The subject of vertical restraints is well-trod territory in antitrust. Most of the cases, and economic literature, have focused, however, on the physical world of manufacturers and distributors. This paper considers what's new and different about the digital world that matters for the antitrust...

We examine the role of private information on the impact of vertical mergers. A vertical merger can improve the information that is available to an upstream monopolist because, after the merger, the monopolist can observe the cost of its downstream merger partner. In the pre-merger world,...

The importance of economics to the analysis and enforcement of competition policy and law has increased tremendously in the developed market economies in the past forty years. In younger and developing market economies, competition law itself has a history of twenty to twenty-five years at most...

This paper presents an overview of what economists can say about vertical constraints by multi-sided platforms at this stage in the development of our knowledge about the economics of these businesses. It describes the general procompetitive and anticompetitive uses of vertical restraints by...

Conventional wisdom presumes that a supplier in a monopolistic market, or in an oligopolistic market that is not perfectly competitive, has the power to charge a supra-competitive wholesale price. In contrast, elaborating on recent economics studies, this Article shows that the supplier of an...

Platforms acting as sales channels for producers often charge users for access, via a subscription fee or a markup on hardware. We compare two common forms of vertical pricing agreement that platforms use with sellers: per-unit and proportional fees. In particular, we analyze the critical role...

A vertical MFN prohibits a multi-product retailer charging more for a supplier's product than for the products of rival suppliers. In the market for credit card services, this restraint takes the form of a no-surcharge rule: that a retailer not surcharge for transactions with a particular credit...

We consider differentiated duopolists facing symmetric linear demands and using Cobb-Douglas technologies with two inputs: a monopolized input and a competitively supplied input. Unlike with fixed-proportions technologies, a merger between the input monopolist and either firm can reduce welfare....

A vertical merger between a firm and an input supplier to that firm can generate efficiencies by eliminating double marginalization or alleviating other contracting inefficiencies. However, when the supplier also sells to that firm's rivals, a key antitrust concern is input foreclosure: the...

Platforms acting as sales channels for producers often charge users for access, via a subscription fee or a markup on hardware. We compare two common forms of vertical pricing agreement that platforms use with sellers: per-­unit and proportional fees. In particular, we analyze the critical role...