Industrial Competition http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-com Industrial Competition 2026-09-07 On insufficient entry in Bayes-Bertrand oligopoly https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2026-011&r=&r=com We study entry in a differentiated-product Bertrand industry in which firms are privately informed about their marginal costs. We show that policies that facilitate entry, such as per-unit subsidies to entrants increase expected output and total welfare. Under Bayes-Bertrand competition, firms condition their pricing decisions on the expected costs of their rivals rather than on realized costs. In this environment, facilitating entry for relatively inefficient types raises the expected output of inframarginal firms and incumbents, owing to the strategic complementarity of prices. When all firms simultaneously decide whether to enter, it is optimal to allow all potential entrants to participate. Nandish Patel Bayes-Bertrand oligopoly, Differentiated products, Market entry, Welfare maximization 2026-05 Trade Fragmentation, International Cartels, and Welfare: How Does Domestic Market Structure Matter? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12949&r=&r=com We characterize collusive pricing in an international cartel spanning two host countries and pooling incentive constraints across markets, under general demand restricted only by a mild curvature condition that admits constant elasticity. Under domestic monopoly, fragmentation can weaken collusion and raise host welfare, whereas richer profit opportunities abroad strengthen collusion and may lower it; hosts prefer moderate barriers to either free trade or complete separation. Under domestic competition both results reverse. Whether fragmentation disciplines cartels thus depends on market structure in their home countries. Since collusion requires no trade between members, prices rather than trade flows carry the identifying information. Delina E. Agnosteva Constantinos Syropoulos Yoto V. Yotov fragmentation, oligopoly, multimarket interactions, cartel discipline, collusive pricing, trade costs, domestic market structure. 2026 Schedule equilibria https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.12818&r=&r=com This paper studies imperfect competition in general equilibrium when households and firms choose price-contingent schedules. Market clearing selects the price generated by those schedules, and each agent accounts for how its own behavior changes equilibrium prices. We derive household and firm optimality conditions, establish existence and a trembling-hand refinement, and apply the framework to monopoly, vertical market power, entry, ownership, and technological change. The results show that endogenous price responses can change standard conclusions about markups, deadweight loss, firm creation, and investment. Harry Kleyer 2026-08 Insufficient Entry in Monopolistic Competition https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2026_15.rdf&r=&r=com We study entry in markets with monopolistic competition under quasi-linear preferences, with homogeneous and heterogeneous firms. For common demand systems with a price aggregator which works through a demand shifter, entry tends to be insufficient: given market pricing, the business stealing effect of entry cannot dominate the consumer surplus effect. We identify preferences that deliver efficient production and firm selection (including the isoelastic demand case), confirming the insufficient entry result also compared to first-best allocations, and discuss a specification (including the Logit case) that delivers efficient entry. Under more general preferences competitive effects of entry strengthen the case for insufficient entry. Paolo Bertoletti Federico Etro Entry, Monopolistic competition, Business stealing, Heterogeneous firms 2026 Transparency versus Opacity: Personalized pricing and firm competition under network effects https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2026-013&r=&r=com We study firms' strategic choice between transparent and opaque personalized pricing in a duopoly with differentiated network goods with both within-firm and between-firm network effects. Under transparent pricing, consumers observe prices offered to others and internalize the resulting network benefits. In contrast, under opaque pricing, such information remains private, limiting consumers' ability to coordinate their purchasing decisions. Consumers are heterogeneous in baseline valuations and firm-specific preferences. We show that, unlike in monopoly settings, opaque pricing is more profitable than transparent pricing in competitive markets whenever firms' networks are not perfectly compatible. This is because transparency intensifies competition by allowing consumers to respond strategically to expected network participation, whereas opacity doesn't allow the same, enabling firms to sustain higher prices. Endogenizing firms' choice of pricing schemes, we show that when firms' network compatibility is relatively high, or consumers are sufficiently heterogeneous, or firms' marginal cost differences are high, (Opaque, Opaque) is the unique Nash equilibrium. In other cases, firms' pricing schemes become strategic complements, giving rise to both (Transparent, Transparent) and (Opaque, Opaque) as Nash equilibria; however, the latter is Pareto-dominant. We further show that transparent pricing can induce strategic subsidization, whereby a high-cost firm prices below cost for low-valuation consumers to signal stronger network benefits. In a sequential purchasing environment, we show that firms earn higher profits than under transparent pricing, but lower profits than under opaque pricing. Finally, we show that prohibiting