Vertical integration by a monopsonist is generally believed not to harm consumers. This paper demonstrates, in a natural economic setting, that this conventional wisdom may not hold. We model bargaining between a monopsonist and independent suppliers when it is difficult to write binding...

Content providers rely on advertisers to pay for content. TiVo, remote controls, and popup ad blockers are examples of ad-avoidance technologies that allow consumers to view content without ads, and thereby siphon off the content without paying the price.‘ We examine the content provider‘s...

A socially optimal structure of application and renewal fees for patents would encourage the maximal number of applications while reducing effective patent length. We find, however, that when patent offices are required to be self-funding, resource constraints can distort this fee structure....