Technology transfer to low-cost locations offers global firms an opportunity to reduce their variable costs involved in serving emerging markets. However, such moves may also make imitation by local competitors easier. As a consequence, technology transfer may create competition in the local...

In this paper, we study how an informal, long-term relationship between a manufacturer and a retailer performs in turbulent market environments characterized by uncertain demand. We show that the long-term partnership based on repeated interaction is sustainable under price-only contracts when...

Product assortment is a critical competitive tool for retailers to increase sales, maximize profits, and attain customer satisfaction. Increasingly, more and more retailers provide in-store product assortment information online or via smartphone apps for consumers to check if their preferred...

We investigate whether labor unionization of customer firms affects the operating performance of their dependent suppliers. Using a sample of U.S. union elections, our regression discontinuity tests show that passing a union election leads to a 6.9 percentage-point decline in supplier operating...

It is a popular practice for firms to acquire a block share of their manufacturers' ownership. This paper studies the economic impacts of such partial vertical ownership (PVO) in the presence of downstream market competition. Prior studies of vertical integration suggest that firms benefit from...

Firms enjoy declining cost per unit of output with increasing cumulative output in a variety of industries, which gives rise to consumer concerns about transaction fairness. Consumers are less likely to purchase from a firm if it continues to reap an unfairly high profit margin. Intuitively,...

We study how the presence of consumers' peer-to-peer sharing option in addition to exclusive ownership affects sellers' pricing and product design decisions, as well as consumers' benefits. We identify the conditions in which a seller would accommodate or hinder sharing by pricing the product...