personalized pricing always lowers firms' profits in a duopoly. Sumana Kundu Personalized pricing, Transparent pricing, Opaque pricing, Network effects, Consumer heterogeneity, Nash equilibria 2026-07 Collusive Efforts and Market Power: Analyzing the Canned Tuna Industry https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404623&r=&r=com Biswas, Suparna Crespi, John Harris-Lagoudakis, Katherine Industrial Organization 2026 Competition Policy meets Environmental Regulation: A case for ‘green’ antitrust https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:410235&r=&r=com We explore the interplay of competition and environmental policies to address the question of whether green antitrust has beneficial effects in terms of both environmental and consumer welfare performance. We focus on two environmental policy tools, an emission tax and an emission standard, and explore three particular configurations: competitive ‘green R&D, collaborative ‘green’ R&D in the form of a joint lab, and the benchmark case of no ‘green’ R&D. Firms compete in the product market by selling a homogeneous product, either by setting prices (Bertrand competition) or quantities (Cournot competition) while facing convex costs. We show that ‘green antitrust’ can unambiguously improve the effectiveness of environmental policy without undermining the interests of either consumers or producers, establishing a ‘win-win-win’ outcome. Cabon-Dhersin, Marie-Laure Poyago-Theotoky, Joanna Raffin, Natacha Environmental Economics and Policy, Sustainability 2026-08-31 Component vs. Product Competition and the Licensing Level of Standard Essential Patents https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2026_13.rdf&r=&r=com We build a stylized model of the value chain of an industry in which component suppliers sell their products to manufacturers and the licensor chooses the level of the value chain at which it licenses. We then study whether the licensing level chosen by the licensor affects profits of the firms in different competitive environment of both the component and the product markets. We first show that, contrary to common expectations, in our model the level of the value chain at which the licensee operates does not affect the profits of the firms, the level of the royalty and the price of the final product, irrespective of the degree of competition in the component and product markets. Our results shed some light on the debate, brought to public attention by Daimler v. Nokia and Continental v. Avanci, on the level of the value chain at which licensors of standard essential patents should license. Our findings may also be of guidance for an evaluation of the withdrawn proposal of a Standard Essential Patents Regulation and the recently revised Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation in the EU. Lapo FILISTRUCCHI, Alessandro GUAZZINI Samuele SCARPELLI Standard Essential Patents, Licensing Level, Automotive Industry, SEP regulation, TTBER 2026 Competition law enforcement in informal markets in Latin America and the Caribbean https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:dafaac:337-en&r=&r=com This paper examines the challenges faced by competition authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) when enforcing competition law in markets affected by informality. Informal markets represent a significant share of economic activity in the region and may influence competitive dynamics both where informal firms compete with formal firms and where competition occurs within informal markets. The paper focusses on competition enforcement issues related to informality including the definition of relevant markets, the investigation of informal firms and the calculation of fines. Although informality can create substantial evidentiary and procedural difficulties, the paper identifies opportunities for competition authorities to mitigate those challenges, including the use of official datasets, market studies and institutional co-operation with organisations addressing informality. The paper argues that competition authorities in LAC should be mindful of informal markets when enforcing competition law, and can apply proportionate, pragmatic and targeted enforcement to address competitive harm involving informal markets, while supporting better market functioning and the transition towards formality. OECD competition law enforcement, informal economy, informal markets, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) 2026-09-14 Competition Considerations in Change Ownership Reforms for Electric Cooperatives https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phs:dpaper:202504&r=&r=com Change ownership reforms for electric cooperatives (ECs) have once again attracted policymakers’ interest due to current efforts in expediting their privatization. This note serves as input to this ongoing conversation using the lens of competition. We argue that unchecked consolidation - especially vertical integration along the power supply chain from generation to distribution - may cause more pernicious effects on the industry and welfare than existing inefficiencies of ECs. Consistent with Canlas & Jandoc (2025), we support a franchise competition regime where the threat of displacement may foster an overall competitive behavior among existing and potential players. The necessary conditions for and the challenges to implementing an effective competition for the market framework are determined. Carlos L. Vega Jestoni A. Olivo Antonio Miguel S. Ventura Eirene Gillian M. Reyes market imperfections; legal monopolies; regulation or deregulation; electric utilities 2025-08 Business groups, concentration and market power in India https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138970&r=&r=com