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The article reports that the Industrial Organization Society's Best Paper/Younger Scholar Award has been conferred on Helder Vasconcelos for his paper, "Entry Effects on Cartel Stability and Joint Executive Committee," which appeared in the May 2004 issue of the journal "Review of Industrial Organization." The paper extends the well known Green and Porter cartel model to consider entry, allowing the incumbent firms to either punish or accommodate entry when it occurs. The econometric results support the model's prediction that the probability of a price war increases with an increase in the number of firms in the cartel.

"Double marginalization" and "Elimination of Double marginalization" are catch-phrases commonly used in the IO literature. In this article, I trace back the origin of the idea to Cournot (1838, Ch. IX) on complementary goods monopolies. Through the years Cournot's contribution remained a reference but ended being viewed as a special case of the bilateral monopoly model. Yet, it is worth wondering why the most cited paper on this issue is nowadays (Spengler in J Polit Econ 58(4):347–352, 1950) which contains only an informal treatment of the question. In addition to retracing the origin of the idea, I emphasize the elegant proof of Cournot for the simultaneous game and extend it to the sequential game. I also show that prices are usually higher in the sequential game but that they could be lower if demand is very convex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines set out the enforcement policy of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission with regard to vertical mergers. The evaluation process centers on the elimination of double marginalization, raising rivals' costs, and market foreclosure. The Agencies recognize that merger-specific efficiencies may save an otherwise objectionable merger. In this paper, our focus is on the welfare effects of vertical mergers in the presence of successive monopoly and bilateral monopoly. In both cases, a vertical merger is welfare enhancing, but the benefits may not be merger specific. We illustrate this proposition by examining contractual alternatives to vertical integration by merger. We argue that vertical integration may eliminate substantial transaction costs which are present in contractual alternatives. Consequently, a vertical merger may well be superior to these contractual alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the question of whether or not a reduction of the knowledge barrier is good for welfare. Based on a dynamic monopoly setting with simultaneous investment decisions in process as well as in product Research & Development (R&D), we show that a reduction of the knowledge barrier has ambiguous welfare consequences: due to a lower knowledge barrier, product quality and welfare increase in the short-run. However, this may not necessarily be the case in the long-run. One reason is that a positive long-lasting knowledge barrier shock triggers the monopolist sub-optimally to reduce its product R&D investments today and in the future at the cost of future product quality. This in turn may reduce welfare. Accordingly, to realize the first-best level of product quality, the long-run optimal R&D subsidy rate for product innovations increases with a reduction of the knowledge barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the welfare implications of input price discrimination in a vertically-related market, which is composed of a monopolistic upstream market and a duopolistic downstream market. The downstream duopolists produce quality-differentiated products at different marginal costs. We show that the equilibrium input prices are closely related to the downstream quality gap and cost difference. When the monopolist simply charges a unit wholesale price for its input product, discriminatory pricing could be socially desirable even though the aggregate output remains unchanged. Nevertheless, if a two-part tariff is feasible, then banning price discrimination could increase the aggregate output and social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European telecommunications sector has been radically transformed in the past 25 years: from a group of state monopolies to a set of increasingly competitive markets. In this paper we summarize how this process has unfolded—for both fixed and mobile telecommunications—by focusing on the evolution of the regulatory framework and by drawing some parallels with the evolution of the sector in the US. Given the major strategic importance of the sector, we highlight some of the challenges that lie ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Areeda-Turner rule in U.S. antitrust jurisprudence limits successful predatory pricing cases to circumstances where prices can be shown to have been set below marginal costs. While not cast so, the rule reflects the view that predatory pricing is rarely attempted; and even where attempted is rarely successful; and even where attempted and successful, is difficult to identify. In this paper, we examine the theoretical and empirical foundations of this rule, and conclude that it is time to demote the Areeda-Turner analysis from the status of a rule to that of a potentially useful form of inquiry in predatory pricing litigation, but one which is neither necessary nor dispositive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the welfare effect of third-degree price discrimination in a vertically related market with one upstream monopolist that sells its input to a continuum of downstream markets. Assume that the market boundary of the monopolist is endogenously determined. It is found that social welfare is necessarily lower under discriminatory than uniform pricing, even if the market area of the former is greater than that of the latter. This finding is contrary to that in the extant literature on price discrimination in final goods markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies show that the credit card market is imperfectly