The traditional wisdom holds that the benefits of a decentralized channel structure arise from downstream competitive relationships. In contrast, Arya and Mittendorf (2007) show that the value of decentralization can also come from the upstream relationship when the downstream firms convey...

We study contracts between a single retailer and multiple suppliers of two substitutable products, where suppliers have fixed capacities and present the retailer cost contracts for their supplies. After observing the contracts, the retailer decides how much capacity to purchase from each...