In this paper, I compare two-part tariff competition to linear pricing in a vertically differentiated duopoly. Consumers have identical tastes for quality but differ in their preferences for quantity. The main finding is that quality differentiation occurs in equilibrium if and only if two-part...

Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) increasingly gain in importance with respect to the supply of pharmaceutical products and frequently use multiple or exclusive rebate contracts to exercise market power. Based on a Hotelling model of horizontal and vertical product differentiation, we...

I demonstrate that providing information about product quality is not necessarily the best way to address asymmetric information problems when markets are imperfectly competitive. In a vertical differentiation model I show that a Minimum Quality Standard, which retains asymmetric information,...

In this paper, under the assumption that green consumption has (at least partially) a social/psychological dimension, we analyse the effect of a carbon tax when it is imposed on consumers buying dirty products rather than on polluting firms. The amount of the tax paid is determined by the share...

We consider the spatial competition between two traditional physical (or offline) retailers and an Internet (or online) retailer where the efficiency of the latter differs from that of the former. We assume consumers are heterogeneous across two dimensions: (i) the costs of traveling to either...

This paper investigates the issue of how alternative unionization structures in labour markets affect the choice of product quality differentiation by firms in product markets, and how this determines relative welfare outcomes of different union structures. In the presence of decentralized wage...

We develop a model of vertical innovation in which firms incur a market entry cost and choose a unique level of quality. Once established, firms compete for market shares, selling to consumers with heterogeneous tastes for quality. The equilibrium of the pricing game exists and is unique within...

This paper studies the effect of a minimum quality standard, a compulsory labeling scheme, and the combination of both instruments in a vertical differentiation model when not all quality dimensions of products can be observed byconsumers. Both a minimum quality standard on the non-observable...