We investigate the impact of vertical price restraints on the free-entry equilibrium and its welfare properties in a vertically related market where manufacturer-retailer hierarchies compete under asymmetric information. We compare the legal regimes of laissez-faire and ban on resale price...

In a market where firms interact over time, we investigate the anticompetitive effects of debt finance and managerial incentives when managers incur personal costs of bankruptcy. We show that firms’ shareholders resort to debt and managerial incentives as complementary strategic devices to...

We investigate the incentive for partial vertical integration, namely, partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers, when the retailers are privately informed about their production costs and engage in differentiated good price competition. Partial vertical integration...

We consider a vertically related market characterized by downstream imperfect competition and by the monopolistic provision of an essential facility-based input, whose price is set by a social-welfare maximizing regulator. Our model shows that the regulatory knowledge about the cost for...

This paper addresses the issue of how to design the institutional structure of an industry which provides two differentiated products. One good is supplied by a regulated monopoly and the other is produced in a competitive (unregulated) segment. Two possible institutional patterns are compared....

Strategic delegation to an independent regulator with a pure consumer standard improves dynamic regulation by mitigating ratchet effects associated with short term contracting. A consumer standard alleviates the regulator's myopic temptation to raise output after learning the firm is...

We consider a vertically related market characterized by downstream imperfect competition and by the monopolistic provision of an essential facility-based input, whose price is set by a social-welfare maximizing regulator. Our model shows that the regulatory knowledge about the cost for...

In a dynamic storable good market where demand changes over time, we investigate the producer's strategic incentives to hold inventories in response to the possibility of buyer stockpiling. The literature on storable goods has demonstrated that buyer stockpiling in anticipation of higher future...

In a storable good market, we investigate a firm’s pricing policy and the welfare effects associated with the firm’s ability to commit to future prices in the presence of time-varying production costs. We show that, if costs are expected to increase, the firm’s lack of commitment leads to...

We investigate the impact of regulatory risk on vertical integration and upstream investment by a regulated firm that provides an essential input to downstream competitors. Regulatory risk reflects uncertainty about the regulator's commitment to a regulatory policy that promotes the regulated...