Consider an incumbent monopolist faced with potential competitors who can enter the market by developing a substitute, but inferior, technology. What is the incumbent's optimal licensing policy? When, to whom and under what conditions should the incumbent firm license its superior technology?...

This paper provides a simple model of corruption dynamics with the ratchet effect. Corrupt officials have ex post the incentive to price discriminate entrepreneurs based on the entry decisions made in an earlier period. The inability of government officials to commit to future money demands...

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government...

This paper provides a simple model of corruption dynamics with the ratchet effect. As in Shleifer and Vishny (1993), we consider the sale of government property (entry permit) by government officials as the prototype of corruption activities. In a dynamic version of the Shleifer-Vishny model,...