This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the...

This paper presents a model of vertical restraints with unobservable contracts in a market where retailers compete in price and service. The equilibrium contracts under the franchise and the resale price maintenance arrangements are shown to differ in the way they lessen competition between...

This paper studies infinitely repeated games with stochastic demand in an experimental environment. The lab experiments are constructed to test the effects of demand information (knowledge of next period’s demand realization) and monitoring (knowledge of rivals’ actions) on collusion. Two...

This paper presents an examination of whether an antitrust authority should prohibit a quantity-setting duopolists' semi-collusive production cartel after noncooperative quality-improving R&D. Results show that values of the technological spillover and product differentiation parameters exist...

We report on an experiment designed to study a dynamic model of quantity competition where firms continuously revise their production targets prior to the play of the "one-shot" game. We investigate how the observability of rival firm's plans and the technology for implementation of revised...

In contrast to the existing literature on repeated games that assumes a fixed discount factor, I study an environment in which it is more realistic to assume a fluctuating discount factor. In a repeated oligopoly, as the interest rate changes, so too does the degree to which firms discount the...

This paper analyzes the formation of market sharing agreements among firms in oligopolistic markets and procurement auctions. The set of market sharing agreements defines a collusive network, and the paper provides a complete characterization of stable and efficient collusive networks when firms...

We present a continuous-time generalization of the seminal R&D model of d’Aspremont and Jacquemin ('American Economic Review', 1988) to examine the trade-off between the benefits of allowing firms to cooperate in R&D and the corresponding increased potential for product market collusion. We...

A booming literature describes how artificial intelligence algorithms (AIAs) may autonomously learn to generate supra-competitive profits. Key to the widespread interpretation of the phenomena as ``collusion'', is the observation that the unilateral price cuts of an agent are followed by several...

We study the feasibility and profitability of predation in a parsimonious infinite-horizon, complete information setting where an incumbent may face an entrant, in which case it needs to decide whether to accommodate or predate it. If the entrant exits, a new entrant is born with positive...