This paper develops a methodology for simulating the effects of alternative corporate tax reforms on the stock market valuation and investment plans of individual firms. The methods are applied to estimate the effects of alternative corporate tax reforms on the 30 Dow Jones companies. The...

We incorporate marginal cost savings from bundling, fixed costs of productofferings, and variation in customer preferences into a model of bundling and tying. To focus on cost effects, we assume perfectly contestable markets and analyze sustainable product offerings. Pure bundling can arise...

By comparing the demand for a bundle and the vertical sum of the demands for its components, this article analyzes the profitability and welfare consequences of bundling. If it does not lower costs, bundling tends to be profitable when reservation values are negatively correlated and high...

Even if true abnormal returns are uncorrelated, estimated abnormal returns are not. This paper presents a simple formula for the variance of estimated cumulative abnormal returns. Both returns and dummy variable procedures for estimating the standard error correctly, taking account of both...

We explain the issues in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC’s) antitrust investigation into whether Google’s use of “Universal” search results violated the antitrust laws and assess the role for economics in the FTC’s decision to close the investigation. We argue that the presence of...

The Lerner relationship linking the profit-maximizing price to marginal cost and the elasticity of demand generalizes to the price-setting newsvendor, and the result resolves the puzzle over the different effects of additive and multiplicative uncertainty on the solution. Multiplicative...

This paper discusses appropriate methodology for measuring the effect of an event on the value of a firm's equity. Th e key points are (1) cumulative abnormal returns do not measure the effect of an event on firm value if there are dividends during the event window; (2) it is generally...

In November 2007, the European Commission accepted a set of guidelines concerning its review of non-horizontal mergers. The section on conglomerate mergers contains a discussion of the possibility that merging firms will bundle their products together. It reads, in part: "[W]hen producers of...

With a major set of hearings scheduled in the United States on the antitrust treatment of single-firm conduct, economists have an opportunity to provide analysis that informs policy. Yet, the opportunity will be lost if economic analysis does not provide insights into how to distinguish...