We study the feasibility and profitability of predation in a parsimonious infinite-horizon, complete information setting where an incumbent may face an entrant, in which case it needs to decide whether to accommodate or predate it. If the entrant exits, a new entrant is born with positive...

We study how informal buyer-supplier relationships in the German automotive industry affect procurement. Using unique data from a survey focusing on these, we show that more trust, the belief that the trading partner acts to maintain the mutual relationship, is associated with both higher...

Based on data from a comprehensive benchmarking study on buyer-supplier relationships in the German automotive industry, we show that more trust in a relationship is associated with higher idiosyncratic investment by suppliers and better part quality - but also with more competition among...

Increased competition tends to benefit all buyers with increasing product variety and decreasing prices. However, if local and external market channels compete for the same class of products, increased competition from the external market crowds out local variety. Under local monopoly, local...

Online ratings play an important role in many markets. We study the often disputed information content of these ratings, by proposing a reduced-form Bayesian model of the typical buyer’s rating decision. Our empirical evidence based on eBay raw data is in line with even intricate predictions...

This paper investigates political uncertainty as a source of regulatory risk. It shows that political parties have incentives to reduce regulatory risk actively: Mutually beneficial pre-electoral agreements that reduce regulatory risk always exist. Agreements that fully eliminate it exist when...

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer or the seller? Our answer - the seller - follows from a nontrivial analysis revealing a clear intuition. Buyer-induced certification acts as an inspection device,...

The paper provides a tractable, analytical framework to study regulatory risk. Regulatory risk is captured by uncertainty about the policy variables in the regulator's objective function: weights attached to profits and costs of public funds. Results are as follows: 1) The regulator's reaction...

We study (energy) markets with dirty incumbents and costly entry by clean producers. For intermediate entry costs, the market outcome exhibits inefficient production and inefficient entry. A policy mix of three popular regulatory instruments—taxation on polluters, feed-in tariffs for clean...

Using an agency model, we show how delegation, by generating additional private information, improves dynamic incentives under limited commitment. It circumvents ratchet effects and facilitates the revelation of persistent private information through two effects: a play-hardball effect, which...