Backward vertical integration by a dominant firm into an upstream competitive industry causes both input and output prices to rise. The dominant firm's advantage may or may not offset the negative effect of higher prices on social welfare. Whether it does depends on a simple indicator derived...

High and declining prices signal a high-quality product. High prices are the efficient means of signaling, because the consequent loss of sales volume is most damaging for lower-cost, lower-quality products. As time passes and the number of informed consumers increases, the signaling distortion...

The authors analyze how to award a monopoly franchise when the objective is to maximize expected consumers' surplus net of transfer payments to the producer. Potential producers initially possess independent private information about uncertain production costs. Only the chosen producer...

The authors examine the incentives which competing principals give their agents, focusing on two oligopoly models where owners write incentive contracts with the ir managers. Under Cournot quantity competition, each manager's margi nal payment for production will exceed the firm's marginal...

This paper examines the impact of social security on national saving and individual welfare in the presence of realistic capital-market imperfections: market failure in the private provision of annuities and restrictions on borrowing against anticipated future wages. The introduction of social...