Whereas in some industries retailers distribute the products of all suppliers, in other industries they differentiate themselves from their rivals by becoming the exclusive distributors of some products, which results in incomplete distribution networks. To study this phenomenon, I analyze a...

This paper studies how firms' offshoring decisions shape a country's domestic production networks. We develop a model in which heterogeneous firms source inputs from multiple industries located in different domestic regions and foreign countries. Input sourcing entails communication with...

The restrictive measures that have been imposed from March 2020 on business activities in several countries to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic can be interpreted as shocks to global supply chains. We propose some agent-based models to evaluate the economic effects of different...

Buyer-seller networks where price is determined by an ascending-bid auction are important in many economic examples such as certain real estate markets, radio spectrum sharing, and buyer-supplier networks. However, it may be that some sellers are better off not participating in the auction. We...

We present a model where firms engage in imperfect price competition, firms cannot sell to all consumers. A bipartite network structure models the local interaction of firms and consumers. We solve for the unique equilibrium of duopolistic price competition and study the implications of network...

The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of power distribution within networks of relationships between companies and consumers (business-to-consumer (B2C) networks) and to examine the ways in which value is created and captured in such structures. To this end, we applied the network...

Entrepreneurial business firms such as franchisors can enhance their network performance by attracting high-quality partners and preventing low-quality partners from joining the network. We draw on agency and transaction cost theories and the substantive literature on voluntary information...

Empirical studies of commercial relationships between firms reveal that (i) suppliers encounter situations in which they can gain in the short run by acting opportunistically---for example, delivering a lower quality than promised after being paid; and (ii) good conduct is sustained not...

This paper is interested in the analysis of Blockchains and Smart-contracts applied to inter-firms relationships, in particular the franchise networks. After defining the Blockchain technology and the Smart-contract as a particular type of contract stored in blockchains, we question the theory...

Prior empirical studies suggest repeated exchange develops increasing value in buyer-supplier relationships. A first order implication of this finding is that buyers will concentrate exchange among a relatively small number of suppliers to generate maximum value in relationships. However, buyers...