Advances in information technology increasingly allow firms to identify expensive, high-cost customers, who are not only individually less profitable for firms but also raise the average marginal cost incurred by firms and thus impose a negative externality on inexpensive customers. Should...

Recently fixed pricing and auctions have been brought together in a new pricing format that offers bidders the option of prematurely ending an auction at a fixed price. eBay calls this a “Buy-it- Now” auction, uBid calls this “UBuy it” and Yahoo auctions refer to this as a “Buy Now”....

My dissertation examines the effect of several changes occurring in the retail environment. In the first essay, I study competition among retail formats. I examine the phenomenon retailers call channel blurring: consumers moving their purchases from channels traditionally associated with that...