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The Strategic Value of Incomplete Contracting in a Competing Hierarchies Environment

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Author Info
Salvatore Piccolo () (University of Salerno and CSEF)
David Martimort (University of Toulouse I, IDEI)

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Abstract

We explore the strategic value of quantity forcing contracts in a competing manufacturer-retailer hierarchies environment under both adverse selection and moral hazard. Manufacturers dealing with (exclusive) competing retailers may prefer to leave contracts silent on retail prices, whenever other aspects of the retailers’ activity remain nonveri.able. Two effects are at play once one moves from retail price maintenance to quantity forcing. First, restricting the number of screening instruments available to manufacturers has a detrimental effect on their pro.ts as it leaves more possibilities to retailer for getting information rents. Second, such restriction may provide manufacturers with strategic power in that it affects downstream competition. Under some conditions related to the severity of the adverse selection problem and the nature of externalities across retailers, the latter effect may rationalize the use of quantity forcing contracts in a game of competing hierarchies. RPM may be either detrimental or bene.cial to welfare depending upon the type of non-market externalities that retailers impose on each other.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy in its series CSEF Working Papers with number 160.

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Date of creation: 01 Jul 2006
Date of revision: 08 Dec 2006
Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:160

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Related research
Keywords: Asymmetric Information; Competing Hierarchies; Incomplete Contracts; Quantity Forcing; Resale Price Maintenance; Vertical Contracting;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
  4. Salvatore Piccolo & David Martimort, 2003. "Resale Price Maintenance under Asymmetric Information," CSEF Working Papers 107, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 01 Jun 2005. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1999. "Foundations of Incomplete Contracts," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 66(1), pages 115-38, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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  21. David Martimort, 1996. "Exclusive Dealing, Common Agency, and Multiprincipals Incentive Theory," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(1), pages 1-19, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  28. Martimort, David, 1994. "Exclusive Dealing, Common Agency and Multiprincipals Incentive Theory," IDEI Working Papers 43, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised 1996.
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Tirole, Jean, 2008. "Cognition and Incomplete Contracts," IDEI Working Papers 453, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Dessi, Roberta, 2009. "Contractual Execution and Strategic Incompleteness," IDEI Working Papers 465, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
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