Suggested Retail Prices with Downstream Competition

Consignment contracts with retail competition

Consignment contracts have been widely employed in many industries. Under such contracts, items are sold at a retailer’s but the supplier retains the full ownership of the inventory until purchased by consumers; the supplier collects payment from the retailer based on actual units sold. We investigate how competition among retailers influences the supply chain decisions and profits under differ...

Price Transparency and Retail Prices

Price transparency initiatives are typically undertaken by third parties to ensure that consumers can compare the prices of competing offers in markets where obtaining such information is costly. Such practices have recently become widespread, yet it is unclear whether the increased price competition due to lower search costs overcomes the potential for collusion between competitors due to lowe...

Unplanned Purchases and Retail Competition

I propose a framework in which consumers have biased beliefs about their future purchase probabilities, leading them to make unplanned purchases. Using this framework, I examine the phenomenon of below-cost pricing and the welfare effects of banning it. When the market is covered, a ban on below-cost pricing raises social surplus, although consumers need not gain—they are only guaranteed to ben...

Retail competition and cooperative advertising

We consider a cooperative advertising channel consisting of a manufacturer selling its product through a retailer in competition with another independent retailer. The manufacturer subsidizes its retailer’s advertising only when a certain threshold is positive. Moreover, the manufacturer’s support for its retailer is higher under competition than in its absence.

Competition in Retail Electricity Supply