Recent iber_cpc_rw items

Integration and Independent Innovation on a Network

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Physical telecom networks are costly and few, traditionally to the point of monopoly. Innovation thrives with many independent minds. So one might hope independent innovators, not only its proprietor M, can offer innovative services on a network, as has been true on the Internet. This issue is central in telecom policy; it also arises elsewhere, including complaints about Microsoft. I try to expound the following key points. Often an unregulated M has ex ante incentives to organize service innovation efficiently. But this incentive breaks down ex post as M can extract an independent J’s quasi-rents (Farrell and Michael Katz 2000). Even ex ante, the "one monopoly rent theorem" (Ward Bowman 1957) fails when M’s bottleneck access business is more regulated than its competitive services (e.g., Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole 2000). This tempts M to sabotage J’s innovations. "Quarantining" M from the service sector solves these problems, but excludes the firm with...

Deal or No Deal? Licensing Negotiations in Standard-Setting Organizations

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Technical standards benefit consumers and producers by facilitating productadoption, promoting compatible solutions, and helping to create anecosystem of products and services in which competition can thrive. However,standards also may create opportunities for the exercise of market power. Owners of patents with claims that are essential to a standard may “hold up” firms or consumers that are “locked-in” to a standard by charging high royalties for the use of products that comply with the standard. This licensor (or seller) market power3 arises “ex post,” i.e., after firms and consumers have made investments that are specific to the standard.

Higher Prices from Entry: Pricing of Brand-Name Drugs

Wed, 1 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

When a new firm enters a market and starts selling a spatially-differentiated product, the prices of existing products may rise due to a better match between consumers and products. Entry may have three unusual effects. First, the new price is above the monopoly price if the two firms collude and may be above the monopoly price even if the firms play Bertrand. Second, the Bertrand and collusive price may be identical. Third, prices, combined profits, and consumer surplus may all rise with entry. Consistent with our theory, the real prices of some anti-ulcer drugs rose as new products entered the market.

Modularity, Vertical Integration, and Open Access Policies: Towards a Convergence of Antitrust and Regulation in the Age of the Internet

Wed, 1 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to help regulators and commentators incorporate both Chicago School and post-Chicago School arguments in assessing whether regulation should mandate open access to information platforms. The authors outline three alternative models that the FCC could adopt to guide its regulation of information platforms in the future and facilitate a true convergence between antitrust and regulatory policy.

Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Although antitrust courts sometimes stress the competitive process, they have not deeply explored what that process is. Inspired by the theory of the core, we explore the idea that the competitive process is the process of sellers and buyers forming improving coalitions. Much of antitrust can be seen as prohibiting firms’ attempts to restrain improving trade between their rivals and customers. In this way, antitrust protects firms’ and customers’ freedom to trade to their mutual betterment.

The Rising Tide of Patent Damages

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Very large awards and settlements for patent infringement have increased dramatically since the 1980s. A large fraction of these awards have occurred in the computer hardware and software industries. Complex technologies such as computer hardware and software require rights to a very large number of patents. One explanation for the large awards for patent infringement is the bargaining power of a patentee that has a credible injunction threat for a product that requires rights to multiple patents. This can lead to infringement damage awards and settlements that overestimate the patent’s contribution to product value.

A World Without Intellectual Property? Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In their recent book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David Levine conclude that patents and copyrights are not necessary to provide protection for either innovation or creative expression and should be eliminated. The authors note the many flaws of the U.S. system of intellectual property protection and argue that other means are available to appropriate the benefits of invention and creative expression. However, the authors overlook important functions of intellectual property. Their efforts would be put to better use by more carefully analyzing policy proposals that may improve our system of intellectual property rights and have some potential to be implemented.

Revising the Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Lessons from the U.S. and the E.U.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have embarked on an effort to revise and update the U.S. Horizontal Merger Guidelines. There is substantial overlap between the U.S. and E.U. Guidelines, which makes a proposal for U.S. revisions immediately applicable to the E.U. and elsewhere. The U.S. Merger Guidelines can be revised in light of the learning of economists and lawyers in the past two decades to emphasize the importance of competitive effects analysis in merger evaluation and the forces that drive innovation. The Guidelines should also note that once a competitive effects analysis has been completed, it is possible to “back out” a relevant market (or markets) that is consistent with that competitive effects analysis.

Openness, Open Source, and the Veil of Ignorance

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The open source movement evolved in the one industrial context where openness is not required by intellectual property law.1 Nevertheless, openness itself cannot be the driving force behind the open source movement. This is because openness can be achieved in many ways other than the GPL, for example, with proprietary licenses, or licenses that are even more permissive than the GPL, such as the BSD license.

Early commentators explained this new development model by focussing on the motives of the programmer, such as to demonstrate skills. See the survey by Stephen M. Maurer and Suzanne Scotchmer (2006). But firms also participate in open-source collaborations, sometimes contributing significant resources (Joachim Henkel, 2006, Dirk Riehle, 2009). Doing so can be profitable even if the contributors are rivals in the market. The quality improvements or cost reductions provided by a rival’s open-source contributions may outweigh the deleterious effect of empowering the rival...

Risk-Taking and Gender in Hierarchies

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In a labor market hierarchy, promotions are affected by the noisiness of information about the candidates. I study the hypothesis that males are more risk taking than females, and its implications for rates of promotion and abilities of survivors. I define promotion hierarchies with and without memory, where memory means that promotion depends on the entire history of success. In both types of hierarchies, the surviving risk takers have lower average ability whenever they have a higher survival rate. Further, even if more risk takers than non risk takers are promoted in the beginning of the hierarchy, that will be reversed over time. The risk takers will eventually have a lower survival rate, but higher ability. As a consequence of these differences, the various requirements of employment law cannot simultaneously be satisfied. Further, if promotion standards are chosen to maximize profit, the standards will reflect gender in ways that are difficult to distinguish from discriminatory...

