This work models outsourcing under oligopolistic competition with nonlinear costs. I show that in a covered market, if each firm's marginal cost before outsourcing is lower than the industry's average cost, outsourcing leads to increased prices and decreased consumer welfare. Joint outsourcing...

In a payment card association such as Visa, each time a consumer pays by card, the bank of the merchant (acquirer) pays an interchange fee (IF) to the bank of the cardholder (issuer) to carry out the transaction. This paper studies the determinants of socially and privately optimal IFs in a card...

Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants' banks to pay substantial "interchange" fees to cardholders' banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network's profit-maximizing fee induces an inefficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing...

We examine a model of suppliers selling to two segments of consumers, who have different preferences for quality (or some product characteristic). We show that if the firm is unable to price discriminate between the segments, then there is less investment in quality. We find that both consumer...

Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants' banks to pay substantial 'interchange' fees to cardholders' banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network's profit-maximizing fee induces an inefficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing...

In a payment card association such as Visa, each time a consumer pays by card, the bank of the merchant (acquirer) pays an interchange fee (IF) to the bank of the cardholder (issuer) to carry out the transaction. This paper studies the determinants of socially and privately optimal IFs in a card...