This paper analyses the evolution of market structure in India between 2000 and 2020, using a rich dataset at high levels of disaggregation. In particular, it examines the extent to which family-owned business groups have sustained their strong market position in the Indian economy as the economy has liberalized. It focuses on two key dimensions. The first is market concentration and market shares by industry. The second concerns whether business groups have been consolidating their position by expanding further in specific sectors or diversifying by entering new sectors. It finds that market concentration has been declining, although a bloc of high-concentration sectors remains. Further, diversification has been actively pursued across sectors by most business groups. While this points to greater competition among business groups, the ratio of revenues to variable costs—a measure of the markup—has shifted upwards, particularly after 2013. The paper also finds evidence linking the rising markups of these large businesses with pockets of high market concentration. The weight of these large business groups in the economy, as measured by the ratio of their revenues to GDP, has also increased. The paper proposes policies that can address overall concentration and the enduring prevalence of large business groups. Its analysis suggests that Indian family-owned business groups are entrenching across the economy and exploiting their monopoly power, a worrying dynamic given that this organizational form is widespread in much of Asia and Latin America. Commander, Simon Estrin, Saul Thomas, Naveen Joseph Lingineni, Varun market concentration;India;business groups;Hirschman-Herfindahl Indices;diversification 2026-08-10 Who Wants to Break Up Big Firms? Harm, Fairness, and the Demand for Antitrust https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35503&r=&r=com The rise of superstar firms has made dominant companies central to modern economic life, and antitrust enforcement is one of the main policy tools for regulating their market power. Public opinion can shape the political and regulatory environment in which antitrust enforcement takes place, yet there is little direct evidence on what drives these preferences. We conduct a pre-registered information-provision experiment with 4, 000 American households. Respondents were told about one of five real antitrust cases and randomly assigned to information treatments designed to study four potential drivers of support for antitrust enforcement: perceived market share, perceived consumer harm, perceived unfair competition, and perceived negative image. All four treatments moved the beliefs they were designed to affect, but their effects on demand for antitrust differed sharply. Information about consumer harm had the most systematic effects: it increased plaintiff support and support for break-up and conduct remedies, with effects remaining visible one month later, and also spilled over to broader support for antitrust policies. By contrast, and contrary to expert forecasts, information about market share had no meaningful effect on demand for antitrust enforcement. The findings suggest that the public thinks like economists in one key respect: they do not care about market share per se, but respond instead to consumer harm. One factor outside the core economic framework, perceived unfair competition, also matters, though its effects are more limited in scope. We discuss implications for policymakers and regulators. Ricardo Perez-Truglia Jeffrey Yusof 2026-07 Mergers and the demand for protectionism https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342514&r=&r=com Current enforcement practice does not consider how mergers alter the merging parties' incentives to petition for trade protection. I document mergers between domestic producers across jurisdictions that are followed by tariff petitions. I develop a model to characterize the trade-policy channel of mergers. Theoretically, a domestic merger raises the profitability of tariffs when offshoring is unavailable; once offshoring is possible, the effect becomes ambiguous. I apply this framework to a merger between domestic producers in the U.S. appliance industry. Empirically, I find that when import competition is weak, the merging parties prefer to lower their own costs through offshoring; when import competition is strong, the merger makes it more profitable for them to raise their foreign rivals' costs through tariffs. The resulting consumer harm is comparable in magnitude to the direct market-power effect. A hypothetical cross-border merger reduces the profitability of tariffs in this market. Montag, Felix 2026 Moral Hazard and Competitive Paradoxes https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2026_16.rdf&r=&r=com We study moral hazard by managers engaged in cost-reducing activities under incentive contracts à la Holmstrom-Milgrom and monopolistic competition. Moral hazard affects both managerial incentives and market structure, generating potential paradoxes. The main one is that moral hazard can increase equilibrium effort and reduce prices by discouraging entry and expanding firm scale. Alternatively, it can foster entry by relaxing incentive contracts and reducing fixed costs of managerial compensation. We analyze equilibria under general cost and demand functions, and compare equilibrium and optimal effort and entry for CES, Logit and Linear demand systems. Federico Etro Managerial compensation, moral hazard, incentive mechanisms, Holmstrom-Milgrom model 2026 Early resolution of cartel cases in Latin America and the Caribbean https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:dafaac:338-en&r=&r=com This paper provides an overview of the state