Scarcity of Ideas and R&D Options: Use it, Lose it, or Bank it

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We investigate optimal rewards in an R&D model where substitute ideas for innovation arrive to random recipients at random times. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because successive ideas may occur to different people, there is a conflict between private and social optimality. We investigate the optimal policy when the social planner learns over time about the arrival rate of ideas, and when private recipients of ideas can bank their ideas for future use. We argue that private incentives to create socially valuable options can be achieved by giving higher rewards where "ideas are scarce."

Ties that Bind: Policies to Promote (Good) Patent Pools

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hundreds of patents cover products in many high technology fields such as semiconductors, information technology, and biotechnology. Firms that make, sell, or use products in these fields often have to negotiate patent rights with many intellectual property owners. The time and effort required to assemble these rights can interfere with the adoption and diffusion of new technologies and the cumulative payments to rights holders for use of their intellectual property can weigh heavily on technology costs.

The Essentiality Test for Patent Pools

Tue, 8 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Antitrust policy for the pooling of patents and other intellectual property rights has undergone a dramatic transformation since the first cases were decided at the beginning of the twentieth century. This transformation generally reflects developments in economics that provide a better understanding of the characteristics of patent pools that warrant antitrust scrutiny. The change, however, was slow, and the U.S. antitrust agencies did not clarify their enforcement principles with respect to patent pools until the publication by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission of Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights: Promoting Innovation and Competition, released in April 2007 (“IP Report”).1

Efficient Division of Profits from Complementary Innovations

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Many products—including microprocessors, telecommunications devices, computer software and on-line auction services—make use of multiple technologies, each of which is essential to make or sell the product. The owner of one technology benefits from the existence of complementary technologies. We show that, despite this externality, the structure of payoffs that support efficient R&D investment by duopolists racing to discover a single innovation generalizes to the structure that supports efficient investment for complementary innovations. The paper also examines how alternative intellectual property regimes and legal institutions affect R&D investment in complementary technologies. The results have policy implications for the organization of R&D, the assessment of damages for patent infringement, and allocations of value in patent pools.

Antitrust Evaluation of Horizontal Mergers: An Economic Alternative to Market Definition

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We propose a simple, new test for making an initial determination of whether a proposed merger between rivals is likely to reduce competition and thus lead to higher prices. Under current antitrust policy, the government can establish a presumption that a proposed horizontal merger will harm competition by defining the relevant market and showing that the merger will lead to a substantial increase in concentration in that market. However, this approach can perform poorly in markets for differentiated products, where market boundaries are unclear and the proximity of the products sold by the merging firms is a key determinant of the merger's effect on competition. Our test looks for upward pricing pressure (UPP) resulting from the merger. We develop a simple diagnostic for UPP based on the price/cost margins of the products sold by the merging firms and the magnitude of direct substitution between the two firm's products. We argue that our approach is well grounded in economics,...

Scarcity of Ideas and Options to Invest in R&D

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We consider a model of the innovative environment where there is a distinction between ideas for R&D investments and the investments themselves. We investigate the optimal reward policy and how it depends on whether ideas are scarce or obvious. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because successive ideas may occur to di¤erent people, there is a con‡ict between private and social optimality. We argue that private incentives to create socially valuable options can be achieved by giving higher rewards where "ideas are scarce." We then explore how rewards should be structured when the value of an innovation comes from its applications, and ideas for the innovation may be more or less scarce than ideas for the applications.

Improving Critical Loss Analysis

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Market definition analysis, which is often central in merger cases, usually claims to follow the 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (“Guidelines”). The Guidelines describe a relevant product market as a group of products for which a hypothetical monopolist would profitably impose a “small but significant and non-transitory increase in price” (“SSNIP”). Seeking relatively simple approaches to market definition that are consistent with the Guidelines, courts and agencies often rely on Critical Loss Analysis. For example, the FTC recently challenged the proposed merger between Whole Foods and Wild Oats, two chains of grocery stores, alleging that the relevant market was “premium natural/organic supermarkets” (“PNOS”). In that market, the merger was very highly concentrating in a number of geographic areas where Whole Foods and Wild Oats operated nearby stores. But the merging parties...

Competition Policy for Intellectual Property: Balancing Competition and Reward

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter reviews the history of antitrust enforcement for intellectual property and identifies reasons why appropriate antitrust enforcement for intellectual property may differ from antitrust enforcement for ordinary property. The complex interplay between the scope of patent protection and incentives for innovation in different industries make it difficult to craft antitrust rules that take these differences into account. Instead, antitrust policy generally should recognize that innovators need to be compensated for their innovative efforts, and that this sometimes requires practices that may exclude potential competitors. At the same time, one must be careful not to lean too heavily on practices that focus on rewards to innovation, because these practices incur costs in the short run by limiting the use of innovations and possibly in the long run by raising the costs for future innovators who use protected innovations as inputs into their own innovative efforts.

Sky Wars: The Attempted Merger of EchoStar and DirecTV (2000)

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Sky Wars: The Attempted Merger of EchoStar and DirecTV (2000)

Shrouded Attributes and Information Suppression: Evidence from Field Experiments

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The recent theoretical literature suggests that consumer myopia may lead firms to profitably suppress or shroud some attributes of the price. Empirical and experimental data also suggest that sellers gain by transferring a larger fraction of the price to the shrouded attributes. However, alternative theories, including mental accounting, could also explain these framing effects. Using field experiments, we show that the impact of this price framing on revenue vanishes when we explicitly reveal the prices of different attributes, while the framing effect persists only when we shroud some price attributes. Then, using data from a natural experiment that occurred on eBay, we find that when the price of a secondary attribute such as the shipping fee is prominently displayed, the framing effect also disappears. Moreover, average revenues for sellers seem to have increased after this institutional change.

