In spatial competition, public infrastructure plays a crucial role in determining product market outcomes. In our model, consideration of infrastructure’s impact on the product market drives the voting behavior of consumers in their dual role as voter/taxpayers. The spatial heterogeneity of consumers produces conflicting political interests and in many cases inefficient outcomes. However across...

A given number of single-product oligopolists locate in one of two separate market-places, which consumers access at a cost. Firms set prices and the CES consumers choose purchases at one or both market-places. Firm agglomeration in one market-place produces positive profits because of product differentiation. But under various assumptions, geographical separation of firms produces prices analo...

How do government policies and business practices affect the degree of competition in a given market? How does competition, in turn, affect market outcomes, such as prices, innovation and access to services? With funding from the UK Department for International Development, ODI has compared economic performance in four product markets – sugar, cement, beer and mobile phone services – across Ban...

This paper studies (1) whether, from a welfare point of view, oligopolistic competition leads to too few or too many products in a market, and (2) how a change in competition affects the number and the composition of product offerings. We address these two questions in the context of the U.S. smartphone market. Our findings show that this market contains too few products and that a reduction in...

Abstract: We present a model of the TV-advertising market that encompasses both the product markets and the market for TV programs. We argue that the TV industry has several idiosyncratic characteristics that need to be modeled, and show that the strategic interaction in this industry differs from other industries in many respects. We find that a move from a TV monopoly to a TV duopoly may redu...

Abstract: We present a model of the TV-advertising market that encompasses both the product markets and the market for TV programs. We argue that the TV industry has several idiosyncratic characteristics that need to be modeled, and show that the strategic interaction in this industry differs from other industries in many respects. We find that a move from a TV monopoly to a TV duopoly may redu...

Equilibrium Unemployment and Investment Under Product and Labour Market Imperfections We study the implications of product market competition and investment for price setting, wage bargaining and thereby for equilibrium unemployment in an economy with product and labour market imperfections. We show that intensified product market competition will reduce equilibrium unemployment, whereas the ef...

Employment Protection and Product Market Competition by Sebastian Kessing A firm facing employment protection will defend its market position more fiercely than a firm operating without such restrictions. However, ex ante it will be more reluctant to expand its market position. For the benchmark case of contest competition, the defensive effect dominates. A firm facing employment protection has...

This article shows through a simple model that there is a monotonic relationship between the competitiveness of the product market and firms’ demand for insurance. The more competitive the product market is, the more likely firms competing in the market will acquire insurance or purchase full coverage. This holds true no matter whether firms exhibit risk aversion or not in their preferences. In...