We examine how forward contracts affect economic outcomes under generalized market structures. In the model, forward contracts discipline the exercise of market power by making profit less sensitive to changes in output. This impact is greatest in markets with intermediate levels of...

Many experts have speculated that U.S. antitrust policy towards horizontal mergers was too lenient over the last decade. We estimate the price effects resulting from the merger of Whirlpool and Maytag to provide new evidence on this debate. The merger substantially increased concentration in...

We model competition between two firms in a vertical upstream-downstream relationship. Each firm can pay a sunk cost to enter the other's market. For equilibria in which both firms enter, the downstream price can be lower than the joint profit maximizing level, and coordination (e.g., through...

I model multimarket competition when consumers value firm scope across markets. Such competition is surprisingly common - consumers in many industries prefer firms that operate in more geographic and/or product markets. I show that these preferences permit firms of differing scopes to coexist in...

Economists widely agree that, absent sufficient efficiencies or other offsetting factors, mergers that increase concentration substantially are likely to be anticompetitive. Further, holding everything else equal, the magnitude of anticompetitive effects tends to be larger, the larger is the...

The challenge of effective merger enforcement is tremendous. U.S. antitrust agencies must, by statute, quickly forecast the competitive effects of mergers that occur in virtually every sector of the economy to determine if mergers can proceed. Surprisingly, given the complexity of the regulators...