This paper considers the 'failing firm defence', the principle found in most antitrust jurisdictions that a merger which would otherwise be blocked due to its adverse effect on competition might be permitted when the firm to be acquired is a failing firm and an alternative, less detrimental...

This paper examines the irreversible adoption of a technology whose returns are uncertain, when there is an advantage to being the first adopter, but a network advantage to adopting when others also do so. Two patterns of adoption emerge: sequential, in which the leader aggressively preempts its...

This paper shows that incomplete information and sufficient heterogeneity of players can ensure uniqueness in interaction games. In contrast to recent work on uniqueness in interaction games, we do not require strategic complementarity. There are two parts to the argument. First, if a player's...

There has been a recent economic literature arguing that international environmental agreements (IEAs) can have no real effect, on account of their voluntary and self-enforcing nature. This literature concludes that the terms of IEAs are the codification of the noncooperative equilibrium, and...

This paper provides a sufficient condition for existence and uniqueness of equilibrium, which is in monotone pure strategies, in games of incomplete information. First, we show that if each player’s incremental ex post payoff is uniformly increasing in its own action and type, and its...

This paper shows that incomplete information and sufficient heterogeneity of players can ensure uniqueness in interaction games. In contrast to recent work on uniqueness in interaction games, we do not require strategic complementarity. There are two parts to the argument. First, if a player’s...

We analyse a simple model of dynamic moral hazard in which there is a clear and tractable trade-off between static and dynamic incentives. In our model, a principal wants an agent to complete a project. The agent undertakes unobservable effort, which affects in each period the probability that...

This paper provides a sufficient condition for existence and uniqueness of equilibrium, which is in monotone pure strategies, in games of incomplete information. First, we show that if each player’s incremental ex post payoff is uniformly increasing in its own action and type, and its...

This paper considers the `failing firm defence'. Under this principle, found in most antitrust jurisdictions, a merger that would otherwise be blocked due to its adverse effect on competition is permitted when the firm to be acquired is a failing firm, and an alternative, less detrimental merger...