We examine the strategic use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in imperfectly competitive markets. The level of CSR determines the weight a firm puts on consumer surplus in its objective function before it decides upon supply. First, we consider symmetric Cournot competition and show that...

This paper contains an analysis of stylised natural gas and electricity supply sectors. Power plants operate either on natural gas or on a competing fuel – e.g. oil. The competing fuel is assumed to be traded at world market price whereas natural gas is sold by a national monopoly. The paper...

This paper studies the consequences of product-market competition on firms' decisions to delegate more or fewer decision-making responsibilities to managers. By simultaneously addressing the choice of both competitive actions and organizational design, the paper makes an attempt at bringing...

This paper characterises the impact of vertical integration on price equilibria and incentives to strategically withhold capacity in a wholesale electricity auction. A two-stage game is analysed where vertically integrated firms first declare the quantity of electricity available and then...

In this paper we consider a market situation in which initially there is an unintegrated monopoly upstream that owns an essential facility and two dowstream firms. Then the market is liberalized allowing upstream entry and vertical integration. The equilibrium entry mode - sharing the incumbent...

We analyze the choice of incentive contracts by oligopolistic firms that compete on the product market. Managers have private information and in the first stage they exert cost reducing effort. In equilibrium the standard "no distortion at the top" property disappears and two way distortions are...

This paper uses a model of endogenous sunk cost (ESC) competition to explain the industrial structure of the supermarket industry, where a few powerful chains provide high quality products at low prices. The predictions of this model accord well with the features of the supermarket industry...

This paper presents empirical evidence that endogenous sunk costs play a central role in determining the equilibrium structure of the supermarket industry. Using the endogenous sunk cost (ESC) framework developed in Sutton (1991), I construct a model of supermarket competition where escalating...

We analyze the choice of incentive contracts by olipolistic ?rms that compete on the product market. Managers have private information and in the ?rst stage they exert cost reducing e¤ort. In equilibrium the standard ?no distortion at the top? property disappears and two way distortions are...