competitive. Using a reduced form hedonic model, the current paper demonstrates a relationship between credit card interest rates and product differentiation characteristics. The characteristics capture issuers' attempts to: (1) screen/separate customers with different default risk characteristics and (2) better meet heterogeneous customer preferences. The results are consistent with risk-based pricing and monopolistic competition in the credit card market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that many structural remedies in a sample of European merger cases result in market structures which would probably not be cleared by the Competition Authority (CA) if they were the result of merger (rather than remedy). This is explained by the fact that the CA's objective through remedy is to restore pre-merger competition, but markets are often highly concentrated even before merger. If so, the CA must often choose between clearing an 'uncompetitive' merger, or applying an unsatisfactory remedy. Here, the CA appears reluctant to intervene against coordinated effects, if doing so enhances a leader's dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes competition between two sellers that offer horizontally differentiated items at competing auctions. Three possible outcomes can arise in equilibrium. For substantially differentiated items the monopoly reserve prices form an equilibrium, and the market is not entirely covered. When products become closer substitutes, a non-empty interval of types becomes valuable to both sellers. When transport costs are low, and virtual valuations are high, sellers compete for these bidders and set their reserve prices below the valuation of the marginal bidder. In equilibrium all types enjoy participation rents. For intermediate levels of transport costs it is not worth competing for runaway bidders. In this case, there is a continuum of equilibria. In each equilibrium sellers adjust their reserve prices so that the marginal bidder gets no rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the sale of a vertically differentiated good by a manufacturer to retailers that have market power when reselling to consumers. The contractual relationships between the manufacturer and individual retailers are characterized as “quasi-partnerships,” reflecting the ongoing and multi-dimensional nature of such relationships. Contractual terms are predicted by the Nash bargaining solution and are distinguished from those in an ordinary bilateral monopoly because they make allowance for competing, vertically differentiated brands. The model predicts that differences in retailers’ ability to promote the manufacturer’s brand induce prices that vary systematically with the manufacturer’s market share of retailers’ sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to linked oligopoly theory, the anticipated effect of multimarket contact is reduced competition. Specifically, the theory predicts that contact lowers competition by reducing the benefit of aggressive action in any single market by providing rivals with the opportunity to retaliate in multiple common markets. The results of this paper are consistent with the theory. In banking, contact is positively related to profitability. Although the economic impact of this relationship is unimportant for most institutions, the relationship is meaningful for the small group of banks most heavily exposed to contact. This finding suggests that the importance of contact may rise as consolidation of the banking industry continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with a duopolistic industry where firms are engaged in costing R&D activity in order to maximize their market shares. Firms' R&D competition is characterized as a dynamic noncooperative feedback game where the optimal strategies art affected by the extra- industry R&D activity and the degree of intra-industry spillovers. Numerical simulations highlight the importance of the assumptions on the firms' absorptive capacity (to exploit external knowledge) in determining the optimal levels of finns R&D investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some implications of Hyde and Perloff's paper on whether monopoly power can be measured are considered. It is concluded that measuring monopoly power requires a long-run view, with a focus on the implications of product differentiation, and a reliance on accounting data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the importance of the various determinants of life expectancy for international cartels active throughout this century. I explain cartels' optimal duration as a function of market structure and demand growth and estimate the associated parameters recognizing that durability cannot be negative. According to the results, increases in either market shares or cartel concentration prolong life expectancy. Faster demand growth shortens cartel durability but this effect is not reliable. I also find that growth effects are sensitive to both the period of activity and the country coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the economic consequences of using excessive rates-of-return to detect and prosecute cartels. We find that this policy leads to inefficient factor utilization, but always increases out put and welfare. The rate-of-return policy may yield greater social gains than a welfare-based antitrust policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the Justice Department's Merger Guidelines to define a relevant antitrust market for an input. An expression for the elasticity of the residual demand facing a monopoly supplier of a factor of production is derived. It is shown that proper input market definition depends on the elasticity of residual demand confronting the downstream input users, on the supply elasticity in the downstream market (which, in turn, depends on the rate of capital depreciation there), on the cost of the input as a percentage of downstream sales, and on the extent to which the monopolist is integrated downstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the