As part of the Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) that implemented the divestiture of the Bell operating companies (BOCs) from AT&T on January 1, 1984, the BOCs were forbidden to carry telephone calls from one local access and transport area LATA) to another. Although the Telecommunications...

A reform movement is underway in antitrust. Citing prior enforcement failures, deviations from the original intent of the antitrust laws, and overall rising levels of sector concentration, some are seeking to fundamentally alter or altogether replace the current consumer welfare standard, which...

Understanding the behavior of users online is important for researchers, policymakers, and private companies alike. But observing online behavior and conducting experiments is difficult without direct access to the user base and software of technology companies. We introduce Webmunk, an...

We introduce three types of consumer recognition: identity recognition, asymmetric preference recognition, and symmetric preference recognition. We characterize price equilibria and compare profits, consumer surplus, and total welfare. Asymmetric preference recognition enhances profits compared...

This thesis strives to offer new insights in two main areas. First, in the well-researched domain of payment cards chapters 2 and 3 investigate an aspect that has hitherto been scantly examined, namely, the fact that merchant usage fees differ substantially among merchant sectors. Additionally,...

We investigate how costly acquisition and exchange of customer-specific information affects industry profit and consumer welfare. Consumers differ in their preferences for competing brands and in their switching costs between brands. Brand-producing firms use their acquired knowledge of...

This paper analyses the extent of inter-format retail competition between supermarkets, discounters and drugstores in Germany, using data from the German market for diapers. We estimate a random coefficient logit model at the individual household level. Based on consumer substitution patterns,...

We introduce three types of consumer recognition: identity recognition, asymmetric preference recognition, and symmetric preference recognition. We characterize price equilibria and compare profits, consumer surplus, and total welfare. Asymmetric preference recognition enhances profits compared...

We provide one of the first efforts to measure the importance of consumer preferences in legislators' trade policy decisions by estimating the degree to which the level of antitrust enforcement in the legislator's state impacts his or her vote on free trade agreements. To the extent that...

This paper analyses the sources of supermarket power vis-à-vis shoppers and independent brands. This power transforms leading supermarkets into vertically-integrated competitive bottlenecks that are able to restrict competition between brands (including their own ones) and reduce consumer...