Clock Games: Theory and Experiments

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Timing is crucial in situations ranging from product introductions, to currency attacks, to starting a revolution. These settings share the feature that payoffs depend critically on the timing of moves of a few other key players—and these are uncertain. To capture this, we introduce the notion of clock games and experimentally test them. Each player’s clock starts on receiving a signal about a payoff-relevant state variable. Since the timing of the signals is random, clocks are de-synchronized. A player must decide how long, if at all, to delay his move after receiving the signal. We show that (i) equilibrium is always characterized by strategic delay—regardless of whether moves are observable or not; (ii) delay decreases as clocks become more synchronized and increases as information becomes more concentrated; (iii) When moves are observable, players “herd” immediately after any player makes a move. We then show, in a series of experiments, that key predictions of the model...

Clicks, Discontinuities, and Firm Demand Online

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The market values of online platforms, such as Yahoo, stem from their ability to monetize the clicks they generate for firms advertising on their sites. We exploit a unique dataset on clicks from one of Yahoo's price comparison sites to estimate the determinants of clicks received by online retailers. We find that a firm enjoys a 60% jump in its clicks when it offers the lowest price at the site. This discontinuity is consistent with a variety of models that have been used to rationalize the price dispersion observed in online markets. We also show that one may use estimates of the determinants of a firm's clicks to obtain bounds on its underlying demand parameters, including own- and cross-price elasticities. Our results have potentially significant ramifications for online retailers, platforms, and policymakers: Failure to account for discontinuities distorts parameter estimates by 50 to 100 percent.

How much is a Dollar Worth? Tipping versus Equilibrium Coexistence on Competing Online Auction Sites

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The equilibrium model of Ellison, Fudenberg, and Möbius (2004) predicts that, if two competing auction sites are coexisting, then seller revenues and buyer-seller ratios on each site should be approximately equal. We examine these hypotheses using field experiments selling identical items on the eBay and Yahoo auction sites. We find evidence that is inconsistent with the equilibrium hypotheses, and suggest that the eBay-Yahoo market is in the process of tipping. Robust statistical tests indicate that revenues on eBay are consistently 20 to 70 percent higher than those on Yahoo. In addition, eBay auctions attract approximately two additional buyers per seller than equivalent Yahoo auctions. We also vary the Yahoo ending rule from a hard close to soft close but find no statistically or economically significant changes in revenue or numbers of bidders. Moreover, the magnitude of the revenue and buyer-seller ratio disparities remain inconsistent with the notion of equilibrium coexistence...

Reinvigorating Horizontal Merger Enforcement

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past forty years, there has been a remarkable transformation in horizontal merger enforcement in the United States. With no change in the underlying statute, the Clayton Act, there has been a dramatic decline in the weight given to market concentration by the federal courts and by the federal antitrust agencies. Increasing weight has been given to three arguments often made by merging firms in their defense: entry, expansion and efficiencies. We document this dramatic shift and provide examples where courts have approved highly concentrating mergers based on limited evidence of entry and expansion. We show using merger enforcement data and a survey we conducted of merger practitioners that the decline in antitrust enforcement is ongoing, especially at the current Justice Department. We then argue in favor of reinvigorating horizontal merger enforcement by partially restoring the structural presumption and by requiring strong evidence to overcome the government’s...

Patent Reform: Aligning Reward and Contribution

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Economists and policy makers have long recognized that innovators must be able to appropriate a reasonable portion of the social benefits of their innovations if innovation is to be suitably rewarded and encouraged. However, this paper identifies a number of specific fact patterns under which the current U.S. patent system allows patent holders to capture private rewards that exceed their social contributions. Such excessive patentee rewards are socially costly, since they raise the deadweight loss associated with the patent system and discourage innovation by others. Economic efficiency is promoted if rewards to patent holders are aligned with and do not exceed their social contributions. This paper analyzes two major reforms to the patent system designed to spur innovation by better aligning the rewards and contributions of patent holders: establishing an independent invention defense in patent infringement cases, and strengthening the procedures by which patents are re-examined...

Competition and Innovation

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have frequently raised innovation concerns as reasons to challenge mergers. This chapter surveys the economic theories of innovation incentives and considers how the theory may inform antitrust analysis for merger investigations and other conduct that involve innovation. Competition can promote innovation by reducing the value of failing to invest in research and development. However, with non-exclusive intellectual property rights, competition can reduce innovation incentives by lowering post-innovation profits. There is some empirical support for these economic theories. The chapter concludes that economics can inform antitrust analysis for mergers and other conduct that could affect innovation, although it is important that antitrust analysis carefully consider the key factors that drive innovation incentives.

Competition Policy for Intellectual Property: Balancing Competition and Reward

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Competition Policy for Intellectual Property: Balancing Competition and Reward

Dollars for Genes: Revenue Generation by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Dollars for Genes: Revenue Generation by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Should Good Patents Come in Small Packages? A Welfare Analysis of Intellectual Property Bundling

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Intellectual property owners often hold the rights to several patents, each of which is essential to make or use a product. We compare the welfare properties of package licenses, under which a licensee pays the same fee regardless of the number of technologies licensed, with component licenses, under which each technology is licensed separately and there is no quantity discount. A central finding is that a long-term package license can induce incentives to invent around patents and invest in complementary assets that are closer to their socially optimal levels than are those induced by a long-term component license. We also identify settings in which a short-term license is a partial substitute for a package license and a prohibition on package licensing induces parties to adopt contracts that result in less efficient complementary investment because of hold-up.

