Computer-owners combine complementary goods to a computer-system. They exchange data with others and between different applications. These interdependencies lead to three different network effects, which are explained in the framework of Hotelling models. In the framework of a one-dimensional...

This report analyzes a large sample of U.S. grocery warehouse operators in 54 well defined grocery marketing areas. Almost all grocer retail chains with more than 40 supermarkets and $500 million in retail sales in 1990 are vertically integrated into wholesaling. More than four-fifths of the...

This paper argues that the balance of power between producers and retailers depends on the relative degrees of differentiation at the two levels of the vertical structure. The authors propose an extension of Hotelling's model in which two producers, competing in prices with horizontally...

This paper analyzes the impact of competition among downstream firms on an upstream firm's payoff and on its incentives to vertically integrate when firms on both segments negotiate optimal contracts. The author argues that tougher competiton decreases the downstream industry profit, but...

We examine the extent to which vertical and horizontal market structure can together explain incomplete pass-through. We develop a model that highlights the interactions between horizontal and vertical structure and their effects on pass-through from commodity to wholesale prices and wholesale...

This chapter examines the long-run evolution of modern entertainment industries such as the film and music industries. It investigates ways to conceptualise and quantify the subsequent waves of creative destruction, and investigates specifically how sunk costs affect the evolution of the...

This paper derives a model of vertical integration when it is difficult to write binding long-term supply price contracts. Thus, a vertical separated monopolist is vulnerable to hold-up. Without integration, the authors demonstrate that a bottleneck monopolist has an incentive to encourage more...

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of upstream cost asymmetries on the behavior of integrated firms. The model highlights the respective roles of strategic considerations and of cost considerations in the determination of an integrated firm's interaction with the non integrated...

Marketing and production contracts covered 39 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production in 2003, up from 36 percent in 2001 and a substantial increase over estimated values of 28 percent for 1991 and 11 percent in 1969. Large farms are far more likely to contract than small farms; in...

In an industry characterised by secret vertical contracts, we consider a benchmark case where two vertical chains exist, with two upstream manufacturers selling to two downstream retailers, and show that the equilibrium prices are independent of whether upstream or downstream firms have all the...