of play of early resolution of cartel cases in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) jurisdictions, covering the legal framework, enforcement experiences, as well as challenges and particularities. Competition authorities may benefit from the early resolution of cartel cases by saving on time and the resources that the case would require in an adversarial procedure, allocating them more efficiently to the detection and prosecution of other cartels and providing for a greater deterrence and wider impact of their enforcement actions. The paper highlights that LAC competition authorities may consider designing and using these tools as a way to achieve procedural expediency. The design and implementation of early resolution programmes requires consideration of the incentives of parties to resolve cases early and the interplay with leniency programmes, damages and the pursuit of other policy objectives. OECD cartel enforcement, competition law enforcement, early case resolution, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), settlements 2026-09-14 Intangible Capital, Markups, and Markdowns: Evidence from Japanese Listed Firms https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-162&r=&r=com This paper examines how intangible capital is related to firms' market power in product and labor markets using an unbalanced panel of Japanese listed firms from 1980 to 2024. We estimate firm-level markups and markdowns following the production-function approaches employed by the standard literature and then relate these measures to two types of intangible capital: R&D stock and organizational capital. The empirical results show that organizational capital is positively associated with markups and negatively associated with markdowns, while the role of R&D stock is relatively limited and less robust. These findings suggest that organizational capital may strengthen firms' product-market position while also encouraging rent sharing with workers. The stagnant accumulation of organizational capital may therefore help explain why Japan experienced weak price and wage growth since the 2000s. HOSONO, Kaoru YAMAMOTO, Yohei Intangible capital, markups, markdowns, organizational capital, labor market power, Japan 2026-08-07 FTC v. Meta: The Importance of Quantitative Evidence in Antitrust https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:framed:00839&r=&r=com The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") brought an antitrust lawsuit against Meta in 2021, claiming that Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp had allowed it to monopolize a relevant market for apps providing "Personal Social Network Services" and that consumers had been harmed because the acquisitions allowed Meta to increase ad loads imposed on Facebook and Instagram app users. However, the FTC's market definition was not based on quantitative evidence and its assertion of harm ignored the two-sided nature of the Meta platforms, which makes it impossible to determine whether a merger would increase ad loads based on theory alone. In contrast, Meta's economic experts used modern theoretical and quantitative tools of economic analysis to address market definition and competition issues. This paper summarizes the field experiment, natural experiments, and related quantitative analyses presented by Meta's economic experts that demonstrated the FTC's market definition excluded apps that were closer substitutes to Meta's apps than the included apps. The paper also summarizes the results of a demerger simulation that accounted for the two-sided nature of apps and was based in part on the results of the field experiment. That analysis demonstrated that the FTC's claim that the acquisitions had led to increased ad load was not supported by the data. Dennis W. Carlton John List Allan Shampine Hal Sider Theresa Sullivan 2026 Dynamic investment and product market rivalry: The network Q model https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342448&r=&r=com We present a new dynamic model of corporate investment in imperfectly-competitive product markets, extending the neoclassical (Q) theory of capital to a multi-firm, multi-product, fullystructural model. Our model embeds a state-of-the-art hedonic demand system, endogenizes firms' markups and generalizes Tobin's Q to a matrix (or network) of product market spillovers, which captures how each firm's investment affects that of its rivals. We provide existence and uniqueness results along with exact, global analytical solutions for the Markov Perfect Equilib-rium investment policies. We then take our model to the data for the universe of U.S. public companies and obtain five novel insights: 1) product market competition is a key force driving aggregate investment and capital allocation; 2) the persistence of firm's capital stocks increased over the past 25 years (i.e. capital became "stickier"); 3) monopoly rents account for a large, rising share of firms' value; 4) positive shocks to firms' cost of capital increase markups and con-centration; 5) mergers consummated since 1995 have led to a modest decline in aggregate capital formation; at the firm-level the resulting increases in markups are highly heterogeneous. Bustamante, Maria Cecilia Pellegrino, Bruno investment, networks, product market 2026 Strategic Stake Acquisitions in Rival Firms: Common vs. Cross-Ownership https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19204&r=&r=com This paper examines the problem of a blockholder who controls a firm and seeks to acquire a noncontrolling stake in a rival company. The blockholder can either purchase the stake directly using personal funds or indirectly, through the firm he controls. The first option results in a pattern of common