This paper considers a two-stage oligopoly model with downstream retailers and two types of transaction costs (in contracting retailers and in direct retailing). Our analysis shows how transaction costs affect vertical integration in a strategic model of oligopoly, and it relates transaction...

The possibility of forward trading has been shown to restore social efficiency in Cournot oligopolies if marginal costs are constant. The paper analyzes the more general case that marginal costs are non-decreasing. I show that increasing marginal costs diminish the “strategic...

In many industries, firms pre-order input and forward sell output prior to the actual production period. It is known that forward buying input induces a “Cournot–Stackelberg endogeneity” (both Cournot and Stackelberg outcomes may result in equilibrium) and forward selling output induces a...