Incompatibility in markets with network effects can either benefit or harm consumers. Incompatibility reduces consumers' ability to quot;mix and matchquot; components offered by different sellers, but can also be associated with changes in product attributes that might benefit consumers. In this...

Incompatibility in markets with indirect network effects can reduce consumers' willingness to pay if they value quot;mix and matchquot; combinations of complementary network components. For integrated firms selling complementary components, incompatibility should also strengthen the demand-side...

We test whether a non-binding price ceiling may serve as a focal point for tacit collusion, using data from the credit card market during the 1980s. In our sample, most credit card issuers face a state-level interest rate ceiling, and well over half match their ceiling. We develop an empirical...

Whether user fees for health services should be charged or abolished for the poor has recently been debated. This study examines the impact on child health status of removing user fees in South Africa. Our main innovation is to exploit plausibly exogenous variation in access to free health care,...

This study examines the effect of abolishing user fees from health services on fertility and educational attainment as a test of the quantity-quality tradeoff model. Exploiting sudden improvements in nutritional status among South African children as an exogenous decline in price of quality...

Developing countries rank highest in air pollution worldwide, yet regulations of such pollution are still rare in these countries, thereby whether, and to what extent, those regulations lead to health benefits remain an open question. Since 1995, the Chinese government has imposed stringent...

This study examines the effect of abolishing user fees from health services on fertility and educational attainment as a test of the quantity-quality tradeoff model. Exploiting sudden improvements in nutritional status among South African children as an exogenous decline in price of quality...

Incompatibility in markets with network effects can either benefit orharm consumers. Incompatibility reduces consumers' ability to "mixand match" components offered by different sellers, but can also beassociated with changes in product attributes that might benefitconsumers. In this paper, we...

Estimating market power is often complicated by the lack of reliable measures of marginal cost. Instead, policy-makers often rely on other summary statistics of the market, thought to be correlated with price cost margins---such as concentration ratios or the HHI. In many industries, these...

Product redesigns happen across virtually all types of products. While there is substantial evidence that new varieties of goods increase welfare, there is little evidence on the effect of product redesigns. We develop a model of redesign and exit decisions in a dynamic oligopoly model (a la...