We analyze the incentives of a vertically-integrated producer (VIP) to engage in “self-sabotage”.Self-sabotage occurs when a VIP intentionally increases its upstream costs and/or reduces the quality of its upstream product. We identify conditions under which self-sabotage is profitable for...

This paper presents a framework for evaluating whether a firm lacks dominance in a particular market despite manifesting relatively high market shares. We show that demand complementarities and high price-cost margins combine with multi-market participation to reduce the significance of market...

We employ a Cournot model with interdependent demands to explore the interaction between demand and cost complementarities in mitigating upward pricing pressure, post-merger. The analysis reveals that even substantial increases in the HHI post-merger need not raise competitive concerns when...

The superior incentive properties of price cap regulation (PCR) derive from breaking the link between revenues and costs which renders the regulated firm the residual claimant for its efficiency gains. Under the Hope standard, regulated firms are constitutionally protected against confiscatory...

This paper examines price level regulation in two-sided markets with linear demands. We find that (i) price level regulation increases the price allocation asymmetry when reservation prices differ between the two sides of the market; and (ii) changes in the level of the price cap are divided...

This paper integrates two separate branches of the law and economics literature to demonstrate the two-sided risk of market exclusion by a vertically-integrated firm (VIF) with upstream and downstream market power. The ratio of retail to wholesale price-cost margins is key. A margin ratio that...

This note reveals that while the monopolist has ideal incentives to innovate, consistent with Schumpeter’s original hypothesis, the oligopolist’s incentive to innovate is non-monotonic in its market share and approaches that of the monopolist in the limit as the number of identical firms...

This paper integrates two separate branches of the law and economics literature to demonstrate the two-sided risk of market exclusion by a vertically-integrated firm (VIF) with upstream and downstream market power. The ratio of downstream (retail) to upstream (wholesale) price margins is key to...

This report is designed to be a self-contained introduction to performance-based regulation (PBR) with an emphasis on the energy sector in North America. The main topics include: key differences between PBR and traditional cost-of-service regulation (COSR), the various forms of PBR and their...