures jointly established with competing rivals. The diffusion of this arrangement and the favourable stance of competition authorities call for the assessment of the social and...

A popular way of obtaining essential inputs requires the establishment of an input production joint venture (IPJV) in the upstream (U) section of the vertical chain of production by firms competing and selling final goods in the downstream (D) section of the vertical chain. In spite of the...

This note is concerned with the effects of joint ownership of complements when they are vertically differentiated. We provide strong arguments for the positive nature of network integration among firms, while showing at the same time that, in some circumstances, anti-competitive consequences can...

We study the licensing incentives of an independent input producer owning a patented product innovation which allows the downstream firms to improve the quality of their final goods. We consider a general two-part tariff contract for both outside and incumbent innovators. We find that technology...

In this paper we compare two policy instruments that can be adopted to curb carbon emissions. The first is a conventional pollution tax. The second is an environmental campaign aiming to influence consumers to switch to a green good. We consider two different scenarios. When consumers are...

We analyse how market competition in a vertically differentiated polluting industry is affected by product variants that comply at different levels with "green" social norms. A green consumption behaviour is considered as a byword of good citizenship. Consumer preferences depend on a combination...

Local and regional policy makers are acquiring an increasingly active role in affecting firms' specialization decisions that in turn influence firms' vertical organization. We analyse the relation between vertical integration incentives and trade liberalization in the presence of glocal...

We analyse how strategic competition between a green firm and a brown competitor develops when their products are differentiated along two dimensions: hedonic quality and environmental quality. The former dimension refers to the pure (intrinsic) performance of the good, whereas the latter...

This work investigates the relationship between proxies of innovation activities, such as patents and trademarks, and firm performance in terms of revenues, growth and profitability. By resorting to the virtual universe of Italian manufacturing firms this work provides a rather complete picture...

This paper illustrates the building procedure of a firm-level panel dataset that merges several sources of information concerning the various activities of business firms. The aim of this work is to achieve a detailed dataset able to shed light on firm demographics, in terms of survival, entry...