This paper aims to make a public statement about the strategy implemented by Microsoft in order to reinforce its market power across the networked users of Windows Operative System, and Xbox Games Console. It is presented an economic view that supports the anticipating (not predatory) position...

A durable-goods monopolist may use quality degradation as a commitment not to lower price in the future. The introduction of damaged goods expedites lowvaluation consumers? future demands, and helps the firm to mitigate the Coasian time-consistency problem. In such a case, damaged goods are more...

The authors explain why the elementary logic of rate-of-return regulation generates not the competitive outcome but the monopoly outcome. Within the framework of the "passive regulator" that this logic entails, public regulation cannot alter the monopoly outcome, but can only change the form in...

We study how learning affects an uninformed monopolist?s supply and investment decisions under multiplicative uncertainty in demand. The monopolist is uninformed because it does not know one of the parameters deÞning the distribution of the random demand. Observing prices reveals this...

A general equilibrium analysis of monopoly power is proposed as an alternative to the partial equilibrium analyses of monopolization common to most antitrust texts. This analysis introduces the notion of a cost minimizing market equilibrium. The empirical implications of this equilibrium concept...

The author derives the probability that price discrimination improves social welfare, using a simple model of third-degree price discrimination assuming two independent linear demands. The probability that price discrimination raises social welfare increases as the preferences or incomes of...

In a context where demand for the services of a durable good changes over time, and this change may be uncertain, the paper shows that social welfare may be higher when the monopolist seller can commit to any future price level she wishes than when she cannot. Moreover, the equilibrium under a...

We study a multidimensional screening problem with minimal restrictions on valuations. Our ?-relaxation of the constraints excludes bunching and cycles in the graph of active incentive-compatibility constraints. Therefore, the Lagrange multipliers do exist and enable us in characterizing...

The paper provides an analysis of the second-degree price discrimination problem on a monopolistic two-sided market. In a simple framework with two distinct types of agents on market side 1, we show that under incomplete information the extent of platform access for high-demand agents is...

In this article we study patterns of vertical product differentiation in a multi-product monopoly using a random utility model. Prior research shows that applying such a model in a multi-product setting implies symmetric patterns of product differentiation in which all product variants of a...