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...

We analyze health care option demand markets with vertical restraints divided along two dimensions: naked and conditional exclusion, and vertical integration; applicable to the upstream, the downstream, and both markets. Our unified framework includes forward and backward integration, and joint...

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...

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...

Japan's natural gas industry is reliant on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) that normally requires regasification prior to consumption. Unbundling of the industry has not been enforced and while some local distribution utilities purchase gas via pipelines that is regasified by the seller,...

The paper tackles the discussion about vertical separation in the electronic communications sector, in its two main forms functional and structural. The author will argue how mandatory structural separation under certain conditions could be a possible option. The evidence is provided by the...

We analyse the effect of vertical integration in a two-stage oligopoly where the supply of one of the upstream players is insecure because this player suffers from stochastic costs. He may decide not to deliver if costs are too high. We formulate this situation as a model of the European gas...

This article analyzes the pros and cons of ownership separation of the gas transportation network. This analysis is made with a specific test that confronts two pairs of different theoretical approaches on vertical integration. The result of this test shows that no uncontroversial solution can...

This paper provides an empirical analysis that examines the effect of both, transaction characteristics and the institutional environment on the choice of governance. Using a dataset of 237 corporate-specific value chains in the global LNG industry, we introduce inter-organizational trust as a...