While price-fixing on platforms can attract severe enforcement action, as shown by the Amazon poster case, a more nuanced picture emerges regarding the fixing of prices for sellers by sharing economy platforms. This paper explores possible antitrust responses to such centralised platform-driven...

We explore the incentives of a vertically integrated incumbent firm to license the production technology of its core input to an external firm, transforming the licensee into its input supplier. We find that the incumbent opts for licensing even when licensing also transforms the licensee into...

We study the impact of tacit collusion on price dispersion in the U.S. airline industry. We find that tacit collusion driven by multimarket contact has a positive effect on prices, but a negative effect on price dispersion. Our empirical results suggest that airfares throughout the price...

In 2010, Spirit airlines announced that it would start charging passengers for carry-on baggage. Using a vector of route level characteristics, we construct a matched group consisting of routes which best match those served by Spirit (treated group). We then run a diff-in-diff estimation using...

There is a large literature on incomplete contracts, but one prominent type of incomplete contract has largely gone unnoticed. An "open price contract" is one in which a buyer commits to purchasing goods from a seller even though the price has not been agreed upon at the time of signing. Open...

Firms signal high quality through high prices even if the market structure is highly competitive and price competition is severe. In a symmetric Bertrand oligopoly where products may differ only in their quality, production cost is increasing in quality and the quality of each firm’s product...

This paper models strategic interactions between a product supplier, a provider of information about product quality, and end users, in the context of road transportation. Using a game-theoretical analysis of suppliers' pricing strategies, we assess the social welfare effects of traffic...

Our study is motivated by the observation that two-sided platforms often exercise control on access to and transactions on at least one side of the market. For example, Apple's rigorous approval process and recent policies that prohibit cross-platform app-building tools is an indication of...

We consider the consequences of a shared brand name such as geographical names used to identify high quality products, for the incentives of otherwise autonomous firms to invest in quality. We contend that such collective brand labels improve communication between sellers and consumers, when the...