We analyse the key determinants of umbrella effects, which arise when the price increase or quantity reduction of a cartel diverts demand to substitute products. Umbrella effects arise irrespective of whether non cartelists act as price takers (“competitive fringe”) or respond strategically...

This paper analyzes the role of different contract types and access regulation on innovation and competition in telecommunications in the context of Next Generation Access Networks. Within a standard duopoly model, it is shown that ex-post access contracts lead less often to the duplication of...

We analyze how two key managerial tasks interact: that of growing the business through creating new investment opportunities and that of providing accurate information about these opportunities in the corporate budgeting process. We show how this interaction endogenously biases managers toward...

We present a simple model of personal finance in which an incumbent lender has an information advantage vis-a-vis both potential competitors and households. In order to extract more consumer surplus, a lender with sufficient market power may engage in irresponsiblelending, approving credit even...

This paper considers a firm that has to delegate to an agent, such as a mortgage broker or a security dealer, the twin tasks of approaching and advising customers. The main contractual restriction, in particular in light of related research in Inderst and Ottaviani (2007), is that the firm can...

This paper analyzes the implications of the inherent conflict between two tasks performed by direct marketing agents: prospecting for customers and advising on the product's suitability for the specific needs of customers. When structuring sales-force compensation, firms trade off the expected...

This paper presents a novel model of the lending process that takes into account that loan officers must spend time and effort to originate new loans. Besides generating predictions on loan officers’ compensation and its interaction with the loan review process, the model sheds light on why...

Contractual and regulatory provisions for access affect incentives to invest in an upgraded network and, in particular, a next-generation access network. Investment decisions are made under uncertainty and have to be made over time. This papers provides a framework for taking uncertainty, risk...

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...