Unprecedented changes in the economics of interaction, mainly as a result of advances in information and telecommunication technologies such as the Internet, are causing a shift toward more networked forms of organizations such as horizontal alliances---that is, alliances among firms in similar...

Upward channel decentralization occurs when firms choose to not manufacture products by themselves and procure products from upstream suppliers. Current voices from marketing scholars and practitioners have predominantly focused on the cost benefits when production is outsourced to lower-cost...

We study the effects of entry in a downstream market where firms (e.g., Compaq and IBM; CVS and Safeway) buy an input (e.g., microprocessor, grocery items) from an upstream supplier (e.g., Intel, Procter & Gamble) and sell their output to consumers. We show demand conditions where, contrary to...

Consumers incur many transaction costs in purchasing and using most products. This paper examines the effects of a reduction in such consumer transaction costs caused by market-level technological advances. Using a model in which consumers are simultaneously heterogeneous in their transaction...