This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits. We compare the welfare effects of upstre...

In this paper we study the optimal import policy in an oligopolistic market with a given number of quantity-setting firms. In the absence of fixed costs, we show that if the policy instrument is an import quota, the optimal policy is either free trade or autarky, while if the instrument is a tariff the optimal policy is neither free trade nor autarky. In the case of fixed costs, we show that co...

This paper studies optimal production subsidy in a mixed duopoly with separation between ownership and management. Although many existing literature shows that the first best production allocation is achieved under several economic environments (so-called irrelevance result), we find that this result holds in the following two cases. (1) The owners simultaneously/sequentially decide their sales...

We consider the impact of horizontal mergers in the presence of free entry and exit. In contrast to much of the previous literature on horizontal mergers, our model yields predictions that seem intuitively reasonable: with only moderate cost synergies mergers of a small number of industry participants are beneficial (even under quantity competition), there is no “free rider problem” in that ins...

This paper investigates the sequential announcement of domestic emissions caps by governments in a international-based tradable pollution permit market for a transboundary pollutant. We …nd the sequential choice of domestic allocation caps is sub-optimal and depends on how the follower government reacts to the leader government’s choice. Furthermore, the marginal damage and the degree to which ...

In this paper, collusive price leadership in homogeneous good capacity-constrained repeated price competition is examined. In the stage game, firms choose their timing of price setting. Although setting a price early is disadvantageous per se, a large firm has an incentive to move early in order to demonstrate its commitment not to deviate. If the discount factor is not too large, this behavior...

This paper shows that governments have no incentive to introduce non-tariff barriers when they are free to set tariffs but they do when tariffs are determined cooperatively. We then show three results. First, with trade liberalization, there is a progression from using tariffs only to quotas, and to antidumping constraints (when quotas are jointly eliminated). Second, there is a narrowing of th...

This paper investigates the implications for international markets of the existence of retailers/wholesalers with market power. Two main results are shown. First, in the presence of buyer power trade liberalization may lead to retail market concentration. Due to this concentration retail prices may be higher and welfare may be lower in free trade than in autarky, thus reversing the standard e¤e...

In this note we show that the results developed in Singh and Vives (1984) are sensitive to the duopoly assumption (Rand Journal of Economics 15, 546-554). If there are more than two firms, prices may be higher under price competition than under quantity competition. This will be the case if quality differences are large and goods are complements. If goods are substitutes, high-quality firms may...

Stability of collusion in differentiated oligopolies is studied without symmetry restrictions on the available strategies. It is demonstrated that if the number of firms is sufficiently large, two-phase stick-and-carrot punishment schemes apply at the highest possible discount rate with respect to collusion on the joint profit-maximizing output. If stick-and-carrot punishment schemes are used, ...