In their efforts to create a position in a market, and to maintain that position, firms make positioning investments of various sorts, in R&D, plant, advertising, and location, or more generally, in product development and maintenance. The heart of this paper is the hypothesis that the success...

Using a Dominant-group-fringe model, we show that the choice of punishment path in the event that unilateral defection occurs depends upon the common discount parameter, and that when the discount parameter is given the punishment path may depend upon the size of the dominant- group. A striking...

This paper analyzes the incentives for 'whistleblowing' on a cartel under different assumptions about market demand and firms' costs. We introduce the concept of a 'critical expected penalty' to demonstrate the crucial role of such demand and cost parameters in determining firms' choices. We...