ownership, while the second leads to cross-ownership. We show that common ownership reduces competition intensity more effectively than cross-ownership and allows the blockholder to retain the benefits of the acquisition without sharing them with minority shareholders. However, this may create conflicts of interest with those shareholders, whereas cross-ownership always maintains an alignment of interests. Consequently, the blockholder may prefer cross-ownership if control over his company is not secure and could be challenged by minority shareholders. Denicolo, Vincenzo Panunzi, Fausto Competition 2024-07 Firms as Electoral Monopsonies https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35676&r=&r=com We study how dominant employers can act as *electoral monopsonies*, using local labor market power to shape political preferences and electoral outcomes. We first present original survey evidence showing that workers at major local employers are more likely to experience employer political communication and to report that their employers influence their voting behavior and career expectations. We then develop a model in which a dominant employer can affect voters’ preferences by shaping their expectations about how wages and employment depend on electoral outcomes. We distinguish a passive channel, through which workers internalize firms’ economic interests, from an active channel, through which dominant employers strategically influence these expectations. Under the active channel, labor market power translates into political power and can generate political failures by inducing voters to oppose policies they would otherwise support. The model also shows how electoral monopsonies can contribute to political polarization, constrain political platforms, and substitute for campaign spending. Using U.S. individual-level voting data and a shift-share design based on national industry concentration shocks and predetermined local employment shares, we show that greater electoral monopsony power increases Republican voter turnout. Counterfactual estimates imply that reducing electoral monopsony power could have narrowly changed the outcomes of the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections. Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León Adelina Barbalau Cyndi Hou Alessio Piccolo 2026-08 Information Design and Entry in Auctions https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2026_09.rdf&r=&r=com This paper is about a two-bidder auction setting with endogenous and costly entry in which, before the bidders' entry decisions, the seller may release information about the object on sale. This information affects each bidder's belief about the own distribution of value for the object on sale, hence it affects the bidder's incentive to enter. The seller uses a second price auction and we consider the class of unrestricted information structures using the techniques of information design in which the seller sends private messages to the bidders. We characterize the optimal information structure, which optimally trades off providing rents to the bidders in favorable (to the bidders) states of the world against inducing entry of all bidders in other states of the world (in order to generate a positive auction revenue). We compare the optimal information structure with some specific information structures examined in the literature and then show that a restriction to public messages hurts the seller significantly. We also show that using a first price auction allows the seller to earn the same revenue as when a second price auction is used. We then allow the seller to use an entry fee and jointly optimize, under some restrictions, with respect to the entry fee and the information structure. In this case the seller does not need to induce entry of all bidders to earn a positive revenue, and indeed induces entry of a single bidder, who is required to pay a high entry fee, if the entry cost is not small. But if the seller can also use a reserve price, then it is optimal to (almost) fully subsidize the entry cost and use the reserve price to extract all the bidders' rents while inducing the socially optimal entry. Federico INNOCENTI Nicola DONI Domenico MENICUCCI Procurement Auctions, First-Price Auction, Second-Price Auction, Pre-Auction Investment, Strategic Effect, Auction Ranking. 2026 Asymmetric information and capital regulation in SME lending: a structural model of bank and non-bank competition https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:023313&r=&r=com We analyse how risk-based capital requirements shape competition and credit allocation in the UK unsecured Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) lending market using confidential loan-level data. Motivated by empirical patterns, we develop and estimate a structural model with screening, asymmetric information, and imperfect competition, in which banks and non-bank lenders differ in regulatory treatment. We estimate lender-specific costs and screening precision, and show how these features jointly account for the observed lender market shares across borrower risk and loan size segments. Our results indicate that regulation interacts with heterogeneity in information processing and costs to shape equilibrium pricing and credit allocation, with non-bank lending reflecting not only regulatory differences but also comparative advantages in screening technology. Our model provides a quantitative framework for evaluating regulatory policy in markets with both regulated and non-regulated intermediaries. Negar Mohammadi Jazi Felipe Netto Small business lending;asymmetric information;non-bank financial intermediaries;screening;capital regulation 2026-06-19 The Value and Proï¬ ts of Firms