We consider a downstream duopoly model with a monopolistic common supplier and mutual outsourcing between the two symmetric downstream firms. The market structure captures the recent procurement environment in the smartphone industry. We also incorporate managerial delegations into the duopoly...

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...

This study examines how consumers' personal data management affects firms' competition in the data collection and data application markets and welfare outcomes. Consumers purchase products from differentiated firms in two markets. Firms compete to collect consumer data first to predict their...

In a model of behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD), we argue that sellers may have discretionary power to let buyers decide whether to be identified (e.g., creating an account) or remain anonymous (no account creation). The price equilibria generate a more fragmented market segmentation...

We discuss the effect of personalized pricing on profits and welfare in a Hotelling model in which consumers can simultaneously purchase from both firms. As the additional gain from the second purchase increases, personalized pricing is more likely to harm (resp., benefit) consumers (resp.,...

We consider a downstream oligopoly model with one dominant and several fringe retailers who purchase a manufacturing product from a monopoly supplier. We examine how contract type influences the relationship between the dominant retailer's bargaining power and the equilibrium retail price. If...

In Japan, TV platforms regulate themselves as to the length of the advertisements they air. Using modified Hotelling models, we investigate whether such self-regulation improves consumer and social welfare or not. When all consumers choose a single TV program (the utility functions of consumers...

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,...

The recent developments in information technology (IT) have enabled firms to employ personalized pricing. Should all firms employ personalized pricing even though the adaptation costs of such pricing strategies are not high? This paper theoretically demonstrates a situation in which all firms do...

We investigate a Cournot model with strategic R&D investments wherein efficient low-cost firms compete against less efficient high-cost firms. We find that an increase in the number of high-cost firms can stimulate R&D by the low-cost firms, while it always reduces R&D by the high-cost firms....