There are often benefits to consumers and to firms from standardization of a product. We examine whether these standardization benefits can "trap" an industry in an obsolete or inferior standard when there is a better alternative available. With complete information and identical preferences...

Firms often concentrate on a narrow range of activities and claim to forgo other, apparently profitable, opportunities. This pursuit of narrow strategies is applauded by some academics who study strategic management. The authors present two related theoretical models in which firms do indeed...

This paper studies implicitly colluding oligopolists facing fluctuating demand. The credible threat of future punishments provides the discipline that facilitates collusion. However, we find that the temptation to unilaterally deflate from the collusive outcome is often greater when demand is...

The authors consider an infinite-horizon setting in which domestic and foreign firms achieve collusive outcomes by threatening to punish deviators. They show that, in this setting, the standard results of Jagdish Bhagwhati (1965) can be reversed in that quotas promote competition while tariffs...