antitrust policy decision of whether to sue prosecute a suspected price-fixing cartel. The analysis is conducted in the Bayesian hypothesis-testing mode, using a Cournot market, framework. This approach recognizes that the decisions to Institute an investigation, file suit, or go to trial, are all binary decisions that involve testing a null hypothesis; notably, the hypothesis that the antitrust laws have not been violated versus the alternative hypothesis that they have been violated. Rejecting the null hypothesis is equivalent to electing to proceed along the prosecution path. The paper demonstrates that formalization of the decision-making process can help to eultance our understanding of the factors that underlie the various decisions, and particularly how those factors can influence the decisions, and provides goblelines for antitrust administration under the current U.S. antitrust laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the welfare cost of monopoly among U.S. manufacturers. In nearly thirty years, the insignificance of the "evils" of monopoly, a considerable volume of conflicting literature has been written on this subject. It has been found that the welfare loss associated with the exercise of monopoly power in the United States was a mere one-tenth of one percent of national income. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the competing Harberger and Cowling-Mueller methodologies and to derive welfare loss estimates for U. S. manufacturing industries taking into account some of the alternative approaches.

The emergence of railroads presented a problem for the developing economic profession. Railroads, by their very nature, often had a localized monopoly. The check that competition was expected to impose on firm behavior was singularly lacking. At the same time, railroads in the United States were national in scope and thus affected interstate commerce. The Interstate Commerce Act and the Commission spawned by the Act represented the first halting steps towards coping with the monopoly power that was a consequence of the Second Industrial revolution. In this paper, the views of prominent economic and legal thinkers regarding the proper legal framework for railroads are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines set forth the current antitrust enforcement practices but do not address mergers that result in bilateral monopoly. We show that, given the presence of lawful, enduring market power, such mergers may improve social welfare. As a result, these mergers deserve careful scrutiny before condemning them as anticompetitive. In this paper, we address this issue and suggest an economically sound enforcement policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ntitrust enforcement efforts in the United States and abroad have been ramped up in high-tech industries, which has rekindled older and largely unresolved debates concerning the appropriate role of antitrust enforcement in high-tech markets. This paper evaluates the likely competitive effects of Intel's conduct through two approaches: The conventional approach focuses on traditional antitrust metrics in product markets: prices and output. The second, alternative approach involves turning to financial markets for valuable information. Under either approach, the available data do not support the theory that Intel's behavior harmed consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent economic growth has been led by high-technology industries (See Jorgenson, Ho & Stiroh () for a summary of the research on the recent acceleration of productivity growth). Many firms in these industries have achieved a dominant market position, thereby attracting the attention of competition authorities, often resulting in major monopolization cases. Unfortunately, this attention has not resulted in improved market outcomes. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of Section 2 Sherman Act cases brought against IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft. We conclude that these cases had limited effect on consumer welfare because they did not stimulate entry or innovation. In these industries, competition authorities cannot expect to promote simply an expansion of output and lower commodity prices; rather they should focus their remedies on promoting innovation-new products that replace or compete with the dominant firm's products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English Premier League is a cartel of soccer teams that collectively sells the rights to broadcast its matches. Despite considerable demand for their product from broadcasters, the clubs agreed to sell only a small fraction of the broadcast rights (60 out of 380 matches played each season between 1992 and 2001). The clubs have explained this reluctance by claiming that increased broadcasting would reduce attendance at matches and therefore reduce cartel income. However, this paper produces detailed econometric evidence to show that broadcasting has a negligible effect on attendance and that additional broadcast fees would be likely to exceed any plausible opportunity cost. The paper concludes that a more likely explanation for the reluctance to market their rights is the failure of the cartel to reach agreement on compensation for individual teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers competition policy in Canada towards monopoly and monopolization. While the focus is primarily on providing an introduction and examination of the abuse of dominance provisions in the Canadian Competition Act of 1986, it also provide a brief overview of the existing law prior to the 1986 reforms. In response to the old law and Canada's enforcement experience, the monopoly provisions in the new Competition Act differ substantially from those found in the Combines Investigation Act. In this paper, it has been argued that the abuse of dominance provisions in the Competition Act can be, and in practice have proven to be, flexible and effective in addressing socially inefficient monopolization.

