The marginal cost of a good is not usually a relevant factor when crafting intellectual property policy. Marginal costs estimates are based on models of static efficiency, not dynamic efficiency, which is more relevant to policymakers.Profit margins on goods must be high enough to both support...

The European Commission (hereinafter “the Commission”) recently released two Inception Impact Assessments (IIA) and public consultations on a possible new competition tool and a possible ex-ante regulation of large online platforms (so-called “gatekeepers”). After the publication of many...

In recent years, several competition authorities around the world have announced majorinvestigations into potential anti-competitive behaviour by digital platforms. Not all ofthat behaviour harms downstream consumers. This has contributed to a growing ‘existentialcrisis’ at the foundation of...

Digital advertising markets are growing and attracting increased scrutiny. This paper explores four market inefficiencies that remain poorly understood: ad effect measurement, frictions between and within advertising channel members, ad blocking and ad fraud. These topics are not unique to...

This paper assesses a common view that has surfaced recently in a growing number of Government, industry and academic studies, that first claims streaming media services are likely to have adversely affected competition in media markets (both screen and music), and second recommends additional...

We analyze mixed bundling in two-sided markets where installed base effects are present and find that the pricing structure deviates from traditional bundling as well as the standard two-sided markets literature - we determine prices on both sides fall with bundling. Mixed bundling acts as a...

In the context of an infinitely repeated capacity-constrained price game, we endogenize the composition of a cartel when firms are heterogeneous in their capacities. When firms are sufficiently patient, there exists a stable cartel involving the largest firms. A firm with sufficiently small...

Many high technology goods are based on standards that require several essential patents owned by different IP holders. This gives rise to a complements and a double mark-up problem. We compare the welfare effects of two different business strategies dealing with these problems. Vertical...

In its landmark ruling in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois in 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court restricted standing to sue for recovery of antitrust damages to direct purchasers. However, antitrust damages are typically (in part) passed on to intermediaries lower in the chain of production and...

The conventional wisdom is that the formation of patent pools is welfare enhancing when patents are complementary, since the pool avoids a double-marginalization problem associated with independent licensing. This conventional wisdom relies on the effects that pooling has on downstream prices....