We introduce an intra-industry setup in order to reconsider the consequences of government (in)ability to precommit to its policies when it is constrained to only one policy instrument (second-best policies). This setup nests the standard frameworks of strategic trade policy — the...

In this paper we discuss the incentives of a welfare maximizing government to implement strategic trade policy when there is, on the one hand, uncertainty about the relevant market information (like the type of competition, demand function, cost function, etc.), but, on the other hand, the...

The competition between firms from developed (DC) and less developed countries (LDC) is typically in vertically differentiated products. We consider a model of price competition between DC and LDC firms with quality choice and imitation, and study the effects of ex post tariffs. The government...

Allowing for endogenous entry in the traditional Stackelberg setup with product differentiation, leads to reverting of the standard comparative static and limiting results. Unlike in the standard Stackelberg setup with barriers to entry, the leader's profit increases when the differentiation...

We study price discrimination in a monopolistic software market. The monopolist charges different prices for the upgrade version and for the full version. Consumers are heterogeneous in taste for infinitely durable software and there is no resale. We show that price discrimination leads to a...

The economic analyses of software piracy typically rely on the simplifying assumption that the product is offered by a single producer. We argue that a realistic description of the software market and associated economic aspects of software piracy might be also captured by studying competition...

In this paper, author examine the issue of the optimal tariff in circumstances in which trade between the ‘North’ (a developed country) and the ‘South’ (a developing country) takes place. Firms compete in quantities (‘Cournot competition’) in an imperfectly competitive Northern...

We build a dynamic oligopoly model with endogenous entry in which a particular firm (leader) invests in an innovation process, facing the subsequent entry of other firms (followers). We identify conditions that make it optimal for the leader in the initial oligopoly situation to undertake...

We analyse a simple 'tariffs cum foreign competition' policy targeted at enhancing the competitive position of a domestic, developing country firm that competes with its developed country counterpart on the domestic market and that carries out an innovative (or imitative) effort. We evaluate...

In this paper we discuss the incentives of a welfare maximizing government to implement strategic trade policy when there is, on the one hand, uncertainty about the relevant market information (like the type of competition, demand function, cost function, etc.), but, on the other hand, the...