We investigate the effects of passive backward acquisitions in their efficient upstream supplier on downstream firms' ability to collude in a dynamic game of price competition with homogeneous goods. We find that passive backward acquisitions impede downstream collusion. The main driver of our...

This paper presents a theory of vertically interrelated markets of identical fixed size under implementation of positive indirect network effects. By introducing two Salop circles, a two-sided market model is provided, where intermediaries of differentiated copyrights for intellectual property,...

This paper investigates the upcoming business model of online streaming services allowing music consumers either to subscribe to a service which provides free-of-charge access to streaming music and which is funded by advertising, or to pay a monthly flat fee in order to get ad-free access to...

This paper investigates the upcoming business model of online streaming services allowing music consumers either to subscribe to a service which provides free-of-charge access to streaming music and which is funded by advertising, or to pay a monthly flat fee in order to get ad-free access to...

We compare a discriminatory pricing regime with a non-discriminatory regime in a competitive bottleneck model where content providers endogenously sort into single or multi-homers. We find that consumer prices rise when the share of single-homers increases in the non-discriminatory case, while...