This paper describes a new economic method for preventing oligopoly collusion. The method eliminates incentives for collusion by making managerial compensation depend on relative profits rather than absolute profits. This alteration of managerial incentives sets up a zero-sum game among the finns in an industry, yielding the result that firms no longer have incentive to collude, either actually or tacitly, with regard to prices or outputs. The method also ameliorates the imperfectly competitive outcomes which can result from even noncooperative oligopoly interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of sunk costs and potential competition on pricing behavior in monopoly airline markets. We find little evidence to support the proposition from contestable markets theory that the level of sunk costs influences pricing by monopolists. Rather, the results support the view, consistent with numerous game theoretic oligopoly models, that the costs and the price-cutting reputation of potential entrants influence incumbent behavior. These results suggest that contestability theory may not be robust. Even in the markets characterized by increasing returns to scale, the perfectly contestable market may not be a useful welfare standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a simple model that calculates - as a percentage of industry revenues - the welfare gains or losses that might ensue when a public enterprise natural monopoly is replaced by a profit maximizing private monopoly. The model incorporates both the pre-privatization demand elasticity and production efficiency changes subsequent to privatization. The magnitude of the welfare changes suggests that allocative efficiency improvements do not provide a compelling rationale for post-privatization regulation. Greater consideration must be given to other regulatory objectives including distributional concerns and the need to create an institutional environment that encourages investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the analytical solution to the standard problem of second degree discrimination and shows that, as the number of discrete prices increases, the market output approaches that of pure competition or perfect price discrimination in the same manner as Cournot oligopolies converge to competitive outcomes. This solution is subsequently compared with that of Third degree discrimination in light of recent contributions of Coase and Varian. This comparison reveals that -1- neither type of discrimination, in its pure form, is empirically likely; -2- actual price discrimination will involve elements of both types; -3- therefore, the analytical solution to second degree discrimination is, contrary to Pigouvian tradition, no less important than that of third degree discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A spatial equilibrium of a stylized railroad network is offered to illustrate that monopoly pricing requires prices on some links that are so high that traffic 'does not move.' ICC price structure regulation, which was based on the idea that traffic should be priced to 'move' in a privately owned and operated network, is modeled as maximizing market access subject to an AVC minimum and an aggregate break-even constraint in a network that is over-extended. Flows that result from such regulation are highly inefficient but provide more surplus to shippers and receivers than the unregulated price structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenging anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent competitors is a top priority of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. It is especially important that competition agencies remain vigilant of such acquisitions in platform markets, where indirect network effects and other market forces tend to preserve the status quo at the expense of smaller, more innovative rivals and potentially final consumers. This article discusses two such attempted acquisitions: (1) Visa's acquisition of technology firm Plaid that threatened to disrupt Visa's monopoly power in online debit; and (2) Sabre's acquisition of Farelogix, which is a firm that allows airlines to connect directly to travel agencies and thereby disintermediates Sabre and other global distribution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a picture of market power in China — its current situation, manifestations, causes, damaging effects and related economic laws and regulations. China is in a transition from a planned economy to a socialist market economy. Market power in China is reflected largely in administrative monopolies inherited from the old system, as well as in economic monopolies created by the new system. Administrative monopolies are worse than economic monopolies in terms of the distortion of transaction behavior and the preclusion of market competition. They have become a pressing issue facing China in its economic and social development. China has been developing a legislative framework on market competition, but this framework currently appears weak and powerless in the face of the administrative monopolies. However, the introduction of an anti-monopoly law will undoubtedly be helpful in enhancing the market competition mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the scope, advantages and disadvantages of competition policy for in Great Britain. Narrative of the 1948 Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Enquiry and Control Act; Number of created competition policy Acts; Analysis on inquiry sectors of Monopolies and Mergers Commission; Aspect of criticism in the 1998 Competition Act.

