Entry deterrence can occur when downstream incumbents hold non-controlling ownership shares of a supplier which is commited to charge uniform prices to all downstream firms. The ownership shares imply a rebate on the input price for the incumbents through the profit participation. Such backward...

We study the timing of new technology adoption in markets with input outsourcing, and thus with vertical relations. We find that technology adoption can take place earlier when firms engage in input outsourcing than when they produce the input in-house. Hence, the presence of vertical relations...

Financial constraints are considered an important impediment to growth for small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically the relationship between the financial constraints of agents and the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of franchising. We find that...

Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...

The established literature on partial vertical ownership has derived distinct pro- and anti-competitive effects, depending on whether the upstream or the downstream firm holds the shares (forward or backward). We show that forward ownership can have the same effects as backward ownership (and...

In this paper we investigate the existence of a two-tier medical system in the German acute care hospital sector using data from a survey of 483 German hospitals. The focus of our analysis lies on the impact of hospital concentration on the probability of discrimination of patients with...

Consumers increasingly prefer to bundle their purchases into a single shopping trip, inducing complementaries between initially independent or substitutable goods. Taking this one-stop shopping behavior into account, we show that slotting fees may emerge as a result of a rent-shifting mechanism...

We analyze how consumer preferences for one-stop shopping affect the (Nash) bargaining relationships between a retailer and its suppliers. One-stop shopping preferences create 'demand complementarities' among otherwise independent products which lead to two opposing effects on upstream merger...

We show that competing downstream firms may rather invest in their inefficient inhouse production than help improve the technology of the efficient supplier, even if this is costless. Even worse, a downstream firm can have strong incentives to decrease the efficiency of the supplier in order to...

This article investigates the relationship between income inequality and firms' locations and product choices. Using detailed information on income at a regionally disaggregated level and individual data on Austrian restaurants, we demonstrate that firm conduct crucially depends on the...