In this article we study patterns of vertical product differentiation in a multi-product monopoly using a random utility model. Prior research shows that applying such a model in a multi-product setting implies symmetric patterns of product differentiation in which all product variants of a...

This paper investigates how increases in concentration can be interrupted or reversed by changes in how firms compete on quality. We examine the U.S. hotel industry during the past half century. We document that starting in the early 1980s, quality competition came more in the form of costs that...

Electronic commerce and flexible manufacturing allow personalization of initially standardized products at low cost. Will customers provide the information necessary for personalization? Assuming that a consumer can control the amount of information revealed, we analyse how his decision...

We extend the 'no-haggling' result of Riley and Zeckhauser (1983) to the class of linear multiproduct monopoly problems when the buyer's valuations are smoothly distributed. In particular we show that there is no loss for the seller in optimizing over mechanisms such that all allocations belong...

We characterize a monopolist's optimal offer of service plans when only informed customers know already at the contracting stage whether their demand is high or low, while uninformed customers may learn their demand only after incurring some costs, if at all. While informed customers purchase...

Electronic commerce and flexible manufacturing allow personalization of initially standardized products at low cost. Will customers provide the information necessary for personalization? Assuming that a consumer can control the amount of information revealed, we analyze how his decision...

This paper evaluates differential prize taxation and structural discrimination as a means of increasing efforts in the most widely studied contests. We establish that a designer who maximizes efforts subject to a balanced-budget constraint prefers dual discrimination, namely, change of the...

In this paper I analyze the local banking markets in the spatial competition context. In the model one bank is located at the one end of the unit long line and two rival banks are located at another end. Ends are considered as centers of two towns. Borrowers are located on the line between the...