Previous research shows that firms shroud high add-on prices in competitive markets with naive consumers leading to inefficiency. We analyze the effects of regulatory intervention via educating naive consumers on equilibrium prices and welfare. Our model allows firms to shroud, unshroud, or...

This Paper introduces optimal competition: the best form of competition in an industry that a competition authority can achieve (given the information constraint that it cannot observe firms’ efficiency levels). We show that the optimal competition outcome in an industry becomes more...

The paper offers a new theoretical framework to examine the role of intermediaries between creators and users of new inventions. We find that uncertainty about the profitability of investing in new inventions generates a basis for intermediation. An intermediary may provide an opportunity to...

We study the impact of information revelation on efficiency in auctions. In a constrained-efficient mechanism, i.e. a mechanism that is efficient subject to the incentive-compatibility constraint, any additional information available to bidders increases the expected efficiency of the mechanism....

We experimentally examine the effects of flexible and fixed prices in markets for experience goods in which demand is driven by trust. With flexible prices, we observe low prices and high quality in competitive (oligopolistic) markets, and high prices coupled with low quality in non-competitive...

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the...

Two forces have reshaped global securities markets in the last decade: Exchanges operate at much faster speeds and the trading landscape has become more fragmented. In order to analyze the positive and normative implications of these evolutions, we study a framework that captures (i)...

This paper analyzes a model of capacity choice followed by price competition under demand uncertainty. Under various assumptions regarding the nature and timing of demand realizations, we obtain general predictions concerning the role of demand uncertainty on equilibrium outcomes. We show that...

I study Cournot competition under incomplete information about demand while assuming that market price must be non-negative for all demand realizations. Although this assumption is very natural, it has only rarely been made in the earlier literature. Yet it has important economic consequences:...

This paper studies a credit market with adverse selection and moral hazard where sufficient sorting is impossible. The crucial novel feature is the competition between lenders in their choice of contracts offered. The quality of investment projects is unobservable by banks and entrepreneurs’...