We analyze duopoly Bertrand competition under network effects. We consider both incompatible and compatible products. Our main result is that network effects create a fundamental conflict between the maximization of social welfare and consumer surplus whenever products are incompatible. While...

We analyze market dynamics under Bertrand duopoly competition in industries with network effects and consumer switching costs. Consumers form installed bases, repeatedly buy the products, and differ with respect to their switching costs. Depending on the ratio of switching costs to network...

We analyze the choices between two technologies A and B that both exhibit network effects. We introduce a critical mass game in which coordination on either one of the standards constitutes a Nash equilibrium outcome while coordination on standard B is assumed to be payoff-dominant. We present a...

We develop a dynamic model of strategic investment in a transnational pipeline system. In the absence of international contract enforcement, countries may distort investment in order to increase their bargaining power, resulting in overinvestment in expensive and underinvestment in cheap...

We propose a duopoly model of competition between internet search engines endowed with different technologies and study the effects of an agreement where the more advanced firm shares its technology with the inferior one. We show that the superior firm enters the agreement only if it results in...

It is increasingly observable that in different industries competitors jointly acquire and share customer data. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such agreements and their welfare implications. In our model the...

Dieser Beitrag untersucht den Wettbewerb zwischen Gewerkschaften auf der Grundlage der Nash-Verhandlungstheorie. Es wird sowohl zwischen indirektem und direktem Wettbewerb als auch zwischen Tarifkonkurrenz und Tarifpluralität unterschieden. Als besonders ökonomisch problematisch werden zwei...

Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die wettbewerbliche Einschätzung von Nachfragemacht im Handel. Die Bewertung von Nachfragemacht hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob Beschaffungsmärkte dem Bild des Monopsons mit einer fragmentierten Anbieterstruktur oder dem Bild bilateraler Verhandlungen gleichen. Wenn...

In this paper we apply standard cartel theory to identify the major institutional stabilizers of Germany's area tariff system of collective bargaining between a single industry union and the industry's employers association. Our cartel analysis allows us to demonstrate that recent labor policy...