Prepared as an introductory chapter to a forthcoming book on the distribution sector in Japan, this essay introduces the basic structure of the industry. We note the way competition drives consumers, sellers, and manufacturers to select distributional arrangements that minimize total costs, and...

Theoretical as well as practical experiences of analyses confirmed that spatial processes of the diffusion of information and communication (ICT) technologies largely influenced the economy and society of the 21st century. In the last couple of years, a new motive of ICT-based inequalities...

This paper modifies the well-known conjectural variation model of Clarke and Davis (1982) by taking into account partial cross ownership (PCO) links among firms. It is shown that, unlike in the no PCO case, the link between firms' price-cost margins and the degree of tacit collusion is nonlinear...