Our study extends the empirical literature on whether vertical restraints are anticompetitive. We focus on exclusive contracting in platform markets, which feature indirect network effects and thus are susceptible to applications barriers to entry. Theory suggests that exclusive contracts in...

First, we demonstrate how unregulated price setting in mobile telecommunications may lead to monopolization, even when networks are highly substitutable. Second, we demonstrate that a menu of structural rules, including (i) mandatory interconnection, (ii) reciprocal access prices and (iii) a ban...

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title -- courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. An active court can improve on the outcome that...

One of the most important and most contentious issues for regulation and competition raised by the 1996 Telecommunications Act is when to authorize the regional Bell companies to offer long-distance services. The Department of Justice (DOJ) adopted a standard requiring that a Bell's local market...

In a framework or repeate -purchase experience goo s with seller's moral hazar , umbrella branding may improve the terms of the "implicit contract" between firm an consumers, whereby the ¯firm invests in quality an consumers p ay a high price. The reason is that the costs from cheating...

The paper proposes a model of collateralized bank and trade credit. Firms use a two-input technology. Assuming that the supplier is better able to extract value from existing assets and has an information advantage over other creditors, the paper derives a series of predictions. (1) Financially...

In this article, we explore the contractual design of toll infrastructure concession contracts. We highlight the fact that the contracting parties try to sign not only complete rigid contracts in order to avoid renegotiations but also flexible contracts in order to adapt contractual framework to...

In this paper we challenge the presumption that academic tenure is an outmoded institutional form for the small teaching university. Starting from the premise that tenure is granted on the basis of research (reflected in a minimum required number of publications), we argue that tenure has value...

This paper questions the overall role of interfirm linkages in industrial dynamics. Studying Danish trucking and congress tourism, the paper addresses a number of particular questions concerning how industry responds to changing conditions. In trucking, the important interfirm linkages are...

Ever since its emergence in the 1970s the modern economic or Coasian theory of the firm has been discussed and challenged by sociologists, heterodox economists, management scholars, and other critics. This chapter reviews and assesses these critiques, focusing on behavioral issues (bounded...