Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants' banks to pay substantial "interchange" fees to cardholders' banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network's profit-maximizing fee induces an inefficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing...

Considering markets with non-pivotal buyers we analyze the anti-competitive effects of breakup fees used by an incumbent facing a more efficient entrant in the future. Buyers differ in their intrinsic switching costs. Breakup fees are profitably used to foreclose entry, regardless of the...

We examine a model of suppliers selling to two segments of consumers, who have different preferences for quality (or some product characteristic). We show that if the firm is unable to price discriminate between the segments, then there is less investment in quality. We find that both consumer...