https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19232&r=&r=com The real growth of the stock market value of ï¬ rms has increased from close to 0% on average per year between 1958 and 1980, to 5.2%between 1980 and today. This change coincides with the rise of market power and proï¬ ts, starting in 1980. This paper proposes to decompose the value of ï¬ rms based on proï¬ ts (earnings) rather than dividends. Because ï¬ rms on average pay out only 45% of proï¬ ts in dividends, dividends poorly measure ï¬ rm performance. I decompose the sources of the rise of the value of all publicly traded ï¬ rms into: 1. The subjective discount factor; 2. The risk-free rate; 3. Proï¬ ts; and 4. Shareholder Equity (retained earnings). I ï¬ nd that 20% of the rise is due to the discount factor, and 80% is due to proï¬ ts (half of which is retained earnings). I build a general equilibrium model of the economy where ï¬ rms have market power; I perform counter factuals and evaluate the welfare implications. The objective is to study the impact of competition policy. If market power today dropped to the level of1980, average stock market values would be 40% lower. If market power had never increased in 1980, the average stock values would be 80% lower. Eeckhout, Jan 2024-07 Do Firms Increase Markups During Inflationary Episodes? Evidence from the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Firms https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404630&r=&r=com Pathak Chalise, Prayash Cakir, Metin Industrial Organization 2026 Bitcoin Market Segmentation and Regulatory Effect https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:1052&r=&r=com This paper examines the effects of cryptocurrency regulation on price deviations in the Bitcoin market, focusing on regulatory implementations rather than announcements. I construct a unique database of regulations across 28 countries since 2009, categorized into seven types, and analyse Bitcoin price data since September 2013. Our findings indicate that the Law of One Price does not hold in the Bitcoin market. Contrary to initial conjectures, more regulated markets exhibit higher price convergence with the USD benchmark. According to the type of regulation, this result is mixed. Regulations enhancing reliability and transparency, such as the expansion of securities laws, banking and payment regulations, and the implementation of regulatory sandboxes foster price convergence. In contrast, partial bans—primarily targeting banks—exacerbate price divergence, underscoring the significant role of financial institutions in the Bitcoin market. Additionally, anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws reduce local prices regardless of USD price level, suggesting the cryptoasset's use in illicit activities.. Mathilde Dufouleur Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Regulation, Price Convergence, Law of One Price, Financial Institutions, Anti-Money Laundering, Regulatory Impact 2026 Bayesian Signaling and Entry Decisions under Uncertain Market Conditions https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.17273&r=&r=com We develop a continuous-time entry-deterrence game in which market demand evolves according to the Chan-Karolyi-Longstaff-Sanders (CKLS) stochastic differential equation, allowing mean reversion and state-dependent volatility. An incumbent with privately known strength strategically chooses advertising and promotional expenditures to influence a potential entrant's beliefs, while the entrant faces a costly, irreversible entry decision and optimally waits until market conditions justify participation. Within a dynamic Stackelberg setting, Bayesian learning, asymmetric information, stochastic demand, and strategic controls jointly determine entry and signaling behavior. Using a Feynman-type path-integral control formulation, we characterize a Markovian Nash feedback equilibrium for the firms' expenditure strategies. Our contribution is to integrate CKLS demand uncertainty, private information, irreversible entry, Bayesian belief updating, and path-integral feedback control within a unified continuous-time entry-deterrence framework, while providing a computational alternative to direct Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) approach. We illustrate the framework empirically using 2010-2024 revenue data for Enterprise Products Partners and Targa Resources. The resulting trajectories are qualitatively consistent with the model's predictions, exhibiting persistence, recovery after adverse shocks, and distinct responses associated with different competitive positions, while supporting the model's strategic mechanisms under uncertainty. Mustapha Nyenye Issah Paramahansa Pramanik 2026-08 Stress Testing Cardiac Care Markets through Deregulation https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35645&r=&r=com The diffusion of technological innovation depends on incentives, regulations, and firms’ strategic behaviors. We study these intersections within cardiac procedure markets following Medicare’s expansion of non-hospital facility options for treatment, enabled by clinical advancements. State-level regulations restrain federal pro-competition policy. Where market entry occurs, business stealing is concentrated among the lowest cost treatment settings, rather than high-cost hospitals––increasing Medicare spending by approximately $2.5 million. Medicare policy also generates externalities for untargeted procedures and other payers, except when hospitals and physicians are vertically integrated. Federal rulemaking interacts with and is mitigated by complex market dynamics––including in potentially unanticipated ways. Daniel R. Arnold Michael R. Richards Yashaswini Singh Christopher M. Whaley 2026-08