Mechanisms according to which private intermediaries or governments charge transaction fees or indirect taxes are prevalent in practice. We consider a setup with multiple buyers and sellers and two-sided independent private information about valuations. We show that any weighted average of...

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.

Decision makers lacking crucial specialist know-how often consult with better informed but biased experts. In our model the decision maker’s choice problem is binary and her preferred option depends on the state of the world unknown to her. The expert observes the state and sends a report to...

We analyze the competitive e?ects of backward vertical integration by a partially vertically integrated ?rm that competes with non-integrated ?rms both upstream and downstream. We show that vertical integration is procompetitive under fairly general conditions. It can be anticompetitive only if...