In a dynamic game between N retailers and a large number of suppliers, I show that inefficient contracting emerges as a mechanism to implement collusion among retailers, building on the natural ‘complementarity’ between retail and wholesale prices. When efficient collusion is not...

During an English auction, bidders' behaviour conveys information on their valuation of the prize. So whenever valuations are not independent, a bidder's strategy depends on the price at which his competitors drop out before he does. A ring of bidders can strategically manipulate the information...

We study regulation of the auditing profession in a model where audit quality is unobservable and enforcing regulation is costly. The optimal audit standard falls short of the first-best audit quality, and is increasing in the riskiness of firms and in the amount of funding they seek. The model...

We develop a theory of the emergence of merchant guilds as an efficient mechanism to implement collusion among merchants and rulers, building on the natural complementarity between merchants’ market trading and mutual monitoring. Unlike the seminal paper in the existing literature, we focus...

We propose a theory of anticompetitive effects of debt finance based on the interaction between capital structure, managerial incentives, and firms ability to sustain collusive agreements. Shareholders' commitments not to expropriate debtholders through managers with valuable reputations or...