In many capital-intensive markets, sellers sign long-term contracts with buyers before committing to sunk cost investments. Ex-ante contracts mitigate the risk of under-investment arising from ex-post bargaining. However, contractual rigidities reduce the ability of firms to respond flexibly to...

We examine the implications of different contractual forms for welfare as well as for firms’ profits in a framework in which a vertically integrated firm sells its good to an independent downstream firm. Under downstream Bertrand competition, the standard result of the desirability of two-part...

This paper concerns the sale of a vertically differentiated good by a manufacturer to retailers that have market power when reselling to consumers. The contractual relationships between the manufacturer and individual retailers are characterized as ldquo;quasi-partnerships,rdquo; reflecting the...

When an upstream monopolist supplies several competing downstreamfirms, it may fail to monopolize the market because it is unable to commit not to behave opportunistically. We build on previous experimental studies of this well-known commitment problem by introducing communication. Allowing the...

Cutting out the intermediary and selling directly to consumers is an increasingly common strategy by manufacturers in many industries. We develop a structural model of vertical relations where manufacturers both bargain with retailers over wholesale prices and sell their products directly to...

This article examines the collusive potential of first refusal contracts, which are contracts that grant one party, the buyer, a right of first refusal on the output of another party, the seller. When two parties enter into this type of contract, the seller is obligated to offer any output she...

This study constructs a simplest model to examine anticompetitive exclusive contracts that prevent a downstream buyer from buying input from a new up-stream supplier. Incorporating Nash bargaining into the standard one-buyer-one-supplier framework in the Chicago School critique, we show a...

This study constructs a simplest model to examine anticompetitive exclusive contracts that prevent a downstream buyer from buying input from a new upstream supplier. Incorporating Nash bargaining into the standard one-buyer-one-supplier framework in the Chicago School critique, we show a...