Danish ready-mixed concrete is produced in regional oligopolies. Firms rely on price discrimination through secret discounts. The antitrust authority interprets this as lack of competition and has decided to activate its chief weapon against dormant competition: To make the market more...

We show that the fact that farmers in a cooperative individually decide how much to supply to cooperative may serve as a commitment device for credibility (and profitably) gaining market share in competition with a profit maximizing firm.

We study the role of two-part transfer schemes as signals of consumer demand from a privately informed franchisor to an uninformed franchisee. Distortions in the wholesale price and the up-front franchise fee offered by the high demand franchisor may possibly separate the different types of...

This paper considers investment decisions in a farmers' cooperative. Farmers sell their products through the cooperative. Before production takes place the cooperative has to decide on an investment. This is done by a vote in which each farmer has one vote, regardless of economic size. The paper...

The choice between quantity and price in order to stabilize collusion is modeled here. It is shown that this relocates the prisoners’ dilemma backwards, from the market stage to the stage where the market variable is chosen in order to sustain collusion, and where discount rates appear as the...

We characterize the interplay between firms’ decision in terms of product differentiation and the nature of their ensuing market behaviour. We prove the existence of a non-monotone relationship between firms’ decision at the development stage and their intertemporal preferences.

We investigate the choice of market variable, price or quantity, of an optimal implicit cartel. If the discount factor is high, the cartel can realize the monopoly profit in both cases. Otherwise, it is optimal for the cartel to rely on quantities in the collusive phase if goods are substitutes...

Different market settings are considered in a free trade environment, where firms can choose technology, quality, and price or quantity. The shape of competition in prices requires the intervention of governments, via a common antidumping policy to make firms converge on the simultaneous...

We characterize the interplay between firms’ decision in terms of product standardization and the nature of their ensuing market behaviour. We prove the existence of a non-monotone relationship between firms’ decision at the product stage and their intertemporal preferences.