We examine the role of private information on the impact of vertical mergers. A vertical merger can improve the information that is available to an upstream monopolist because, after the merger, the monopolist can observe the cost of its downstream merger partner. In the pre-merger world, because the costs of the downstream firms are private information, the monopolist has incomplete information and cannot implement the monopoly outcome: The expected pre-merger equilibrium price of the downstream product is lower than the monopoly price. After a vertical merger, the equilibrium input price that is charged to the downstream rival can either increase or decrease—depending on whether the downstream merger partner's cost is low or high, respectively. However, in all cases the equilibrium price of the downstream product increases to the monopoly price. Therefore, the merger leads to consumer harm even when it leads to a reduction in the input price. The merged firm, however, cannot extract all of the monopoly profit: The merger causes production inefficiency (when the downstream rival has a relatively small cost advantage) and the downstream rival still earns an information rent (when it has a relatively large cost advantage). These results also have implications for vertical merger policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a mixed duopoly selling to downstream retailers that are engaged in spatial price discrimination. We show that the optimal degree of privatization falls below—often far below—the level that is implied in the absence of the vertical chain. The size of this reduction in privatization reflects the extent to which increasing transport cost (differentiation) increases double marginalization in contested market regions—as opposed to simply reducing demand in uncontested market regions. Moreover, we show that despite higher costs of production, a fully public monopoly upstream can be welfare-superior to the optimal mixed duopoly. This would not be the case in the absence of downstream differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reorganization of public utilities is on the current political agenda in many European countries. However, in many cases the most fundamental question in terms of public policy towards these industries is not tested; does the underlying cost structure indicate a natural monopoly or not? Evans and Heckman's analysis of the US Bell System is one of the few exceptions, but theft method has a serious problem as theft estimated cost function is not well behaved (negative marginal costs). To solve this problem we propose to use the consistency region (i.e., the region where the estimated cost function is well behaved) as the test region. We apply our testing procedure to Norwegian electricity distribution and find that local electricity distribution is characterised as a natural monopoly. Policy implications of the result is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A monopoly (M) faces an outside innovator who owns a technology that eliminates the entry cost and hence allows a profitable entry. M is willing to pay for that technology, so as to exclude entry and to keep enjoying its monopoly profits. Before bargaining with M about the technology, the innovator may benefit from selling some licenses to entrants, even though this sale shrinks the total "bargaining cake", and is inefficient for the bargainers. Introducing entry prior to bargaining typically increases the optimal number of additional licenses that the innovator sells in case the bargaining fails. This increases the (credible) threat vis-à-vis M and strengthens the bargaining position of the innovator. It is shown that entry may occur if the ex-ante bargaining power of the innovator is relatively weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A monopolist's ability to conduct non-linear pricing is limited because customers can, at a cost, unbundle bundled output. Three pricing strategies are available to a firm: (1) a separating strategy; (2) a pooling strategy; and (3) an exclusion strategy. Each is optimal for some set of unbundling cost and distribution of customer types. The optimal pricing strategies are contrasted with the well-studied benchmark cases, in which unbundling costs are either zero or arbitrarily high. It is shown that it is not always possible to extrapolate the conclusions from the benchmark cases with respect to pricing, profitability, consumer surplus or efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the Areeda-Turner rule to two-sided markets. We show that a two-sided monopolist may find it short-run profit-maximizing to charge a price below marginal cost on one side of the market. Hence showing that the price is below marginal cost on one side of a two-sided market cannot be considered a sign of predation. We then argue for a two-sided Areeda-Turner rule that takes into account price-cost margins on both sides of the market. Two examples highlight that applying a one-sided Areeda-Turner rule may lead one to assess legitimate prices as predatory or to consider predatory prices as legitimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few scholarly articles have had the impact enjoyed by Areeda and Turner's (Harv Law Rev 88(4):697-699, ) article on predatory pricing, which is elaborated in the Antitrust Law (Areeda and Hovenkamp in Antitrust law. Aspen Publishers, New York, ) treatise. Proof of predatory