Using transaction-level data on Canadian mortgage contracts we document an increase in the average discount negotiated off the posted price and in rate dispersion. Our aim is to identify the beneficiaries of discounting and to test whether dispersion is caused by price discrimination. The...

How can firms profitably give away free products? This paper provides a novel answer and articulates tradeoffs in a space of information product design. We introduce a formal model of two-sided network externalities based in textbook economics - a mix of Katz & Shapiro network effects, price...

Janssen and Rasmusen (2002) show that a Bertrand model with an uncertain number of firms has only one symmetric equilibrium, and profits in that equilibrium fit the empirical data in Bresnahan and Reiss (1991). However, unless its equilibrium is unique, Janssen and Rasmusen's model cannot be...

How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a model of monopolistic competition in which variable markups increasing in firm...

Interest in market power has recently surged among economists in many fields, well beyond its traditional home in industrial organization. This has focused empirical attention on markups, the ratios of price to marginal cost in product markets, and markdowns, the ratios of inputs' marginal...