In an experience-goods industry, an entrant who could make positive profits by providing a better deal to buyers than do incumbents may cheat buyers by providing goods of low quality to make even greater profits. If buyers foresee this possibility, they will be unwilling to buy from an entrant....

We consider innovation incentives in markets where final goods comprise two strictly complementary components, one of which is monopolized. We focus on the case in which the complementary component is competitively supplied, and in which innovation is important. We explore ways in which the...

Economists often ask how private information is shared through markets, costly signaling, and other mechanisms. Yet most information sharing is done through ordinary, informal talk. Economists are inconsistent in their view of such 'cheap talk': sometimes it is supposed that communication...

We explore the logic of predation and rules designed to prevent it in markets subject to network effects. Although, as many have informally argued, predatory behavior is plausibly more likely to succeed in such markets, we find that it is particularly hard to intervene in network markets in ways...

This article aims to help regulators and commentators incorporate both Chicago School and post-Chicago School arguments in assessing whether regulation should mandate open access to information platforms. The authors outline three alternative models that the FCC could adopt to guide its...

While exclusive dealing can be efficient, the Chicago School has also argued that it cannot be anticompetitive, or that it seldom is. That argument takes two forms; both are weak. First, a pricetheory argument (“the Chicago Three-Party Argument”) depends crucially on a special model of...

In a network industry, each firm must decide whether or not it wants its product to be compatible with those of rivals. This horizontal compatibility strategy determines whether competition is a battle to establish a standard or the more conventional competition within a standard. The two forms...