Antitrust

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is a survey of the economic principles that underlie antitrust law and how those principles relate to competition policy. We address four core subject areas: market power, collusion, mergers between competitors, and monopolization. In each area, we select the most relevant portions of current economic knowledge and use that knowledge to critically assess central features of antitrust policy. Our objective is to foster the improvement of legal regimes and also to identify topics where further analytical and empirical exploration would be useful. This is a survey of the economic principles that underlie antitrust law and how those principles relate to competition policy. We address four core subject areas: market power, collusion, mergers between competitors, and monopolization. In each area, we select the most relevant portions of current economic knowledge and use that knowledge to critically assess central features of antitrust policy. Our objective is to foster...

Patent Hold-Up and Royalty Stacking

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

We study several interconnected problems that arise under the current U.S. patent system when a patent covers one component or feature of a complex product. This situation is common in the information technology sector of the economy. Our analysis applies to cases involving reasonable royalties, but not lost profits. First, we show using bargaining theory that the threat to obtain a permanent injunction greatly enhances the patent holder’s negotiating power, leading to royalty rates that exceed a natural benchmark range based on the value of the patented technology and the strength of the patent. Such royalty overcharges are especially great for weak patents covering a minor feature of a product with a sizeable price/cost margin, including products sold by firms that themselves have made substantial R&D investments. These royalty overcharges do not disappear even if the allegedly infringing firm is fully aware of the patent when it initially designs its product. However,...

Product Improvement and Technological Tying in a Winner-Take-All Market

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In a winner-take-all duopoly market for systems in which firms invest to improve their products, a vertically integrated monopoly supplier of an essential system component may have an incentive to advantage itself by technological tying; that is, by designing the component to work better in its own system. If the vertically integrated firm is prevented from technologically tying, then there is an equilibrium in which the more efficient firm invests and serves the entire market. However, another equilibrium may exist in which the less efficient firm invests and captures the market. Technological tying enables a vertically integrated firm to foreclose its rival. The welfare implications of technological tying are ambiguous and depend on the asymmetric qualities of the system suppliers and on equilibrium selection.

How Strong Are Weak Patents?

Mon, 1 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

We analyze patent licensing by a patent holder to downstream technology users. We study how the structure and level of royalties depends on the patent’s strength, i.e., the probability it would be upheld in court. We examine the social value of determining patent validity before licensing, in terms of deadweight loss (ex post) and innovation incentives (ex ante). When downstream users do not compete against each other or the patent holder, license fees approximate the license fee for an ironclad patent times the patent strength, and reviewing validity before licensing would be unproductive (in expected value). But when downstream users compete, two-part tariffs for weak patents have high running royalty rates, combined with a negative fixed fee, and examining patent validity generates social benefits, both ex post and ex ante. Even without negative fixed fees, rival downstream firms will accept relatively high running royalties, so determining patent validity prior to...

Injunctions, Hold-Up, and Patent Royalties

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This paper studies royalty negotiations between a patent holder and a downstream firm selling a product which is more valuable if it includes a feature covered by the patent. Royalties are negotiated in the shadow of patent litigation, which will determine whether or not the patent is valid and infringed. If the two firms negotiate after the downstream firm has already designed its product to include the patented feature, the negotiated royalty rate exceeds the natural, normative benchmark level due to the patent holder’s ability, if the patent is found valid and infringed, to obtain a permanent injunction preventing the downstream firm from selling its product until it can introduce a non-infringing version. Royalty over-charges are greatest for weak patents covering minor features of products sold at prices well above marginal cost. The downstream firm’s ability to develop a non-infringing version of its product during the pendency of litigation can reduce but not eliminate...

The Economics of Welfare Standards in Antitrust

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

There has been considerable debate concerning whether consumer surplus or total surplus should be the welfare standard for antitrust. This debate misses two critical issues. First, antitrust is not straightforwardly welfarist—it does not maximize but protects, and it does not forbid all actions that seem likely to lower some welfare measure. Rather, antitrust enforcement has both process and consequence components: “anticompetitive” actions that harm consumers are illegal but other actions that harm consumers are not. Second, the enforcement process involves multiple steps and multiple decision makers. Mergers, for instance, are proposed by the merging parties, reviewed and perhaps challenged by antitrust agencies, and reviewed by courts. Hence, a full discussion of what standard is or should be applied must specify by whom and how it fits in the overall process. We conclude that, while some popular arguments for a consumer surplus standard are weak, other arguments...

Customer or Complementor? Intercarrier Compensation with Two-Sided Benefits

Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Both senders and receivers of telecommunications messages derive benefits, creating the possibility of externalities. We explore whether intercarrier compensation (i.e., access charges) can induce carriers to internalize these external effects. In important settings, access charges are irrelevant. Where they are relevant, access charges can induce an efficient ratio of off-net send and receive prices--taking their sum as given--but cannot induce the correct sum. The latter requires a mechanism for cross-carrier internalization, such as repeat play or pricing policies contingent on one another. Lastly, non-zero access charges can be efficient even in highly symmetrical situations.

