Patent protection has gradually expanded over time, and many patents of suspect value are routinely granted owing to the lack of rigorous scrutiny in the examination process. This has resulted in the recent explosion of patents granted and potentially creates a "patent thicket"that hinders...

Tying arrangements recently have been a major and contentious issue in many high profile antitrust cases in the US and Europe. Examples include the Microsoft case, the Visa and MasterCard case, and the proposed GE/Honeywell merger to name a few. This paper conducts a selective review of the...

Most patent pools are formed in the shadow of patent litigation as an attempt to settle disputes in regard to conflicting infringement claims and the validity of patents. To reflect this reality, I develop a simple framework to analyze the incentives to form a patent pool or engage in...

This paper develops a simple model to analyze the effects of mergers in complementary system markets when the merged firm is able to engage in bundling. In the short-run analysis, I analyze the impact of (mixed) bundling on pricing decisions for existing generations of products. The basic model...

It is a widely adopted practice for firms to announce new products well in advance of actual market availability. The incentives for pre-announcements are stronger in markets with network effects because they can be used to induce the delay of consumers’ purchases and forestall the build-up of...

This paper analyzes the effects of net neutrality regulation on investment incentives for Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers (CPs), and their implications for social welfare. We show that the ISP's decision on the introduction of discrimination across content depends on a...

This paper provides a political economy rationale for quota protection in declining industries. When the government maximizes a Stigler-Peltzman type political support function, a quota may have a political advantage over a tariff in that the level of the quota, once it is implemented, does not...

This paper provides a new perspective on the validity of the so-called 'leverage theory.' In a model of preemptive innovation in 'systems' markets, I examine the effect of bundling on R&D incentives. I find that bundling provides a channel through which monopoly 'slack' in one component market...

The idea that an incumbent supplier may tie two complementary products to fend off potential entrants is popular among practitioners yet is not fully understood in formal economic theory. This article makes sense of the argument by formally deriving a dynamic version of the old leverage...

In this article, I explore the problem of sequential and irreversible technology choice in the presence of network externalities when the technologies stochastically evolve over time. Early potential users are shown to adopt an irreversible technology too early compared to the social optimum....