This paper studies the welfare effect of product incompatibility in complementary goods markets. Complementary goods are often incompatible across brands. Incompatibility imposes a choice constraint and increases consumers' costs of switching or upgrading. Firms take advantage of incompatibility...

If entry requires accommodation by retailers, the incumbent manufacturer may transfer profits to retailers to maintain his dominant position (Asker and Bar-Isaac 2014). This paper shows that such an incentive to transfer will induce the high quality entrants to disclose the quality of their...

This paper analyzes how data-driven vertical integration between a platform and one downstream seller affects market outcomes in a two-sided market where sellers with asymmetric targeting skills target advertisements to individuals who have varying privacy concerns. I show that data-driven...

This article provides a theoretical model analyzing wholesale pricing tariffs set by a monopolistic manufacturer for its branded product that is sold to final customers by a monopolistic retailer. The bargaining power of the downstream retailer is strengthened by offering also a vertically...

We analyze the impact of the private label production channel on innovation. A retailer may either choose a competitive fringe or rely on a brand manufacturer to produce its private label. The trade-o between the two channels is a choice between too much or too little innovation, i.e. quality...

We explore the strategic role of private quality standards in food supply chains. Considering two symmetric retailers that are exclusively supplied by a finite number of producers and endogenizing the suppliers' delivery choice, we show that there exist two asymmetric equilibria in the...

We show how a brand manufacturer’s control over retail prices can lead to efficiencies when consumers rely on prices as a signal of quality. For this we first show how higher prices can be associated with both higher quality perception as well as higher actual quality. We next identify a...

I present a vertical differentiation model to assess the quality-wise strategy of an incumbent telecommunications operator under open access regimes. I show that it is always profitable for an incumbent subject to wholesale regulation to degrade wholesale quality in a non-recoverable fashion....

I present a vertical differentiation model to assess the quality-wise strategy of an incumbent telecommunications operator under open access regimes. I show that it is always profitable for an incumbent subject to wholesale regulation to degrade wholesale quality in a non-recoverable fashion....

Low prices are one of antitrust law's traditional promises to society. Resale price maintenance (RPM), the practice whereby a manufacturer sets pricing rules for retailers, artificially inflates prices and, thus, allegedly runs afoul of antitrust laws. The practice emerged in the last quarter of...