We analyze a model of cost-reducing R&D and compatibility decisions by two platforms. After an exogenous improvement in the efficiency of R&D, each platform has a heightened incentive to make its software incompatible with the rival's hardware device to avoid being dominated in the hardware...

Recent revelations on the use of fiduciary services by the wealthy and political leaders raise concerns regarding the use of such services for tax and creditor evasion. Yet given the secrecy shrouding much of the fiduciary industry, we do not know which fiduciary services are used for such...

This paper investigates the effects of changes in retail market concentration when input prices are negotiated. Results are derived from a model of bilateral Nash-bargaining between upstream and downstream firms which allows for general forms of demand and retail competition. Whether...

Licensing promotes technology transfer and innovation, but enforcement of licensing contracts is often imperfect. We model contract enforcement as a game with perfect information but probabilistic enforcement and explore the implications of weak enforcement on the design of licensing contracts,...

Electronic intermediaries have become pervasive in sales transactions for many durables, such as cars, power tools, and apartments. Yet only recently have they successfully tackled the challenge of enabling parties to share such goods. A key impediment to sharing is a lender's concern about...

This paper considers inter-mediation in a differentiated short-term housing market where heterogeneous agents may stay at a hotel or at one of several private hosts' properties, below or above hotel quality. The collaborative-housing market fails when agents' hidden actions are non-contractable....

We consider a vertically integrated input monopolist supplying to a differentiated downstream rival. With linear input pricing, at the margin the firm unambiguously wants the rival to expand — unlike standard oligopoly with no supply relationship — for either Cournot or Bertrand competition....

To aid in the description and estimation of the tremendous recent growth in the collaborative economy, we provide a model for the dynamics of sharing, subject to fixed costs and imperfect price formation. The sharing economy comprises a set of infinitely lived, heterogeneous suppliers, who take...

This study investigates the role of exclusive content provision in two-sided markets where both sides are allowed to join multiple platforms. We consider a model of duopolistic two-sided platform market with a monopolistic multi-product (content) firm on one side, and consumers on the other. The...

Whereas in some industries retailers distribute the products of all suppliers, in other industries they differentiate themselves from their rivals by becoming the exclusive distributors of some products, which results in incomplete distribution networks. To study this phenomenon, I analyze a...