The U.S. credit card market is highly concentrated and highly profitable, two facts which have drawn scrutiny of its competitive practices. I study competition in this market by analyzing how lenders target and acquire new customers using direct-mail, their principal acquisition channel. I find...

The welfare cost of imperfect competition in the product and labor market as well as distortionary taxation is quantified in a dynamic general equilibrium model parameterized to fit the U.S. economy. We find that the welfare cost of imperfect competition in the product market is 35.74 percent...

Since Telser (1960), there is a well-established argument that a competitive market will not provide service due to free-riding. We show that with search frictions, the market may well provide service if the cost of doing so is not too large. Any market equilibrium with service provision has two...

This article addresses developments in the literature on The Rise of Market Power. First, it summarizes research about the result of De Loecker 2020 that the sales-weighted average markup has increased in the United States. Second, it summarizes and evaluates a set of industry studies that...

Using granular data from the consumer goods industry, we study pricing and non-pricing effects of common ownership at the product level. We find positive elasticity of consumer goods prices to common ownership and that firms pass along price increases to consumers through the marginal cost...

Although recent international broadband penetration rankings have Congress concerned about U.S. broadband policy, these statistics should not play a large role in forming U.S. broadband policy, as they fail to take into account geographic factors, demographic factors and consumer preferences...

We characterize the evolution of markups for consumer products in the United States from 2006 to 2019. Using detailed data on prices and quantities for products in more than 100 distinct product categories, we estimate flexible demand systems and recover markups under an assumption that firms...

In times of increasing oil prices and a weak dollar, European companies that focus their business on the US market may find themselves in a weak position. While many businesses can hedge this kind of risk by relocating production to the US, or employing financial remedies, these strategies may...

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines...

The study analyses the price formation and market functionality of the Finnish food chain. A significant portion of the report consists of international comparisons. The main comparison countries are the so-called old EU countries (EU15) of Western Europe, the new EU countries (EU12) and the...