This paper presents a model of collusive bargaining networks. Given a status quo network, game is played in two stages: in the first stage, pairs of sellers form the network by signing two-sided contracts that allow sellers to use connections of other sellers; in the second stage, sellers and...

A manufacturer contracting secretly with several downstream competitors faces an opportunism problem, preventing it from exerting its market power. In an infinitely repeated game, the opportunism problem can be relaxed. We show that the upstream firm's market power can be restored even further...

This paper illustrates the underlying economic logic behind the anticompetitive effects of what Ralph Winter and I have labeled vertical most favored nation restraints in Carlton and Winter (2018). Those are restraints in which one supplier tells a retailer that the retailer cannot set the...

The Rule of Reason, which has come to dominate modern antitrust law, allows defendants the opportunity to justify their conduct by demonstrating “procompetitive” effects. Seizing the opportunity, defendants have begun offering increasingly numerous and creative explanations for their...

We consider relational contracts for teams in which the agents monitor each other. We demonstrate that providing rents to the agents strengthens peer sanction endowed within the agents' ongoing relationship, which may have a negative effect to induce unproductive collusion as well as a positive...

This chapter surveys the legal and economic literatures on the antitrust analysis of tying arrangements and exclusive dealing contracts. We review the analytical framework applied under U.S. antitrust law to tying, bundling and exclusive dealing arrangements as well as the existing theoretical...

We discuss the internal organization of the firm, arguing that the comparison between a centralized and a decentralized hierarchical organization should be cast in terms of the agency costs associated with the different side-contracting games that agents play in these organizations. In our...

We consider an infinitely-repeated Bertrand game, in which prices are perfectly observed and each firm receives a privately-observed, i.i.d. cost shock in each period. We focus on symmetric perfect public equilibria (SPPE), wherein any "punishments" are borne equally by all firms. We identify a...

This article discusses the approaches of the European Union (EU) and of the United States (US) to the notions of agreement and concerted practice applied to horizontal collusive consequences of vertical restraints. I conclude that networks of vertical restraints blur the differences between...

This paper demonstrates that, under a set of weak assumptions, increased product differentiation will make it more difficult to sustain collusion when it is costly either to coordinate or to maintain collusion. These results contrast with the previous theoretical literature, which shows that, in...