In 1996, the British Government was accused of a protectionist "buy British" campaign when it awarded a contract for army ambulances to Land Rover. We present a model where the procurement decision of the government affects the perception of consumers in the rest of the world about the quality...

This paper considers the effect of private information on the incentive to form a cartel that acts both as a strategy-coordination device and as an information-sharing device. Focusing on involuntary information transmission from the cartel to any outside firms, it is shown that private...

The paper analyses the effect of uncertainty in a two stage duopoly model in which firms first choose capacity, then prices. We show that no pure strategy Nash equilibrium exists regardless of whether the realization of demand is known to firms before or after they choose their prices. On the...

In a duopoly model with sequential price setting we show that as a result of private information prices are either sticky in the sense that they are not adjusted to available information on market conditions, or prices are adjusted but become upward biased. Hence asymmetric information causes...

We investigate whether improved transparency about prices may increase the countervailing power exercised by buyers of an intermediate good. In a model with an informed manufacturer that sells to both informed and uninformed firms, we show that full transparency cannot be part of equilibrium due...

The focus of this paper is the effect of merger proposals on the expected profitability of the bidder and the target. The authors illustrate how an unsuccessful bid may increase the profitability of the target but reduce the profitability of the bidding firm, relative to the profitability of the...

The past and current reluctance of firms and individuals to use private enforcement suggests that there are limited incentives for self-help. The key contribution of private enforcement to overall deterrence derives from cases which would not otherwise be brought, not simply because of resource...