Standards and technical regulations exist to protect consumer safety or to achieve other goals, such as ensuring the interoperability of telecommunications systems, for example. Standards and technical regulations can, however, raise substantially both start-up and production costs for firms....

In the context of a vertically differentiated duopoly model with endogenous quality choice, we analyzes the welfare effect of overlapping ownership when the market is fully covered. The results show that overlapping ownership, while detrimental for consumer surplus, may increase or decrease...