The Economics of Product-Line Restrictions With an Application to the Network Neutrality Debate

Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

We examine the welfare effects of product-line restrictions, such as those called for by some proponents of network neutrality regulation. We find that restricting a monopoly supplier to a single product has the following effects: (a) consumers who would otherwise have consumed a low-quality variant are excluded from the market; (b) consumers "in the middle" of the market consume a higher and more efficient quality; and (c) consumers at the top of the market consume a lower and less efficient quality. Total surplus may rise or fall. We also examine a duopoly model and find that imposition of a single-product restriction always reduces welfare. Absent the restriction, the two firms engage in head-to-head competition across full product lines. In some circumstances, the restriction induces the two firms to offer identical products. The resulting loss of variety reduces welfare. In other circumstances, the restriction induces the firms to offer non-overlapping, or vertically differentiated,...

Coordination and Lock-In: Competition with Switching Costs and Network Effects

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex post market power—over the same buyer in the case of switching costs (or brand loyalty), or over others with network effects.

Firms compete ex ante for this ex post power, using penetration pricing, introductory offers, and price wars. Such “competition for the market" or “life-cycle competition" can adequately replace ordinary compatible competition, and can even be fiercer than compatible competition by weakening differentiation. More often, however, incompatible competition not only involves direct efficiency losses but also softens competition and magnifies incumbency advantages. With network effects, established firms have little incentive to offer better deals when buyers’...

Still Looking for Lost Profits: The Case of Horizontal Competition

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

JEL Classifications: L41, K21

Abstract: When infringement of a patent dissipates profit relative to the licensing agreement that would otherwise occur, damages under the lost-profit rule deter infringement, and otherwise not. We develop this point in a general model and give two examples. However, joint profit might not be dissipated by infringement. An important example is where there are restrictions on licensing that arise from competition policy.

Do Investors Forecast Fat Firms? Evidence from the Gold Mining Industry

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

JEL CODES: D21, G3, L2, L72

KEYWORDS: profit function, free cash flow, gold mining, x-efficiency, rent seeking, fat

ABSTRACT: Conventional economic theory assumes that firms always minimize costs given the output they produce. News articles and interviews with executives, however, indicate that firms from time to time engage in cost-cutting exercises. One popular belief is that firms cut costs when they are in economic distress, and grow fat when they are relatively wealthy. We explore this hypothesis by studying how the stock market valuations of gold mining companies vary with gold prices. The value of a cost-minimizing, profit-maximizing firm is convex in the price of a competitively supplied input or output, but we find that the stock values of many gold mining companies are concave in the price of gold. We show that this is consistent with fat accumulation when a firm grows wealthy. We then address a number of potential alternative explanations and discuss...

Prior User Rights

Thu, 8 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Keywords: patents, innovation, oligopoly

JEL codes: L13, O31.

ABSTRACT: Many inventions, great and small, are discovered independently at roughly the same time by two or more individuals or organizations. Famous examples include the light bulb (Edison and Swan), the telephone (Bell and Gray), and the integrated circuit (Kilby and Noyce). Such independent invention is common for minor technological improvements. How should property rights to an invention be defined and awarded in such cases?

Patent law has struggled with this question for many years. The basic rule in the U.S. is that the patent is awarded to the first firm to invent; later independent inventors come up empty-handed.

However, this basic system can create some peculiar results.

Suppose that Firm A achieves an invention and files for a patent. Slightly later, but before the invention is made public, Firm B independently discovers the same invention. Firm A receives the patent and...

Deconstructing Chicago on Exclusive Dealing

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

While exclusive dealing can be efficient, the Chicago School has also argued that it cannot be anticompetitive, or that it seldom is. That argument takes two forms; both are weak. First, a price-theory argument (“the Chicago Three-Party Argument”) depends crucially on a special model of oligopoly and predicts that we will never see what we see. I show how simply replacing the embedded oligopoly model suggests new efficiency and anticompetitive motives for exclusive dealing; these motives differ markedly from those usually discussed. Second, “the Chicago Vertical Question” is a challenge to theories of anticompetitive vertical practices, including exclusive dealing. While that Question is salutary and helpful, its apparent force dissipates if we pay careful attention to externalities, as others have noted, and to the issue of alternatives versus benchmarks, as I describe below. Overall, economic logic does not support any general presumption that exclusive dealing is efficient.

Estimating Firm-Level Demand at a Price Comparison Site: Accounting for Shoppers and the Number of Competitors

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Clearinghouse models of online pricing---such as Varian (1980), Rosenthal (1980), Narasimhan (1988), and Baye-Morgan (2001)---view a price comparison site as an "information clearinghouse" where shoppers and loyals obtain price and product information to make online purchases. These models predict that the responsiveness of a firm's demand to a change in its price depends on the number of sellers and whether the price change results in the firm charging the lowest price in the market. Using a unique firm-level dataset from Kelkoo.com (Yahoo!'s European price comparison site), we examine these predictions by providing estimates of the demand for PDAs. Our results indicate that the number of competing sellers and both the firm's location on the screen and relative ranking in the list of prices are important determinants of an online retailer's demand. We find that an online monopolist faces an elasticity of demand of about -2, while sellers competing against 10 other sellers...

Contracting for Information under Imperfect Commitment

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Organizational theory suggests that authority should lie in the hands of those with information, yet the power to transfer authority is rarely absolute in practice. We investigate the validity and application of this advice in a model of optimal contracting between an uninformed principal and informed agent where the principal's commitment power is imperfect. We show that while full alignment of interests combined with delegation of authority is feasible, it is never optimal. The optimal contract is "bang-bang"---in one region of the state space, full alignment takes place, in the other, no alignment takes place. We then compare these contracts to those in which the principal has full commitment power as well as to several "informal" institutional arrangements.

