Hardly any antitrust lawyer would deny that antitrust needs solid foundations in economics. Antitrust authorities hire economists, if they do not even haven the position of a chief economist. Antitrust not only capitalises on economic theory, but it is equally sensitive to empirical studies, be...

This paper revisits a particular behaviour for firms competing in imperfect competitive markets, underlying the well known model of kinked demand curve. We show that under some symmetry and regularity conditions, this asymmetric behaviour of firms sustains monopoly pricing, and possesses...

The analytical background for this research is provided by the Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm (SCP). In this view market structure determines the behavior of the firms (market conduct) and finally determines market performance. This paper explains the role of market structure on...

In industries where a patent system is in place, licensing agreements among competing firms often create distortions, as they involve royalties. Royalties are generally considered to be anti-competitive as they raise market prices and reduce consumer welfare. In this paper we propose simple tax...

Italian Abstract: Note sui modelli classici di strategie di differenziazione orizzontale del prodotto con costi di trasporto lineari Hotelling (1929) e quadratici D'Aspremont, Gabsewicz e Thisse (1979). Vengono studiati i risultati dovuti ad imprese con funzioni di costo diverse. Segue una...

Italian Abstract: Vengono esposti i classici risultati dei modelli di oligopolio con beni differenziati sia sostituti che complementari a mosse simultanee, sequenziali e colllusive, con variabile strategica quantità o prezzo. L'utilizzo di funzioni lineari permette di calcolare, disegnare e...

Is common ownership in fintech companies an empirically significant phenomenon? What are its impact on competition and innovation in fintech markets and its implications for competition law enforcement? This chapter studies these questions providing evidence and insights on the extent of common...

Market design for electricity often ignores network congestion initially and addresses it in a second, so-called 'redispatch' stage. For market participants, any two-stage design offers an opportunity to strategically optimize between the different market stages. The current debate is how to...

This paper discusses a case that a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer (M) and an e-tailer (Y) at the initial stage. There is a new e-tailer (Y) who enters the market with some probability. Both e-tailers have two selling modes to choose from, i.e., the agency selling mode and the...

Kenya is about to embark on an important reform to expand banking to millions of poor households by enabling third-party retail agents as a low-cost distribution alternative to branches. However, this initiative risks being undermined by the mobile network operator (MNO) Safaricom, which...