We study upstream horizontal mergers and their potential efficiency gains. We show that an upstream horizontal merger can give rise to two efficiency-enhancing effects when firms trade through two-part tariffs. It increases R&D investments and decreases wholesale prices when downstream...

I empirically examine the impact of the 1948 Paramount antitrust case on ticket prices using a unique data set collected from Variety magazine issues between 1945 and 1955. With weekly movie theater information on prices, revenues and theater ownership for an unbalanced panel of 393 theaters...

We show how temporary ownership by private equity firms affects industry structure, competition and welfare. Temporary ownership leads to strong investment incentives because equilibrium resale prices are determined by buyers incentives to block rivals from obtaining assets. These incentives...

Hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies in many industries, e.g., in energy and telecommunications, challenge antitrust and regulation policy. The paper focuses on the theoretical and methodological basis provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) for analyzing the...

The price-squeeze doctrine, and the discussion of up to what extent can a dominant firm discipline its rivals by means of pricing policies has lead to a wide divergence of antitrust enforcement and consequent liability rules across the Atlantic, and even between US' agencies – the Department...

In this paper we criticize the so-called 'more economic approach' to European competition law for its disregard of the importance of a functional system of private law. The more economic approach presumes that vertical integration is an economically efficient governance-mechanism. This...

When multi-product firms make simultaneous price-fixing agreements in different markets, the introduction of leniency programs may induce firms to compartmentalize their activities. Doing so results in slowdown antitrust investigations and decentralized firm can easily request leniency for a...

Has the antitrust arsenal run out of novel theories or weapons? Think again. Recent scholarship has come to challenge conventional wisdom with the latest target of antitrust imagination being institutional investors, including diversified index funds. New economic research suggests that common...

This paper analyzes the design of innovation contests when the quality of an innovation depends on the research approach, but the best approach is unknown. Inducing a variety of research approaches generates an option value. We show that suitable contests can induce such variety. The...