Upward pricing pressure has recently become an important analytical tool in horizontal-merger assessment, where it is taken as a measure for the incentives of the merged firm to raise prices. I propose a comprehensive measure for pricing pressure, applicable to any off-equilibrium situation,...

A method is proposed to aggregate product-by-product elasticities over groups of products so as to obtain aggregate group-by-group elasticities. It is shown that price-cost margins charged by multi-product firms can be written as minus an aggregate inverse elasticity, just as the traditional...

In a recent article, Daljord, Sørgard, and Thomassen criticize Katz and Shapiro for applying the standard formula for critical loss to the case in which the price of only one product of the candidate market is increased. They argue that the standard formula does not hold in that case and...

Whether a two-sided platform faces a critical-mass problem in its start-up phase depends on how difficult it is to get each of the sides on board when the other side is not yet there – the so-called chicken-and-egg problem. If there is no chicken-and-egg problem, there is no critical-mass...

Collusion, particularly collusion is in the form of hardcore cartel behavior, is the worst antitrust offense of all. People engaging in such conduct should be punished severely. That is the consensus among antitrust officials. I argue against, that collusion is not that bad as antitrust...

This brief note is a reply to the paper Two-sided Red Herrrings by Evans and Schmalensee (E&S), in which they denounce attempts by commentators in the American Express case to marginalize the findings of the literature on multi-sided platforms. In my view E&S are right in most of their...

In his article “Two-Sided Vs. Complementary Products” Filistrucchi explains in what respect two-sided platforms are different from firms producing complementary products, in spite of the similarity in pricing strategies. For him, the distinguishing feature of two-sided platforms is the...