This paper reviews a recent strand of the literature on vertical restraints, that has focused on the anti-competitive effects of minimum (and fixed) resale price maintenance in settings with both inter- and intra-brand competition. In particular, we identify a set of situations with...

The nature of manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRP) and whether their effect is pro or anticompetitive is not well understood. Opposing theories suggest that manufacturers may attempt to reduce retail prices to deter double marginalization or increase retail prices to foster upstream...

The article analyses the e-books history, scrutinizing the main changes that haveoccurred in the traditional publishing industry and paying attention to the elementsthat characterize the new market. In this perspective, it is thus assessed the Us andEuropean antitrust case concerning the...

Taking the cue from the events of the Law n. 128/2011, limiting the discounts on bookscover price, which was passed by broad consensus and soon implicitly repealed amidthe general indifference, the paper proposes a thorough analysis of the model of interventionto which the law was inspired and...

Il Reg. 330/2010 del 20 aprile 2010 e gli Orientamenti sulle restrizioni verticali hanno confermato i tratti fondamentali di un impianto normativo nel complesso apprezzabile e rimosso talune incongruenze del previgente regime. Tuttavia, l'esito del processo di revisione appare per certi versi...

This paper models the book retail market as a dual market. Consumers choose between competitively retailed, well-identified blockbusters, and going to a monopoly bookshop to find the best match for their tastes. I show that uncertainty about the status on a given title (will it be a blockbuster...

We show how a brand manufacturer’s control over retail prices can lead to efficiencies when consumers rely on prices as a signal of quality. For this we first show how higher prices can be associated with both higher quality perception as well as higher actual quality. We next identify a...

This paper provides a new insight into the linguistic element of lobbying concerning the historical transformation of business activities. For this purpose, the paper sheds light upon creation and dissemination of theorisation, simplified claims concerning the consequence of suggested policy...

We explore the link between parental selection and criminality of children in a newcontext. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, East Germany experienced a very large, but temporary, drop in birth rates mostly driven by economic uncertainty. We exploit this natural experiment in a...

We show that resale-below-cost laws enable producers to impose industry-wide price-floors to retailers. This mechanism suppresses downstream competition but also and more surprisingly dampens upstream competition, leading to higher prices and lower welfare. Price-floor may be more profitable for...