Personalized pricing has become a reality through digitization. We examine firms' incentives to adopt one of the three pricing schemes: uniform, personalized, or group pricing in a Hotelling duopoly model. There are two types of consumer groups that are heterogeneous in their mismatch costs. We...

Using a simple product differentiation model with elastic demands, we investigate the relationship between differentiation strategies and vertical relations. Depending on the competitive structure in the upstream market, three differentiation patterns (maximum, minimum and partial...

We provide a simple model to investigate decisions about vertical separation. The key feature of this model is that more than one input is required for the final product of the downstream monopolist. We show that as the bargaining powers of independent complementary input suppliers grow larger,...

We provide a simple model to investigate decisions on vertical integration/separation. The key feature of this model is that more than one input is required for the final products of the local downstream monopolists. Depending on their cost structure, downstream firms' decisions on vertical...

We propose simple dual-channel models in which an upstream manufacturer trades with a downstream retailer that is able to engage in cost-reducing activities. When the manufacturer determines whether to encroach on the downstream market after observing the retailer's effort level, the threat of...

We provide a model in which upstream producers, whose production cost is quadratic in quantity, sell their products through two distribution channels, a traditional channel and an external retailer. Some producers (called "large" producers) supply to both channels, whereas other producers...

The phenomenon where a network's value escalates with each additional user, known as a direct network effect, exists across industries that may differ in terms of interoperability or compatibility. For instance, while email and telephone services benefit from seamless cross-network...

This paper investigates an asymmetric duopoly model with a Hotelling line. We find that helping a small (minor) firm can reduce both social and consumer surplus. This makes a sharp contrast to existing works showing that helping minor firms can reduce social surplus but always improves consumer...

This paper formulates a duopoly model in which firms care about relative profits as well as their own profits. Our purpose is to investigate the relationship between the weight of relative performance and R&D expenditure. We find a non-monotone relationship between the weight of relative...

We investigate the incentive and the welfare implications of a merger when heterogeneous oligopolists compete both in process R&D and on the product market. We examine how a merger affects the output, investment, and profits of firms, whether firms have merger incentives, and, if so, whether...