We analyze the competitive effects of backward vertical integration when firms exert market power upstream and compete à la Cournot downstream. Contrasting with previous literature, a small degree of vertical integration is always procompetitive because efficiency gains dominate foreclosure effects, and vertical integration even to full foreclosure can be procompetitive. Surprisingly, vertical integration is more likely to be procompetitive if the industry is otherwise more concentrated. Extensions analyze incentives to integrate and differentiated Bertrand competition downstream. Our analysis suggests that antitrust authorities should be wary of vertical integration when the integrating firm faces many competitors and should be permissive otherwise.

We analyze vertical integration between platforms providing operating systems to manufacturers of devices when there are indirect network effects between buyers of devices and developers of applications. Vertical integration creates market power over developers, and over non-integrated manufacturers but only under certain circumstances. That market power enables to coordinate pricing decisions across both sides of the market, which leads to a better internalization of network effects. Vertical integration does not systematically lead to foreclosure and can benefit all parties, even in the absence of efficiency gains. Its competitive impact depends on the strength and the structure of indirect network effects.

This book investigates under which circumstances vertical unbundling can lead to a more efficient market result. The assessment is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining law and economics. Drawing on the assessment, circumstances are subsequently presented under which unbundling might become necessary. Additionally, less severe means of regulatory intervention are suggested in order to protect competition. Given its scope, the book is chiefly intended for scholars and practitioners in the field of economic policy and regulation law; in addition, it will give interested members of the public a unique opportunity to learn about the underlying rationales of regulation law and regulation economics.

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.

In this text some fundamental issues concerning the strategic impact of vertical structures of firms are discussed in a successive oligopoly model. Vertical integration strategy has been identified as one of the key strategies which determine the success or failure of enterprises. Many studies on vertical integration are based on business experiences and interviews with managers. However, the extensive application of game theory in business economics allows this study on vertical integration to be based on sound theoretic ground. Moreover, the significance of public enterprises in some Western European economies and the trends of economic transition in Eastern Europe justify the efforts to analyse vertical integration issues in the mixed market, which is created by the participation of a public firm into an industry otherwise characterised as a successive oligopoly.