Like any new product, private label entry increases competition within a category leading to downward pressure on both wholesale and retail prices. But, given the higher margins for private labels and potential bargaining benefits for retailers, they have incentives to help private labels gain market share. The paper addresses two questions: First, do private labels enhance a retailer's bargain...

Mainstream economic theory outlines four main causes of market failure and it is already well established that two of these (information failure and externalities) exist in a tobacco market. A third cause of market failure, market power, is also a serious problem in many tobacco markets. Market power--combined with unintended and often overlooked consequences of tobacco tax policies, notably th...

This paper explores integrated pricing of electricity and roads enabled by wireless power transfer technology. We envision that high-power, high-efficiency wireless power transfer technologies are mature in the near future, which electrify roads to be charging infrastructures. The prices of electricity at electrified roads will affect electric vehicles’ route choices while the energy requiremen...

Software pricing has traditionally been focused on the vendor’s internal business objectives of covering costs, achieving specified margins, and meeting the competition. Pricing methods such as flat price, tiered pricing, MIPS-based, usage-based, per user, per seat, and pay as you go, are often tactical in nature and easily matched by competitors, which can undermine profitability by accelerati...

Most studies on mergers and acquisitions are not sample selective. This study directly examines the motives of horizontal mergers by utilizing a sample of acquiring firms based on same SIC codes. A three factor Arbitrage pricing model was utilized, with Tobin’s q ratio as a measure of market power, to study the performance of the firms involved in the mergers. The results indicate the acquisiti...

have begun to offer their services, such as voice telephony, Internet and TV in so-called triple play packages. While carefully recognizing the technological, legal and economic framework of the fixed-line telecommunications industry, this book investigates whether bundling is indeed a profitable pricing strategy for the firms and if it can possibly facilitate the leverage of market power into ...

Energy storage can absorb variability from the rising number of wind and solar power producers. Storage is different from the conventional generators that have traditionally balanced supply and demand on fast time scales due to its hard energy capacity constraints, dynamic coupling, and low marginal costs. These differences are leading system operators to propose new mechanisms for enabling sto...