Antitrust enforcement makes it difficult to test theories of cartel formation because most attempts to form cartels are blocked. However, federal laws allow U.S. produce growers to operate marketing cartels through devices called marketing orders. These cartels use quantity controls and quality...

We examine conditions under which group consumption is likely to involve informal and tacit reciprocity agreements rather than formal contracts and the price system. Our model shows that informal reciprocity agreements are more likely to be used when transaction costs of formal agreements are...

In high-tech industries, one important method of diffusion is through employee mobility: many of the entering firms are started by employees from incumbent firms using some of their former employers' technological know-how. This paper explores the effect of incorporating this mechanism in a...

This paper investigates the effects of employee mobility on industry evolution and technology diffusion by testing a dynamic industry equilibrium model introduced in Franco and Filson (1999). The model focuses on a particular type of employee mobility: researchers can leave existing firms and...

Previous work on exit in declining industries has neglected mergers. We examine a simple model that predicts which declining industries experience horizontal mergers. Mergers are more likely if 1) market concentration is high; 2) the inverse demand curve is steep at high levels of output and...

Which strategies generate value in e-commerce environments? In a step towards answering this question, this paper estimates the impacts of several competitive strategies on the values of the well-known Internet retailer Amazon.com and three of its early competitors, BarnesandNoble.com, CDNOW,...

This paper analyzes the impact of vertical integration on investment and other strategies in a dynamic common agency framework. Movie distribution is used as a motivating example. The model matches several facts about movie distribution; distributors avoid head-to-head new hit releases, hits...

We introduce a racing model with multiple product generations, product innovation, spin-outs, and licensing. Industry conditions and innovation characteristics affect who wins the race and who markets the resulting product. Small firms market their innovations when they pioneer a new generation...

We present evidence that event studies can help antitrust agencies forecast impacts of mergers on innovation. In large pharmaceutical mergers, cumulative abnormal returns on portfolios of rivals predict post-merger changes in the combined firm's R&D intensity. More favorable impacts on rivals...