This paper presents a model in which firms compete in a Cournot-Nash game. Firms can choose an exclusive agency (EA) or an independent agency (IA) distribution system. Firms can enter and exit the market and switch distribution systems with no cost. The only difference between an EA system and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether insurers could have a strong motivation for M&A in the future because they need to survive within the industry under oversaturated market conditions. Recently, Japanese non‐life insurance markets, mainly the automobile insurance...

Abstract This paper shows that vertical foreign direct investment will reduce prices but the aggregate welfare effect is unambiguously positive only under free market entry. Using a standard model of imperfect competition, we develop this result by considering two different cases. In the first...

We examine market structure and optimal commodity taxation in a world in which firms produce differentiated products and can exert some degree of market power. Building on Kay and Keen (1983), we model two forms of product technologies, two forms of market entry structures, and two forms of...

Multi-product firms dominate production activity in the global economy. There is widespread evidence showing that large corporations improve their efficiency by increasing the scale of their operations; this objective can be realized either by consistently investing in R&D or by expanding the...

We study the incidence and economic rationale for cooperative bargaining in U.S. agricultural markets. Bargaining is not just about increasing price paid to farmers; indeed, there is no empirical research indicating that cooperative bargaining has any direct influence on price. Nevertheless, the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show that outsourcing can occur as outcome of a separating or pooling perfect Bayesian equilibrium although it is not profitable under complete information. Therefore, asymmetric information can itself be a reason for outsourcing....