Marco Pagnozzi

Vertical Separation with Private Contracts

We consider a manufacturers incentive to sell through an independent retailer, rather than directly to final consumers, when contracts with retailers cannot be observed by competitors. If retailers conjecture that identical competing manufacturers always offer identical contracts (symmetric beliefs), manufacturers choose vertical separation in equilibrium. Even with private contracts, vertically separated manufacturers reduce competition and increase profits by inducing less aggressive behaviour by retailers in the final market. Manufacturers’ profits may be higher with private than with public contracts. Our results hold both with price and with quantity competition and do not hinge on retailers’ beliefs being perfectly symmetric. We also discuss various justifications for symmetric beliefs, including incomplete information.

Information sharing between vertical hierarchies

When do principals independently choose to share the information obtained from their privately informed agents? Information sharing affects contracting within competing organizations and induces agentsʼ strategies to be correlated through the distortions imposed by principals to obtain information. We show that the incentives to share information depend on the nature of upstream externalities between principals and the correlation of agentsʼ information. With small externalities, principals share information when externalities and correlation have opposite signs, and do not share information when externalities and correlation have the same sign. In this second case, principals face a prisonersʼ dilemma since they obtain higher profits by sharing information.

Bids as a Vehicle of (Mis)Information: Collusion in English Auctions with Affiliated Values

In an English auction, a bidder’s strategy depends on the prices at which his competitors drop out, because these convey information on the value of the object on sale. A ring of colluding bidders can strategically manipulate the information transmitted through its members’ bids, in order to mislead other bidders into bidding less aggressively and thus allow a designated bidder to bid more aggressively. Collusion increases the probability that the ring wins the auction and reduces the price it pays. The presence of a ring harms other bidders (as well as the seller) and reduces efficiency.

Demand Reduction in Multi-Object Auctions with Resale: An Experimental Analysis

We analyze the effects of different resale mechanisms on bidders’ strategies in multi-object uniform-price auctions with asymmetric bidders. Our experimental design consists of four treatments: one without resale and three resale treatments that vary the information available and the bargaining mechanism in the resale market. The presence of a resale market induces demand reduction by high-value bidders and speculation by low-value bidders, thus affecting the allocation of the objects on sale. The magnitude of these effects, however, depends on the form of the resale market. Features of the resale market that tend to increase its efficiency result in lower auction efficiency and seller’s revenue. We also show that, without resale, asymmetry among bidders reduces demand reduction.

Entry and Product Variety with Competing Supply Chains

We study a supply chain model where competing manufacturers located around a circle contract with privately informed and exclusive retailers. The number of brands in the market (determined by the manufacturers’ zero profit condition) depends on the level of asymmetric information within supply chains and on the types of contracts between manufacturers and retailers. With two-part tariffs, wholesale prices fully reflect retailers’ costs. With linear contracts, wholesale prices are constant and independent of retailers’ costs. The number of brands is lower (resp. higher) with asymmetric information than with complete information when contracts are linear (resp. with two-part tariffs). Moreover, the number of brands is always higher with linear contracts than with two-part tari¤s. We also analyze the effects of endogenous entry on welfare.

Are Disadvanteged Bidders Doomed in Ascending Auctions

A bidder is said to be advantaged if she has a higher expected valuation of the auction prize than her competitor. When the prize has a common-value component, a bidder competing in an ascending auction against an advantaged competitor bids especially cautiously and, hence, the advantaged bidder wins most of the time. However, contrary to what is often argued, a disadvantaged bidder still wins with positive probability, even if his competitors advantage is very large and even if the disadvantaged bidder has the lowest actual valuation ex-post. Therefore, the disadvantaged bidder has an incentive to participate in the auction, and the presence of a bidder with a small advantage does not have a dramatic effect on the sellers revenue.

Selling Information to Competitive Firms

A monopolistic information provider sells an informative experiment to a large number of perfectly competitive firms. Within each firm, a principal contracts with an exclusive agent who is privately informed about his production cost. Principals decide whether to acquire the experiment, that is informative about the agents production cost. While more accurate information reduces agency costs and allows firms to increase production, it also results in a lower market price, which reduces principals willingness to pay for information. We show that, even if information is costless for the provider, the optimal experiment is not fully informative when demand is price-inelastic and agents are likely to be inefficient. This result hinges on the assumption that firms are competitive and exacerbates when principals can coordinate vis-à-vis the information provider. In an imperfectly competitive information market, providers may restrict information by not selling the experiment to some of the principals.

Efficiency in Auctions with (Failed) Resale

We analyze how the possibility of resale affects efficiency in multi-object uniform-price auctions with asymmetric bidders using a combination of theory and experiments. The resale market is modeled as an unstructured bargaining game between auction bidders. Our experimental design consists of four treatments that vary the (exogenous) probability that bidders participate in a resale market after the auction. In all treatments, the possibility of resale increases efficiency after the auction, but it also induces demand reduction by high-value bidders during the auction, which reduces auction efficiency. In contrast to what is usually argued, resale does not necessarily increase final efficiency. When there is a low probability of a resale market, final efficiency is actually lower than in an auction without resale.