There are many examples of markets involving two groups of participants who need to interact via intermediaries. Moreover, these intermediaries usually have to compete for business from both groups. Examples include academic publishing (where journals facilitate the interaction between authors...

This paper examines the implications of “prominence” in search markets. We modelprominence by supposing that the prominent firm will be sampled first by all consumers.If there are no systematic quality differences among firms, we find that the prominentfirm will charge a lower price than its...

We discuss the literatures on behavioral economics, bounded rationality and experimental economics as they apply to firm behaviour in markets. Topics discussed include the impact of imitative and satisficing behavior by firms, outcomes when managers care about their position relative to peers,...

This note discusses the impact of collection sales (i.e., the bundling of several journals for sale by publishers to libraries) on journals. The advent of electronic journal distribution implies that bundling is an efficient sales strategy, and can act to extend the reach of a journal. Current...

We analyze a market where some consumers only consider buying from a specific seller while other consumers choose the best deal from several sellers. When sellers are able to discriminate against their captive customers, we show that discrimination harms consumers in aggregate relative to the...

We present a model in which a principal delegates the choice of project to an agent with different preferences. The principal determines the set of projects from which the agent may choose. The principal can verify the characteristics of the project chosen by the agent, but does not know which...

We study mixed-strategy equilibrium pricing in oligopoly settings where consumers vary in the set of suppliers they consider for their purchase---some being captive to a particular firm, some consider two particular firms, and so on. In the case of "nested reach" we find equilibria, unlike those...

We analyze a market where some consumers only consider buying from a specific seller while other consumers choose the best deal from several sellers. When sellers are able to discriminate against their captive customers, we show that discrimination harms consumers in aggregate relative to the...

We explore patterns of competitive interaction by studying mixed-strategy equilibrium pricing in oligopoly settings where consumers vary in the set of suppliers they consider for their purchase. In the case of "nested reach" we find equilibria, unlike those in existing models, in which price...

This paper studies competition between firms when consumers observe a private signal of their preferences over products. Within the class of signal structures which allow pure-strategy pricing equilibria, we derive signal structures which are optimal for firms and those which are optimal for...