Explore the vast range of titles available.

In markets for retail financial products and health services, consumers often rely on the advice of intermediaries to decide which specialized offering best fits their needs. Product providers, in turn, compete to influence the intermediaries' advice through hidden kickbacks or disclosed commissions. Motivated by the controversial role of these widespread practices, we formulate a model to analyze competition through commissions from a positive and normative standpoint. The model highlights the role of commissions in making the advisor responsive to supply-side incentives. We characterize situations when commonly adopted policies such as mandatory disclosure and caps on commissions have unintended welfare consequences.

Financial advice could play an essential role in well-functioning markets for retail financial products, given that many consumers find it difficult to evaluate the complex products on offer. However, conflicts of interest, which are pervasive in some parts of the industry, can turn advice into a curse rather than a blessing for consumers, especially when consumers are not sufficiently wary. Through a simple model of financial advice, we overview the pros and cons of various policy interventions, such as imposing mandatory disclosure, banning commissions, and regulating contract cancellation terms.

We analyze the short- and long-run implications of third-degree price discrimination in input markets. In contrast to the extant literature, which typically assumes that the supplier is an unconstrained monopolist, in our model input prices are constrained by the threat of demand-side substitution. In our model, the more efficient buyer receives a discount. A ban on price discrimination thus benefits smaller but hurts more efficient, larger firms. It also stifles incentives to invest and innovate. With linear demand, a ban on price discrimination benefits consumers in the short run but reduces consumer surplus in the long run, which is once again the opposite of what is found without the threat of demand-side substitution.

We consider a monopolistic supplier's optimal choice of two-part tariff contracts when downstream firms are asymmetric. We find that the optimal discriminatory contracts amplify differences in downstream firms' competitiveness. Firms that are larger-either because they are more efficient or because they sell a superior product-obtain a lower wholesale price than their rivals. This increases allocative efficiency by favoring the more productive firms. In contrast, we show that a ban on price discrimination reduces allocative efficiency and can lead to higher wholesale prices for all firms. As a result, consumer surplus, industry profits, and welfare are lower.

This paper analyzes the implications of the inherent conflict between two tasks performed by direct marketing agents: prospecting for customers and advising on the product's \"suitability\" for the specific needs of customers. When structuring salesforce compensation, firms trade off the expected losses from \"misselling\" unsuitable products with the agency costs of providing marketing incentives. We characterize how the equilibrium amount of misselling (and thus the scope of policy intervention) depends on features of the agency problem including: the internal organization of a firm's sales process, the transparency of its commission structure, and the steepness of its agents' sales incentives.

We analyze up- and downstream market structure and the choice of technology in a bilaterally oligopolistic industry. The distribution of industry profits between up- and downstream firms is determined by a procedure of bilateral negotiations, which is shown to generate the Shapley value. Incentives for downstream mergers depend on whether upstream firms have increasing or decreasing unit costs, while incentives for upstream mergers depend on whether products are substitutes or complements. Incentives for upstream firms to reduce marginal costs increase with a downstream merger and decrease with an upstream merger. Finally, downstream firms may strategically choose a particular market structure to affect upstream technology choice.

Savings accounts are owned by most households, but little is known about the performance of households' investments. We create a unique dataset by matching information on individual savings accounts from the DNB Household Survey with market data on account-specific interest rates and characteristics. We document heterogeneity in returns across households, which can be partly explained by financial sophistication. A one-standard deviation increase in financial literacy is associated with a 12% increase compared to the median interest rate. We isolate the usage of modern technology (online accounts) as one channel through which financial literacy has a positive association with returns.

In various countries, competition laws restrict retailers' freedom to sell their products below cost. common rationale, shared by policymakers, consumer interest groups and brand manufacturers alike, is that such \"loss leading\" of products would ultimately lead to a race-to-the-bottom in product quality. Building on Varian's (1980) model of sales, we provide a foundation for this critique, though only when consumers are salient thinkers, putting too much weight on certain product attributes. But we also show how a prohibition of loss leading can backfire, as it may make it even less attractive for retailers to stock high-quality products, decreasing both aggregate welfare and consumer surplus.

Sustainability goals are frequently achieved through cooperation between companies. However, this is often inadmissible under current competition law. So far, the competition authorities have had to limit their assessment of cooperations and mergers to the effects in the relevant market. The EU Commission has now explicitly taken up the issue of sustainability in the draft Horizontal Guidelines. It introduces exemptable cooperation on \"sustainability cooperation\". Thus, the exchange of information on sustainable suppliers will be permissible, as will a joint campaign to promote sustainability awareness. The article discusses the possibilities and problems arising from this.

Sustainability goals are frequently achieved through cooperation between companies. However, this is often inadmissible under current competition law. So far, the competition authorities have had to limit their assessment of cooperations and mergers to the effects in the relevant market. The EU Commission has now explicitly taken up the issue of sustainability in the draft Horizontal Guidelines. It introduces exemptable cooperation on \"sustainability cooperation\". Thus, the exchange of information on sustainable suppliers will be permissible, as will a joint campaign to promote sustainability awareness. The article discusses the possibilities and problems arising from this.