We model a homogeneous product environment where identical e-retailers endogenously engage in both brand advertising (to create loyal customers) and price advertising (to attract "shoppers"). Our analysis allows for "cross-channel" effects; indeed, we show that price advertising is a substitute...

Three years ago, the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission revised their Horizontal Merger Guidelines to articulate in greater detail how they would treat claims of efficiencies associated with horizontal mergers: claims that are frequently made, as for instance in the recently...

Organizational theory suggests that authority should lie in the hands of those with information, yet the power to transfer authority is rarely absolute in practice. We investigate the validity and application of this advice in a model of optimal contracting between an uninformed principal and...

The recent surge in U.S. patenting and expansion of patentable subject matter has increased patent office backlogs and raised concerns that in some cases patents of insufficient quality or with inadequate search of prior art are being issued. At the same time patent litigation and its costs are...

The recent theoretical literature suggests that consumer myopia may lead firms to profitably suppress or shroud some attributes of the price. Empirical and experimental data also suggest that sellers gain by transferring a larger fraction of the price to the shrouded attributes. However,...

Temporary price reductions (sales) are quite common for many goods and usually result in an increase in the quantity sold. We explore whether the data support the hypothesis that these increases are, at least partly, due to dynamic consumer behavior: at low prices consumers stockpile for future...

JEL CODES: D21, G3, L2, L72 KEYWORDS: profit function, free cash flow, gold mining, x-efficiency, rent seeking, fat ABSTRACT: Conventional economic theory assumes that firms always minimize costs given the output they produce. News articles and interviews with executives, however, indicate that...

After an investigation lasting several months, in June 1998 the Federal Trade Commission brought an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corporation based on Intel's conduct towards Intergraph, and similar conduct towards Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq, all in the context of disputes where...

This article evaluates two different remedies for consumers who have been injured by a price overcharge on the sale of a good. Under a coupon remedy, injured consumers are awarded coupons that can be used for a limited period of time to purchase the good at a price below that which prevails...