Recommended readings (Machine generated): Michael R. Baye and John Morgan (2001), 'Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets', American Economic Review, 91 (3), June, 454-74 -- Jean-Charles Rochet and Jean Tirole (2003), 'Platform Competition...

I. Preliminaries -- One: Introduction, -- Two: Mathematical Preliminaries -- II. Consumer Behavior -- Three: Consumer Behavior in the Absence of an Income Tax -- Four: Consumer Behavior in the Presence of an Income Tax -- III. Economic Indices in the Absence of Taxation -- Five: The Konus and...

Clearinghouse models of online pricing - such as Varian (1980), Rosenthal (1980), Narasimhan (1988), and Baye-Morgan (2001) - view a price comparison site as an "information clearing-house" where shoppers and loyals obtain price and product information to make online purchases. These models...

A standard "solution" offered to the deleterious effects of all-out price competition is for firms to engage in differentiation strategies. This solution, however, depends critically on the inability of rivals to imitate a successful differentiation strategy. With imitation, we show how "Red...

Price dispersion - firms charging different prices for the same product - is widely observed in both online and traditional offline markets. While most price dispersion is explained by stylized clearinghouse models such as Varian (1980), these models do not explain why prices in offline markets...