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In this paper, we aim to investigate the collusive stability in the presence of network externalities among firms with relative performance in the firm’s objective functions. We demonstrate that collusive stability is increasing (decreasing) in the degree of relative performance, product substitutability and network effect when the network effect is sufficiently large (small). A competition agency might need to provide different guidance for anti-competitive regulation in the network industry.

The consumer price index (CPI) is one of the most important macroeconomic indicators for determining inflation, and accurate predictions of CPI changes are important for a country's economic development. This study uses multivariate linear regression (MLR), support vector regression (SVR), autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) to predict the CPI of the United States. Data from January 2017 to February 2022 were randomly selected and divided into two stages: 80 % for training and 20% for testing. The US CPI was modeled for the observed period and relied on a mix of elements, including crude oil price, world gold price, and federal fund effective rate. Evaluation metrics—mean absolute percentage value, mean absolute error, root mean square error, R-squared, and correlation of determination—were employed to estimate forecasted values. The MLR, SVR, ARDL, and MARS models attained high accuracy parameters, while the MARS algorithm generated higher accuracy in US CPI forecasts than the others in the testing phase. These outputs could support the US government in overseeing economic policies, sectors, and social security, thereby boosting national economic development.

This paper considers the collusive stability of downstream competition in a vertical market with network externalities and cost asymmetry. A dynamic collusion game is constructed, and backward induction is employed to solve the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. We show that larger network externalities lead to less collusive incentive for an inefficient firm, while for an efficient firm, this depends on the efficiency gap. An increase in network externalities will destabilize the downstream collusion when the cost asymmetry is large and network externalities are relatively weak.

This paper utilized a three-stage dynamic game to analyze the conflicts of interest between stakeholders caused by firm heterogeneity. We show that the higher the degree of heterogeneity, the higher the sales delegation incentive given. The firm’s heterogeneity scale will cause industry profit, union utility, consumer surplus and manager bonus conflicts of interest. Furthermore, the intensity of conflict is lower between the industry and the union than between the industry and consumer and between the industry and manager if the degree of heterogeneity is relatively small.

We construct a dynamic bilateral monopoly game to analyze the bargaining between a foreign manufacturer and a domestic retailer regarding the wholesale price and explain the foreign upstream firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative and its economic impacts on the domestic market. Under free trade, the foreign upstream firm’s CSR initiative realizes improvements in consumer surplus and social welfare in the home country. A “win–win–win” strategy exists, as the foreign manufacturer has more of an incentive to implement CSR when the government implements a strategic trade policy. The consumer-friendly action implemented by the foreign upstream firm leads to adequate consumer welfare and social welfare, which mitigates the government’s political hostility. With the high bargaining power of the foreign upstream firm and the low weight of the consumer-friendly upstream firm, the government should set a higher tariff rate for the foreign upstream firm to extract rent and enhance social welfare.