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This thesis is dedicated to the analysis of non-linear pricing in oligopoly. Non-linear pricing is a fairly predominant practice in most real markets, mostly characterized by some amount of competition. The sophistication of pricing practices has increased in the latest decades due to the technological advances that have allowed companies to gather more and more data on consumers preferences. The first essay of the thesis highlights the main characteristics of oligopolistic non-linear pricing. Non-linear pricing is a special case of price discrimination. The theory of price discrimination has to be modified in presence of oligopoly: in particular, a crucial role is played by the competitive externality that implies that product differentiation is closely related to the possibility of discriminating. The essay reviews the theory of competitive non-linear pricing by starting from its foundations, mechanism design under common agency. The different approaches to model non-linear pricing are then reviewed. In particular, the difference between price and quantity competition is highlighted. Finally, the close link between non-linear pricing and the recent developments in the theory of vertical differentiation is explored. The second essay shows how the effects of non-linear pricing are determined by the relationship between the demand and the technological structure of the market. The chapter focuses on a model in which firms supply a homogeneous product in two different sizes. Information about consumers' reservation prices is incomplete and the production technology is characterized by size economies. The model provides insights on the size of the products that one finds in the market. Four equilibrium regions are identified depending on the relative intensity of size economies with respect to consumers' evaluation of the good. Regions for which the product is supplied in a single unit or in several different sizes or in only a very large one. Both the private and social desirability of non-linear pricing varies across different equilibrium regions. The third essay considers the broadband internet market. Non discriminatory issues seem the core of the recent debate on the opportunity or not of regulating the internet. One of the main questions posed is whether the telecom companies, owning the networks constituting the internet, should be allowed to offer quality-contingent contracts to content providers. The aim of this essay is to analyze the issue through a stylized two-sided market model of the web that highlights the effects of such a discrimination over quality, prices and participation to the internet of providers and final users. An overall welfare comparison is proposed, concluding that the final effects of regulation crucially depend on both the technology and preferences of agents.

Two of the main pillars of the EU solid waste policy are the Proximity Principle and the Self-Sufficiency Principle. According to those, waste should be disposed as close as possible to where it has been produced. A likely effect of such provision is to prevent competition from neighbouring areas and increase the market power of local disposers, with possible undesirable consequences for other firms in the vertical chain. We show through a simple spatial model that one additional effect of the Proximity Principle and of the Self-Sufficiency Principle is to provide an incentive to collectors and waste producers to increase the amount of separated waste.

Two of the main pillars of the EU solid waste policy are the Proximity Principle and the Self-Sufficiency Principle. According to those, waste should be disposed as close as possible to where it has been produced. A likely effect of such provision is to prevent competition from neighbouring areas and increase the market power of local disposers, with possible undesirable consequences for other firms in the vertical chain. We show through a simple spatial model that one additional effect of the Proximity Principle and of the Self-Sufficiency Principle is to provide an incentive to collectors and waste producers to increase the amount of separated waste.

Two of the main pillars of the EU waste collection policy are the Proximity Principle and Self-Sufficiency Principle. According to those, waste should be disposed as close as possible to where it has been produced. The effect of such provision is to increase the market power of local disposers, with possible undesirable consequences for other firms in the vertical chain. We show through a simple spatial model that one effect of the Proximity Principle and Self-Sufficiency Principle is to provide an incentive to collectors and waste producers to increase the amount of separated waste.

ABSTRACTHorizontal mergers are usually under the scrutiny of antitrust authorities due to their potential undesirable effects on prices and consumer surplus. Ex‐post evidence, however, suggests that these effects do not always take place and even relevant mergers may end up having negligible price effects. The analysis of mergers in the context of non‐localized spatial competition may offer a further interpretation to the ones proposed in the literature: in this framework both positive and zero price effects are possible outcomes of the merger activity.

We investigate how cooperative firms reacted to the current crisis. This allows us to compare the behavior of cooperative and conventional firms facing exogenous shifts in demand. After a short survey of a stream of theoretical literature, we analyze a large group of Italian production cooperatives in the periods 2003-2010 and 1994-2011 and we contrast co-ops behavior with the overall trend in the industries in which they operate. Our sample's evidence suggests that the cooperative's behavior has a stabilizing effect on employment with respect to shocks in output demand. Unlike profit-maximizers, cooperative firms seem to be adjusting pay more than employment when facing shocks. Production co-ops look better equipped than their profit-maximizing counterparts in tackling the long recession also because they have been very cautious in their profit policies over time. Unlike conventional firms, they have significantly increased their own equity during "good" years instead of distributing large dividends to their members.

A paraitre dans Bulletin of Economic Research Horizontal mergers are usually under the scrutiny of antitrust authorities due to their potential undesirable effects on prices and consumer surplus. Ex-post evidence, however, suggests that not always these effects take place and even relevant mergers may end up having negligible price effects. The analysis of mergers in the context of non-localized spatial competition may offer a further interpretation to the ones proposed in the literature : in this framework both positive and zero price effects are possible outcomes of the merger activity.

Home bias affects trade in goods, services and financial assets. It is mostly generated by "natural" trade barriers. Among these dividers we may list many behavioral and sociological factors, such as status quo biases and a few kind of 'embeddedness'. Unfortunately these factors are difficult to measure. An important part of 'embeddedness' may be related to religious attitudes. Is there any relation between economic home bias and religious attitudes at the individual tier? Our aim is to provide a first answer to this question, by going through the econometric analysis of data from a survey conducted among in 11 European universities.

Home bias in international trade and finance has been deeply investigated in both theoretical and applied studies. Nonetheless, we do not possess so far any experimental and/or survey assessment of the phenomenon. This paper fills this gap and examines home (and European) bias from survey data based on questionnaires handed out to university students of eleven European countries. Uneven evidence of home and European biases has been found across distinct economic decisions in some individual attitudes.

We rationalize several facts emerging from the recent empirical research on cooperatives owned by workers (workers' firms, WF) as: the concern of WFs for employment; the interplay between membership and workplace safeguard within WFs; the different reaction to shocks between WFs and profit-making firms. We do so by means of a new model of WFs short-run behavior in mixed duopoly. We consider an industry in which a WF competes with a profit maximizing company and we innovate with respect to the conventional Illyrian objective function. We then reconcile the literature on labor-concerned maximands in competitive markets and the one dealing with WFs in oligopolistic markets under the Illyrian maximand.