Brand and Price Advertising in Online Markets

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

We model a homogeneous product environment where identical e-retailers endogenously engage in both brand advertising (to create loyal customers) and price advertising (to attract "shoppers"). Our analysis allows for "cross-channel" effects; indeed, we show that price advertising is a substitute for brand advertising. In contrast to models where loyalty is exogenous, these cross-channel effects lead to a continuum of symmetric equilibria; however, the set of equilibria converges to a unique equilibrium as the number of potential e-retailers grows arbitrarily large. Price dispersion is a key feature of all of these equilibria, including the limit equilibrium. While each firm finds it optimal to advertise its brand in an attempt to "grow" its base of loyal customers, in equilibrium, branding (1) reduces firm profits, (2) increases prices paid by loyals and shoppers, and (3) adversely affects gatekeepers operating price comparison sites. Branding also tightens the range of prices...

The Value of Commitment in Contests and Tournaments when Observation is Costly

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

We study the value of commitment in contests and tournaments when there are costs for the follower to observe the leader's behavior. In a contest, the follower can pay to observe the leader's effort but cannot observe the effectiveness of that effort. In a tournament, the follower can pay to observe the effectiveness of the leader's effort but not the effort itself. We show that this distinction matters significantly: When observation is costly, the value of commitment vanishes entirely in sequential and endogenous move contests, regardless of the size of the observation cost. By contrast, in tournaments, the value of commitment is preserved completely, provided that the observation costs are sufficiently small.

U.S. Domestic Airline Pricing, 1995-2004

Thu, 6 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Between 1995 and 2004, I find that airline prices fell more than 20% adjusted for inflation. I also show that premia at hub airports declined and that there is now substantially less disparity between the cheaper and more expensive airports than there was a decade ago. Still, I find that prices remain quite high at a few dominated airports.

Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Consumer Search: An Examination of the Retail Gasoline Market

Wed, 1 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0000

It has been documented that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to increases in wholesale price than to decreases. However, there is very little theoretical or empirical evidence identifying the market characteristics responsible for this behavior. This paper presents a new theoretical model of asymmetric adjustment that empirically matches observed retail gasoline price behavior better than previously suggested explanations. I develop a “reference price” consumer search model that assumes consumers’ expectations of prices are based on prices observed during previous purchases. The model predicts that consumers search less when prices are falling. This reduced search results in higher profit margins and a slower price response to cost changes than when margins are low and prices are increasing. Following the predictions of the theory, I use a panel of gas station prices to estimate the response pattern of prices to a change in costs. Unlike previous empirical studies...

Probabilistic Patents

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Economists often assume that a patent gives its owner a well-defined legal right to exclude others from practicing the invention described in the patent. In practice, however, the rights afforded to patent holders are highly uncertain. Under patent law, a patent is no guarantee of exclusion but more precisely a legal right to try to exclude. Since only 0.1% of all patents are litigated to trial, and since nearly half of fully litigated patents are declared invalid, this distinction is critical to understanding the economic impact of patents. The growing recognition among economists and legal scholars that patents are probabilistic property rights has significant implications for our understanding of patents in four important areas: (1) reform of the system by which patents are granted; (2) the legal treatment of patents in litigation; (3) the incentives of patent holders and alleged infringers to settle their disputes through licensing or cross-licensing agreements rather...

Converging Doctrines? US and EU Antitrust Policy for the Licensing of Intellectual Property

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This paper was prepared for the Antitrust Section Spring Meeting, Washington D.C., 2004. The author discusses and compares European Community Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER) and U.S. Guidelines. Together the guidelines present a framework to evaluate technology licensing arrangements that respects the objectives of EU competition policy and still provides a berth for procompetitive licensing.

Intellectual Property, Competition, and Information Technology

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This paper was prepared as a companion to the Mattioli Lectures delivered by Hal R. Varian, “Economics of Information Technology,” available at: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/mattioli/mattioli.pdf. Professor Varian’s overview analyzes a variety of competitive strategies used by high-tech companies. These strategies—such as personalized pricing, lock-in, and the adoption of uniform compatibility standards to fuel bandwagon effects—often rely on intellectual property, typically copyrights or patents. Since Professor Varian does not explore this issue at length, we complement his work by focusing on it.

Profit Neutrality in Licensing: The Boundary Between Antitrust Law and Patent Law

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000

From the antitrust case law that governs restrictions on patent licenses, we derive three unifying principles: just reward, profit neutrality and minimalism. The just-reward principle holds that the patentholder's profits should be earned, if at all, from the social value created by his invention. Profit neutrality holds that patent rewards should not depend on the rightholder's ability to work the patent himself. Minimalism holds that licensing contracts should not use more restrictive terms than required for neutrality. We discuss how these principles determine which patent license restrictions should and should not be acceptable from an antitrust perspective. We also compare these principles and the per se rules that follow from them to the potential benefits and drawbacks likely to be encountered under a rule of reason approach.

Remedies for Price Overcharges: The Deadweight Loss of Coupons and Discounts

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000

This article evaluates two different remedies for consumers who have been injured by a price overcharge on the sale of a good. Under a coupon remedy, injured consumers are awarded coupons that can be used for a limited period of time to purchase the good at a price below that which prevails after the overcharge has been eliminated, that is, below the competitive price. Under a discount remedy, any consumer, without proof of injury, may purchase the good for a limited period of time at a price that is set below the competitive price. Both remedies generally cause consumers to buy an excessive amount of the good during the remedy period. Under the coupon remedy only a subset of consumers are affected in this way (those holding a relatively high number of coupons), while under the discount remedy all consumers are affected. We show nonetheless that the resulting deadweight loss could be lower under the discount remedy. We also consider how the deadweight loss changes when the...

