There is much debate on how the flow of information between firms should be organized, and whether existing privacy laws should be amended. We offer a welfare comparison of the three main current policies towards consumer privacy anonymity, opt in, and opt out within a two-period model of...

Competition authorities and regulatory agencies sometimes impose pricing restrictions on firms with substantial market power the dominant firms. We analyze the welfare effects of a ban on behaviour-based price discrimination in a two-period setting where the market displays a competitive and a...

Competing firms often have the possibility to jointly determine the magnitude of consumers' switching costs. Examples include compatibility decisions and the option of introducing number portability in telecom and banking. We put forward a model where firms jointly decide to reduce switching...

We show that competing firms relax overall competition by lowering future barriers to entry. We illustrate our findings in a two-period model with adverse selection where banks strategically commit to disclose borrower information. By doing this, they invite rivals to enter their market....