pricing under the Areeda-Turner Test requires two things: a market structure plausibly indicating the possibility of 'recoupment,' and prices below a relevant measure of cost, which was presumptively average variable cost (AVC). That so many courts embraced the Areeda-Turner Test might seem surprising, given that contemporary assessments from economists were quite negative: They faulted the AVC test itself, the test's inadequate consideration of fixed costs, and the exclusive focus on short-run (nonsustainable) strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Kahn's enduring legacy will be his influence on how economists think about the regulation of natural monopoly. But although the substance of his ideas mattered far more than their style, his influence would not have been nearly as great had it not been for his almost slavish devotion to clear language. His career supports the proposition that most of the heavy lifting in economics relies on just a few basic principles that can be stated in plain English. In this essay, I describe how Kahn's mastery of those principles made him such an effective regulator, but I also note that events since the 1978 deregulation of the airline industry suggest that he and others at the Civil Aeronautics Board failed to appreciate the extent of unexploited economies of scale in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred E. Kahn was an observer and practitioner of telecommunications regulation as technology changed the industry from a natural monopoly to a platform-based oligopoly among telephone, cable, satellite, and wireless carriers. Regulation and legislation were slow to recognize these changes, and large welfare losses occurred, some of which could have been avoided if regulators, legislators and economists had followed Fred's economic advice: Prices must be informed by costs; the relevant costs are actual incremental costs; costs and prices are an outcome of a Schumpeterian competitive process, not the starting point; excluding firms from markets is fundamentally anticompetitive; a reliance on imperfect markets subject to antitrust law is preferable to necessarily imperfect regulation; and a regulatory transition to deregulation entails propensities to micromanage the process to generate preferred outcomes, visible competitors, and expedient price reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the efficiencies defense that is contained in the 2010 Merger Guidelines, which provides the most current statement of the Agencies' enforcement philosophy and procedure. Most of our attention centers on efficiencies in production, but we also address merger-specific efficiencies that may lead to improved product quality, enhanced services, or even to the introduction of entirely new products. We begin with the analytically clean case of merger-specific efficiencies that are accompanied by monopoly power. From the perspective of either consumer welfare or social welfare, this presents the welfare analysis that should guide merger policy. We, then, examine the errors that may arise due to the restricted role that efficiencies play in Section 7 enforcement. Finally, we close with some policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently issued revision of the US Horizontal Merger Guidelines, like its predecessors and mirrored by similar guidelines throughout the world, devotes substantial attention to the market definition process and the implications of market shares in the market that is selected. Nevertheless, some controversy concerning the revised Guidelines questions their increased openness toward more direct, economically based methods of predicting the competitive effects of mergers. By contrast, this article suggests that, as a matter of economic logic, the Guidelines revision can only be criticized for its timidity. Indeed, economic principles unambiguously favor elimination of the market definition process altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the puzzle that sellers often employ diverse strategies in terms of carrying multiple brands and holding periodic sales. These two selling tools can be substitute instruments to induce consumer self selection and implement price discrimination. We analyze the factors that affect a seller’s choice between the two pricing instruments and show how different combinations of the two instruments can be optimal under alternative market conditions. A seller may, surprisingly, increase her total number of offers when it becomes more costly to carry brands or hold sales if there are decreasing marginal costs of the alternative selling tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the pricing conduct of monopoly banks using the Rosse-Panzar revenue test. Behavior of structural monopoly; Influence of entry deterrence on pricing; Factors affecting monopoly characteristic.

Examines the question of business contributions to a public good in the case of the creation of Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) in 1940. Factors leading to the creation of BMI; BMI's thrust of fighting monopolization in the broadcasting industry; Attributes of increased competition in the market.

Comments on the article concerning the pricing of Microsoft Windows in the United States. Inconsistency of government's claim on Windows monopoly; Confusion between local and global maxima; Falsehood of the assumptions about the personal computer market.