Feedback mechanisms that allow partners to rate each other after a transaction are considered crucial for the success of anonymous internet trading platforms. We document an asymmetry in the feedback behaviour on eBay, propose an explanation based on the micro structure of the feedback mechanism...

We study the effects of improvements in eBay's rating mechanism on seller exit and continuing sellers' behavior. Following a large sample of sellers over time, we exploit the fact that the rating mechanism was changed to reduce strategic bias in buyer rating. That improvement did not lead to...

We study a differentiated product market in which an investor initially owns a controlling stake in one of two competing firms and may acquire a non-controlling or a controlling stake in a competitor, either directly using her own assets, or indirectly via the controlled firm. While industry...

We endogenize the market risk (at given technical risk) in firms’ R&D decisions by introducing stochastic R&D in the Hotelling model. It is shown that if the technical risk is sufficiently high, the market risk remains low even if firms pursue similar projects. This leads firms to focus on the...

We analyse the impact of increased outside opportunities brought to consumers by access to a global market on local market performance under monopoly versus oligopoly. If consumers have to choose once where to shop we show that under all forms of organizing the local market, increased...

We consider the interaction between an incumbent firm and a potential entrant, and examine how this interaction is affected by demand fluctuations. Our model gives rise to procyclical entry, prices, and price-cost margins, although the average price in the market can be countercyclical if the...

We analyze the effects of one or more downstream firms’ acquisition of pure cash flow rights in an efficient upstream supplier when firms compete in prices in both markets. With such an acquisition, downstream firms internalize the effects of their actions on that supplier’s and thus, their...

We investigate firms' incentives to locate in the same region to gain access to a large pool of skilled labour. Firms engage in risky R&D activities and thus create stochastic product and implied labour demand. Agglomeration in a cluster is more likely in situations where the innovation step is...

We develop a general theoretical framework of trade on a platform on which buyers and sellers interact. The platform may be owned by a single large, or many small independent or vertically integrated intermediaries. There also may be free entry into the market for platform slots, or platform...

We develop a model of search among substitutes for the best combination of commodity variant and price, in which the structure of search costs can be manipulated by the suppliers of these variants, e.g. by joining an existing market or opening a new one. We analyse the subgame perfect equilibria...