Modularity, Vertical Integration, and Open Access Policies: Towards a Convergence of Antitrust and Regulation in the Internet Age

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Negotiation and Merger Remedies: Some Problems

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Negotiation and Merger Remedies: Some Problems

Merger Simulation with Brand-Level Margin Data: Extending PCAIDS with Nests

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 00:00:00 +0000

We present a method to calibrate empirically the demand parameters in a merger simulation model by using brand-level profit margin data. While the approach can be generalized, we develop these ideas within a particular framework — the PCAIDS (proportionality-calibrated AIDS) model. We show that the brand-level margins effectively define product “nests” (products that are especially close substitutes) and substantially increase the flexibility of PCAIDS for modeling critical own- and cross-price elasticities. The model is particularly valuable for transactions at the wholesale level (where scanner data do not exist) and for geographic markets that span national borders (where comparable data may not be available), since other methods to derive elasticities, particularly those based on econometric estimation, may not be possible or may not be reliable.

Integration and Independent Innovation on a Network

Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Business Method Patents, Innovation, and Policy

Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000

The trickle of business method patents issued by the United States Patent Office became a flood after the State Street Bank decision in 1998. Many scholars, both legal and economic, have critiqued both the quality of these patents and the decision itself. This paper discusses the likely impact of these patents on innovation. It first reviews the facts about business method and internet patents briefly and then explores what economists know about the relationship between the patent system and innovation. It concludes by finding some consensus in the literature about the problems associated with this particular expansion of patentable subject matter, highlighting remaining areas of disagreement, and suggesting where there are major gaps in our understanding of the impact of these patents.

Prospects for Improving U.S. Patent Quality via Post-grant Opposition

Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000

The recent surge in U.S. patenting and expansion of patentable subject matter has increased patent office backlogs and raised concerns that in some cases patents of insufficient quality or with inadequate search of prior art are being issued. At the same time patent litigation and its costs are rising. This paper explores the potential of a post-grant review process modeled on the European opposition system to improve patent quality, reveal overlooked prior art, and reduce subsequent litigation. We argue that the welfare gains to such a system may be substantial.

Optimal Penalties in Contracts

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Contract law’s liquidated damage rules prevent enforcement of contractual damage measures that require the promisor, if it breaches, to transfer to the promisee a sum that exceeds the net gain the promisee expected to make from performance; but these rules permit the promisor to transfer less than the promisee’s expectation. We define a contractual damage multiplier as any number between zero and infinity by which the promisee’s expected gain -- its expectation interest -- is multiplied. Multipliers of one or less thus comply with the liquidated damage rules while multipliers that exceed one do not; the high multipliers are unenforceable penalties. This paper shows that multipliers of any size can be efficient or inefficient, depending on the parties’ purposes in creating them. For example, a multiplier that exceeds one will decrease welfare if used by a seller with market power to deter entry; but will increase welfare if used by parties to induce efficient relation specific...

Market Structure, Organizational Structure, and R&D Diversity

Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:00:00 +0000

We examine the effects of market structure and the internal organization of firms on equilibrium R&D projects. We compare a monopolist’s choice of R&D portfolio to that of a welfare maximizer. We next show that Sah and Stiglitz’s finding that the market portfolio of R&D is independent of the number of firms under Bertrand competition extends to neither Cournot oligopoly nor a cartel. We also show that the ability of firms to pre-empt R&D by rivals along particular research paths can lead to socially excessive R&D diversification. Lastly, using Sah and Stiglitz’s definition of hierarchy, we establish conditions under which larger hierarchies invest in smaller portfolios.

The American Airlines Case: A Chance to Clarify Predation Policy

Thu, 17 Oct 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Predation occurs when a firm offers consumers favorable deals, usually in the short run, that get rid of competition and thereby harm consumers in the long run. Modern economic theory has shown how commitment or collective-action problems among consumers can lead to such paradoxical effects.

But the paradox does signal danger. Too hawkish a policy might ban favorable deals that are not predatory. “It would be ironic indeed if the standards for predatory pricing liability were so low that antitrust suits themselves became a tool for keeping prices high.” Predation policy must therefore diagnose the unusual cases where favorable deals harm competition. To this end, courts and commentators have largely defined predation as “sacrifice” followed, at least plausibly, by “recoupment” at consumers’ expense. The American Airlines case raises difficult questions about this approach.

Mediating Market Power in Electricity Networks

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 00:00:00 +0000

We ask under what conditions transmission contracts increase or mitigate market power. We show that the allocation process of transmission rights is crucial. In an efficiently arbitraged uniform price auction generators will only obtain contracts that mitigate their market power. However, if generators inherit transmission contracts or buy them in a ‘pay-as-bid’ auction, then these contracts can enhance market power. In the two-node network case banning generators from holding transmission contracts that do not correspond to delivery of their own energy mitigates market power. Meshed networks differ in important ways as constrained links no longer isolate prices in competitive markets from market manipulation. The paper suggests ways of minimizing market power considerations when designing transmission contracts.

Post-Issue Patent “Quality Control:” A Comparative Study of US Patent Re-examinations and European Patent Oppositions

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 00:00:00 +0000

We report the results of the first comparative study of the determinants and effects of patent oppositions in Europe and of re-examinations on corresponding patents issued in the United States. The analysis is based on a dataset consisting of matched EPO and US patents. Our analysis focuses on two broad technology categories - biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors and computer software. Within these fields, we collect data on all EPO patents for which oppositions were filed at the EPO. We also construct a random sample of EPO patents with no opposition in these technologies. We match these EPO patents with the “equivalent” US patents covering the same invention in the United States. Using the matched sample of USPTO and EPO patents, we compare the determinants of opposition and of reexamination. Our results indicate that valuable patents are more likely to be challenged in both jurisdictions. But the rate of opposition at the EPO is more than thirty times higher...

