Thanks to "smart grids", consumers will gradually become active players in electricity markets, especially by voluntarily decreasing their consumption when receiving scarcity messages from the market operator. For a fast and efficient transition to a more dynamic industry, the regulatory and...

This paper examines the use of bundling by a firm that sells in two national markets and faces entry by parallel traders. The firm can bundle its main product, - a tradable good- with a non-traded service. It chooses between the strategies of pure bundling, mixed bundling and no bundling. The...

This article shows how European courts have managed tensions between antitrust and intellectual protection in three areas: (1) Parallel imports and market segmentation; (2) Refusals to supply essential inputs protected by patents and copyrights; (3) Forms of conduct by copyright collectives.

Ce chapitre est consacré aux aspects microéconomiques de l'innovation. La première partie détaille les mécanismes élémentaires qui poussent les entreprises à innover et les freins à leur effort quand l'appropriation des résultats n'est pas parfaite. La deuxième partie présente la...

An incumbent firm engages in a strategy of umbrella pricing to ward off the development of an advanced technology by a prospective entrant. As a result, the competitor enters the market with an old technology less harmful to the established firm. Both firms benefit from umbrella pricing but...

Most consumers benefit from a lowering of the required amount of aurous metal which jewelers must include in products sold as "gold." However, profits of producers of gold-plated adornments fall. The net welfare effect depends on whether the principal difference between consumers is their...