In this paper we consider Voluntary Agreements (VAs) as an information-sharing device. In a duopoly model firms compete a la Cournot and aim to reduce environmental damages because consumers have green preferences that partially internalise negative externalities. However both firms are...

This paper studies the design of sin taxes when firms exercise market power. We outline an optimal tax framework that highlights how market power impacts the efficiency and redistributive properties of sin taxation, and quantify these effects in an application to sugar-sweetened beverage...

We explore the design of self-financing tax/subsidy mechanisms to solve hold-up problems in environmental regulation. Under Cournot competition, announcing the subsidy rate seems to be preferable to announcing the tax rate. Moreover, for constant marginal damage the hold-up problem can always be...

An integrated monopoly, where all complements forming a composite good are offered by a single firm, is typically welfare superior to a complementary monopoly. This is the "tragedy of the anticommons". We consider the possibility of competition in the market for each complement. We present a...

Information regarding economic fundamentals is widely dispersed in society, is only imperfectly aggregated through prices or other indicators of aggregate activity, and can not be centralized by the government or any other institution. In this paper we seek to identify policies that can improve...

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We...