A manufacturer chooses the optimal retail market structure and bilaterally and secretly contracts with each (homogeneous) retailer. In a classic framework without asymmetric information, the manufacturer sells through a single exclusive retailer in order to eliminate the opportunism problem....

We investigate the incentive for partial vertical integration, namely, partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers, when the retailers are privately informed about their production costs and engage in differentiated good price competition. Partial vertical integration...

We characterize the degree of price discretion that competing principals award their agents in a framework where agents are informed about demand and seek to pass on their unveriÖable distribution costs to consumers at the principalsí expense. Principals learn demand probabilistically and may...

We consider a seller s ability to deter potential entrants by offering exclusive contracts to its downstream buyers. Rasmusen, Ramseyer, and Wiley (1991) showed that this can be a pro fitable strategy if there is a coordination failure on the part of the buyers. Segal and Whinston (2000) showed...

The paper considers an infinitely repeated competition between vertical manufacturer-retailer hierarchies. In every period, retailers privately observe the demand, consequently manufacturers pay retailers “information rents”. I compare between several collusive equilibria that differ in the...

This paper addresses the question of delegation in an organisation where there is an initial asymmetry of information between the principal and the agent. We assume that the principal cannot use revelation techniques a la Baron Myerson to elicit agent's superior information and in contrast, we...