We establish the entry-deterring role of vertical contracts in a setting that does not rely on asymmetric information, the exclusivity of the incumbent’s contracts, limits on distribution channels, or restrictions on the ability to renegotiate contracts in case of entry. The optimal contract we describe is a three-part quantity discounting contract that involves the payment of an allowance to t...

(Please do not quote without permission) 7 th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON REAL OPTIONS of Economics are duly noted and appreciated. ABSTRACT A common theme in the studies of flexible supply contracts has been the producer's profit maximization problem without regard for the suppliers' reactions to the producer's operating policies. However, suppliers do react and protect their downside a...

Over the last decade hospitals concessions have been increasingly implemented around the world. Nonetheless, concession arrangements are subject to many criticisms, which are to a large extent related to the issue of flexibility. Several authors have expressed concerns as to whether concession arrangements are able to provide the flexibility these need in order to secure optimal qualitative hos...

With the explosive growth of internet activity, there will be an increasing reliance on intelligent software agents for electronic commerce and information retrieval. Such multi-agents systems will be comprised of self-motivated agents that interact with each other though negotiation and task delegation. Multi-agent technology models and facilitates these interactions through automated contract...

Senior executives typically delegate the responsibility for managing a firm's derivatives portfolio to in-house financial experts and the company's financial advisers. That's a strategic blunder, argues this Nobel laureate, because the inventiveness of modern financial markets makes it possible for companies to double or even triple their capacity to invest in their strategic assets and compete...

This paper explores the consequences of using supplier trade credit within a vertical relational contract. The downstream firm operates in an environment where shocks may make it unable to repay. The shocks are unobservable to the supplier, which creates an asymmetric information problem. Trade credit limits the supplier’s possibilities to punish the downstream firm and termination is used in e...

A contract is usually defined as a written or oral agreement between two or more parties involving an enforceable commitment to do or refrain from doing something. In agriculture, contracts between farmers and agribusinesses specify certain conditions associated with producing and/or marketing an agricultural product. By combining various market functions, contracting generally reduces particip...

We study a two-sided market in which a platform mediates between sellers and buyers, and signs private contracts with sellers. We compare this market with (i) a one-sided market with public contracts, and (ii) a two-sided market with public contracts. We find that equilibrium royalties can be positive or negative in a one-sided market with public contracts, are negative in a twosided market wit...

We consider a game between two capacity providers that compete for customers through a broker who works on commissions and sells to both loyal and non-loyal customers. The capacity providers compete by selecting commission margins and sales thresholds at which commissions on all sales increase. We show that in equilibrium, contracts require positive sales thresholds. The threshold requirement c...