We investigate the effects of passive backward acquisitions in their efficient upstream supplier on downstream firms' ability to collude in a dynamic game of price competition with homogeneous goods. We find that passive backward acquisitions impede downstream collusion. The main driver of our...

We investigate the effect of a vertical merger on downstream firms' ability to collude in a repeated game framework. We show that a vertical merger has two main effects. On the one hand, it increases the total collusive profits, increasing the stakes of collusion. On the other hand, it creates...

Standard models of collusion require that all firms are forward-looking and strategic. When one firm displays naive behavior—i.e., when it is myopic, memoryless, or non-strategic—typical collusive strategies cannot be supported in equilibrium. Motivated by the increasing adoption of...

This paper investigates the effects on tacit collusion of increased market transparency on the consumer side of a market in a differentiated Hotelling duopoly. Increasing market transparency increases the benefits to a firm from underbutting the collusive price. It also decreases the punishment...

We analyze strategic leaks due to spying out a rival’s bid in a first-price auction. Such leaks induce sequential bidding, complicated by the fact that the spy may be a counterspy who serves the interests of the spied at bidder and reports strategically distorted information. This ambiguity...

We analyze Bertrand duopoly competition in markets with network effects and consumer switching costs. Depending on the ratio of switching costs to network effects, our modelerates four different market patterns: monopolization and market sharing which can be either monotone or alternating. A...

I study a directed search model of oligopolistic competition, extended to incorporate general capacity constraints, congestion effects, and pricing based on ex-post realized demand. I show that as long as any one of these ingredients is present, the Bertrand paradox will fail to hold. Hence, I...

This paper reconciles the Cournot and Bertrand Models of oligopolistic competition, highlighting its weaknesses and giving an opinion thereafter. The pertinent question in this paper is why Cournot (1838) ignored the price and Bertrand (1883) ignored the quantity? From the review, the main...

This paper investigates the strategic effect of bundling when a multi-product firm producing two complements faces competition in both markets. I consider a demand structure where both Cournot and Bertrand competition can be evaluated. Bundling is completely ineffective when firms compete in...