When punitive damage awards create publicity, this could affect the behavior of uncompensated victims, which has implications for the optimal punitive damage multiplier. A new adjusted multiplier is derived that incorporates publicity into the analytical framework. Assuming that all victims...

Studies of gasoline prices in multiple countries have found a repeated sequence of asymmetric cycles where a sharp price increase is followed by gradual decreases. This price pattern is linked to Maskin & Tirole's (1988) theoretical duopoly pricing game that produces a similar pattern, Edgeworth...

This paper studies Tesoro's 2013 acquisition of British Petroleum's Los Angeles refinery. We present a merger simulation model tailored to the gasoline market, which includes Cournot firms and a price-taking fringe. This hybrid model generates margins that are more plausible than those generated...

This paper analyzes the accuracy of various prospective hospital merger screening methods used by antitrust agencies and the courts. The qualitative and quantitative predictions of the screening methods calculated with pre-merger data are compared with the actual post-merger price changes of 26...

Our paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between innovation and market power by considering how changes in the intensity of product market competition affect innovation when managerial compensation is a linear function of firm profits. Changes in the intensity of product...

Generic drugs play an important role in disciplining drug prices and controlling rising drug costs. However, the effect that an additional generic drug competitor has on drug prices is difficult to measure because the number of firms competing in a market is endogenously determined. We identify...

Over the last 25 years, for-profit facilities have supplanted non-profits as the modal providers of hemodialysis treatment to American sufferers of end-stage renal disease. To understand what may underpin this dramatic change in industry structure, this paper uses a dynamic equilibrium model to...

This study estimates the price effects of horizontal mergers in the U.S. grocery retailing industry. We examine fourteen regions affected by mergers including both highly concentrated and relatively unconcentrated markets. We identify price effects by comparing markets affected by mergers to...

This paper presents new evidence of asymmetric pass-through, the notion that upward cost shocks are passed through faster than downward cost shocks, in U.S. gasoline prices. Much of the extant literature comes to seemingly contradictory conclusions about the existence of an asymmetry, though the...

We use the unique regulatory environment of the pharmaceutical industry to examine how potential competition affects generic drug pricing. Our identification strategy exploits a provision of the Hatch-Waxman Act that awards 180 days of marketing exclusivity to the first valid generic drug...