-
作者：Arbatskaya, Maria
作者单位：Emory University
摘要：I present an ordered-search model that, in contrast with random-search models, yields an intuitively appealing equilibrium in which there is price dispersion, prices and profits decline in the order of search and consumers with lower search costs search longer and obtain better deals. These features of the search equilibrium hold regardless of whether consumers are informed of prices prior to searching.
-
作者：Hoerner, Johannes; Jamison, Julian
作者单位：Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：We analyze noncooperative collusion in an infinitely repeated Bertrand game, where each of the n firms receives a privately observed, i.i.d. cost shock in each period and firms only (and privately) observe whether they have won the unit mass of consumers. No other information is available and no communication is allowed. We prove that there exist equilibria in private strategies approximating first-best profits when firms are sufficiently patient. In particular productive efficiency obtains in...
-
作者：Normann, Hans-Theo; Ruffle, Bradley J.; Snyder, Christopher M.
作者单位：University of London; Royal Holloway University London; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Dartmouth College
摘要：A number of recent theoretical papers have shown that, for buyer-size discounts to emerge in a bargaining model, the total surplus function over which parties bargain must have certain nonlinearities. We test the theory in an experimental setting in which a seller bargains with a number of buyers of different sizes. Nonlinearities in the surplus function are generated by varying the shape of the seller cost function. Consistent with the theory, we find that quantity discounts emerge only in th...
-
作者：Saha, Souresh
作者单位：National University of Singapore
摘要：Firms often conduct both product and process R&D. Consumer preferences typically play a vital role in determining these R&D choices. The economics literature, however, has mostly ignored the interrelationship between the R&D choices of firms and consumer preferences. I study product and process R&D from the perspective of their relationship with consumer preferences. In doing so, I find a novel distinction between the two kinds of R&D. This distinction can explain several empirical observation...
-
作者：Che, Yeon-Koo; Lewis, Tracy R.
作者单位：Columbia University; Duke University
摘要：We examine breakup fees and stock lockups as devices for prospective target firms to encourage bidder participation in takeover contests. Unless bidding costs for the first bidder are too high, breakup fees provide for the socially desirable degree of competition and ensure the efficient allocation of the target to the highest-valued buyer in a takeover auction. In contrast, stock lockups permit the target firm to subsidize entry of a new bidder at the expense of an incumbent bidder Stock lock...
-
作者：Jullien, Bruno; Rey, Patrick
作者单位：Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
摘要：The article revisits the conventional wisdom according to which vertical restrictions on retail prices help upstream firms to collude. We analyze the scope for collusion with and without resale price maintenance (RPM) when retailers observe local shocks on demand or retail costs. In the absence of RPM, retail prices react to retailers' information, and deviations from collusive behavior are thus difficult to detect. By eliminating retail price flexibility, RPM facilitates the detection of devi...
-
作者：Dal Bo, Pedro
作者单位：Brown University
摘要：Previous literature has shown that demand fluctuations affect the scope for tacit collusion. I study whether discount factor fluctuations can have similar effects. I find that collusion depends not only on the level of the discount factor but also, and more surprisingly, on its volatility. Collusive prices and profits increase with a higher discount factor level, but decrease with its volatility. These results have important implications for empirical studies of collusive pricing, the role tha...
-
作者：Joskow, Paul; Tirole, Jean
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
摘要：We derive the optimal prices and investment program for an electric power system when there are price-insensitive retail consumers served by load serving entities that can choose any level of rationing contingent on real-time prices. We then examine the assumptions required for competitive electricity markets to achieve this optimal price and investment program and the implications of relaxing several of these assumptions. We analyze the interrelationships between regulator-imposed wholesale m...
-
作者：Dutta, Prajit; Matros, Alexander; Weibull, Joergen W.
作者单位：Columbia University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; Stockholm School of Economics
摘要：We generalize the standard repeated-games model of dynamic oligopolistic competition to allow for consumers who are long-lived and forward looking. Each period leaves some residual demand to future periods and pricing in one period affects consumers' expectations about future prices. We analyze this setting for an indivisible durable good with price-setting firms and overlapping cohorts of consumers. The model nests the repeated-game model and the Coasian durable-goods model as its two extreme...
-
作者：Marx, Leslie M.; Shaffer, Greg
作者单位：Duke University; University of Rochester
摘要：Although up front payments are often observed in contracts between manufacturers and retailers, little is known about their competitive effects or the role retailers play in securing them. In this article, we consider a model in which two competing retailers make take-it-or-leave-it offers to a common manufacturer We find that upfront payments are a feature of equilibrium contracts, and in all equilibria, only one retailer buys from the manufacturer These findings support the claims of small m...