Per-Mile Premiums for Auto Insurance

Tue, 13 Aug 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Most insurance premiums are only weakly linked to mileage, and have largely lump-sum characteristics. The probable result is too many accidents and too much driving from the standpoint of economic efficiency. This paper develops a model of the relationship between driving and accidents that formalizes Vickrey’s [1968] central insights about the accident externalities of driving. We use it to estimate the driving, accident, and congestion reductions that could be expected from switching to other insurance pricing systems. Under a competitive system of per-mile premiums, in which insurance companies quote risk-classified per-mile rates, we estimate that the reduction in insured accident costs net of lost driving benefits would be $9.8 -$12.7 billion in the U.S., or $58-$75 per insured vehicle. When congestion reductions are considered, the net benefits rise to $15-$18 billion, exclusive of monitoring costs. The total benefits of per-mile premiums with a Pigouvian tax to account...

The FTC's Challenge to Intel's Cross-Licensing Practices

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

After an investigation lasting several months, in June 1998 the Federal Trade Commission brought an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corporation based on Intel's conduct towards Intergraph, and similar conduct towards Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq, all in the context of disputes where Intel was accused of patent infringement. The FTC charged that Intel's practices were an abuse of Intel's monopoly position in microprocessors. Is Intel's conduct anti-competitive and thus illegal under the antitrust laws? That is the central question explored in this paper.

An introductory section provides some background for the case by discussing the tension between intellectual property rights and antitrust law, a tension that is evident in the FTC's dispute with Intel, and by describing the role of patents in the semiconductor industry. Section 3 provides a succinct summary of the facts surrounding Intel's conduct in each of the three patent disputes identified by the...

Mixed Equilibria in Games of Strategic Complements Are Unstable

Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

In games with strict strategic complementarities, properly mixed Nash equilibria--equilibria that are not in pure strategies--are unstable for a broad class of learning dynamics.

Measuring Market Power in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry

Tue, 2 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000

The ready-to-eat cereal industry is characterized by high concentration, high price-cost margins, large advertising-to-sales ratios, and numerous introductions of new products. Previous researchers have concluded that the ready-to-eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive pricing behavior and intense non-price competition. This paper empirically examines this conclusion. In particular, I estimate price-cost margins, but more importantly I am able empirically to separate these margins into three sources: (1) that which is due to product differentiation; (2) that which is due to multi-product firm pricing; and (3) that due to potential price collusion. The results suggest that given the demand for different brands of cereal, the first two effects explain most of the observed price-cost markups. I conclude that prices in the industry are consistent with non-collusive pricing behavior, despite the high price-cost margins. Leading firms are able...

Higher Prices from Entry: Pricing of Brand-Name Drugs

Tue, 2 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Mergers with Differentiated Products: The Case of Ready-to-Eat Cereal

Tue, 2 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Traditional merger analysis, based on market definition and use of concentration measures to infer potential anti-competitive effects, is problematic and difficult to implement when evaluating mergers in industries with differentiated products. This paper discusses an alternative which consists of a front-end estimation of demand and back-end use of a model of post-merger conduct to simulate the competitive effects of a merger. I discuss and demonstrate the use of different methods of estimating demand. Furthermore, I show how the estimated demand parameters can be used to compute the post-merger price equilibrium (rather than just an approximation to it) and changes in welfare. The methodology is applied to two recent mergers and two hypothetical mergers in the ready-to-eat cereal industry. The results clearly demonstrate the importance of the model used in front-end estimation and the computation of equilibrium in determining the competitive effects of a merger.

Diagnosing Market Power in California's Deregulated Wholesale Electricity Market

Thu, 28 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Effective competition in wholesale electricity markets is the cornerstone of the deregulation of the electricity generation industry. We examine the degree of competition in the California wholesale electricity market during June-November 1998 by comparing the market prices with estimates of the prices that would have resulted if all firms were price takers. We find that there were significant departures from competitive pricing and that it was most pronounced during the highest demand periods. Overall, this raised the cost of power purchases by about 22% above the competitive level. We also explain why the prices observed cannot be attributed to competitive peak-load pricing.

Patent Paradox Revisited: Determinants of Patenting in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, 1980-94

Thu, 28 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation. Recent evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents, despite the strengthening of US patent rights in the early 1980s. Yet the propensity of semiconductor firms to patent has risen dramatically over the past decade. This paper explores this apparent paradox by analyzing the patenting activities of almost 100 US semiconductor firms during 1980-94. The results suggest that stronger patents may have facilitated entry by firms in niche product markets, while spawning "patent portfolio races" among capital-intensive firms.

Estimating Coke and Pepsi's Price and Advertising Strategies

Thu, 28 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000

A semi-parametric, information-based estimator is used to estimate strategies in prices and advertising for Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Separate strategies for each firm are estimated with and without restrictions from game theory. These information/entropy estimators are consistent, are efficient, and do not require distributional assumptions. These estimates are used to test theories about the strategies of firms and to see how changes in incomes or factor prices affect these strategies.

Innovation, Rent Extraction, and Integration in Systems Markets

Thu, 28 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000

We consider innovation incentives in markets where final goods comprise two strictly complementary components, one of which is monopolized. We focus on the case in which the complementary component is competitively supplied, and in which innovation is important. We explore ways in which the monopoly may have incentives to confiscate efficiency rents in the competitive sector, thus weakening or destroying incentives for independent innovation. We discuss how these problems are affected if the monopolist integrates into the competitive sector.

Scale Economies and Synergies in Horizontal Merger Analysis