This paper empirically analyzes how the use of vertical price restraints has impacted retail prices in the market for e-books. In 2010 five of the six largest publishers simultaneously adopted the agency model of book sales, allowing them to directly set retail prices. This led the Department of...

This paper examines the relationship between agency contracts and retail prices when vertical contracts are determined through bargaining. Our model shows that whether agency contracts lead to higher or lower retail prices than traditional wholesale contracts depends on the distribution of...

This paper analyzes search frictions in online markets using novel data on the web browsing and purchasing behavior of a large panel of consumers. This dataset is unique in that consumer search behavior prior to a transaction is observed. Although recent models have shown that large price...

We analyze geographic patterns of trade using transactions data from eBay and MercadoLibre, two large online auction sites. We find that distance continues to be an important deterrent to trade between geographically separated buyers and sellers, though at a lesser extent than has been observed...

We study how organizational boundaries affect pricing decisions using comprehensive data provided by a large U.S. airline. We show that contrary to prevailing theories of the firm, advanced pricing algorithms have multiple biases. To quantify the impacts of these biases, we estimate a structural...