Assuming that oligopolistic downstream firms take intermediate goods prices as given and that upstream and integrated firms choose their quantities first and simultaneously, this note shows that vertical mergers between upstream and downstream firms are procompetitive.

Consider a society where all agents initially play "fair" and one agent invents a "cheating" strategy such as doping in sports. Which factors determine the success of the new cheating strategy? In order to study this question we consider an evolutionary game with heterogenous agents who can...

Homogeneous products are often sold by chains and locals but the chains charge higher prices. We explain this pricing pattern as well as the empirical fact that chains became increasingly dominant at the same time as consumer mobility increased: Consumers bear setup costs whenever they visit a...

We analyze the competitive effects of backward vertical integration in a model with oligopolistic firms that exert market power upstream and downstream. In contrast to previous literature, we show that a small degree of vertical integration is always procompetitive because efficiency effects...

We present a model of (re)elections in which an incumbency advantage arises because the incumbent can manipulate issue salience by choosing inefficient policies in the policy dimension in which he is the stronger candidate. The voters are uncertain about the state of the world and the...

This paper argues that Rock–Scissors–Paper is a stochastic game with discounting. Provided that the discount factor is less than 1, it has an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). This result contrasts with the one-shot normal form game, which is the customary representation of...

This paper estimates the cost of using simple percentage fees rather than the broker optimal Bayesian mechanism, using data for real estate transactions in Boston in the mid-1990s. This counterfactual analysis shows that interme- diaries using the best percentage fee mechanisms with fees ranging...