We study ex post outsourcing of production in an imperfectly discriminating contest, interpreted here as a research tournament or a procurement contest for being awarded some production contract. We find that the possibility of outsourcing increases competition between the contestants, leading...

We study the effects of horizontal mergers when firms compete on quality and price. Two key factors are identified: (i) the magnitude of variable quality costs, and (ii) the relative magnitudes of cross-quality and cross-price effects on demand. The merging firms will increase (reduce) both...

We study the effects of horizontal mergers when firms compete on quality and price. Two key factors are identified: (i) the magnitude of variable quality costs, and (ii) the relative magnitudes of cross-quality and cross-price effects on demand. The merging firms will increase (reduce) both...

Using a spatial competition framework with three ex ante identical firms, we study the effects of a horizontal merger on quality, price and welfare. The merging firms always reduce quality. They also increase prices if demand responsiveness to quality is sufficiently low. The non-merging firm,...

We study ex post outsourcing of production in an imperfectly discriminating contest, interpreted here as a research tournament or a procurement contest for being awarded some production contract. We find that the possibility of outsourcing increases competition between the contestants, leading...