Entry deterrence: The case of a buyer with market power

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Mudambi
Keyword(s):  
Market Power ◽  
Entry Deterrence

scholarly journals Upstream Bundling and Leverage of Market Power

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre de Corniére ◽  
Greg Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Market Power ◽  
Retail Store ◽  
Entry Deterrence ◽  
Vertical Relations ◽  
Google Android

Abstract We present a novel rationale for bundling in vertical relations. In many markets, upstream firms compete to be in the best downstream slots (e.g., the best shelf in a retail store or the default application on a platform). If a multiproduct upstream firm faces competition for a subset of its products, we show that tying the monopolised product with the competitive ones can reduce upstream rivals’ willingness to offer slotting fees to retailers. This strategy does not rely on entry deterrence and can be achieved through contractual or even virtual tying. The model is particularly relevant to the Google-Android case.

Vertical Boilerplate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Market Power ◽  
Real World ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Market Mechanism ◽  
Law School ◽  
Information Cost ◽  
Information Costs ◽  
Policy Proposals ◽  
Radical Solution

Despite what we learn in law school about the “meeting of the minds,” most contracts are merely boilerplate—take-it-or-leave-it propositions. Negotiation is nonexistent; we rely on our collective market power as consumers to regulate contracts’ content. But boilerplate imposes certain information costs because it often arrives late in the transaction and is hard to understand. If those costs get too high, then the market mechanism fails. So how high are boilerplate’s information costs? A few studies have attempted to measure them, but they all use a “horizontal” approach—i.e., they sample a single stratum of boilerplate and assume that it represents the whole transaction. Yet real-world transactions often involve multiple layers of contracts, each with its own information costs. What is needed, then, is a “vertical” analysis, a study that examines fewer contracts of any one kind but tracks all the contracts the consumer encounters, soup to nuts. This Article presents the first vertical study of boilerplate. It casts serious doubt on the market mechanism and shows that existing scholarship fails to appreciate the full scale of the information cost problem. It then offers two regulatory solutions. The first works within contract law’s unconscionability doctrine, tweaking what the parties need to prove and who bears the burden of proving it. The second, more radical solution involves forcing both sellers and consumers to confront and minimize boilerplate’s information costs—an approach I call “forced salience.” In the end, the boilerplate experience is as deep as it is wide. Our empirical work should reflect that fact, and our policy proposals should too.

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