Discussion paper
DP14974 Decentralizing Cooperation through Upstream Bilateral Agreements
We consider an industry with n≥3 firms owning upstream inputs and interacting noncooperatively in a downstream market. Under general conditions, upstream bilateral agreements giving firms access to one another's input lead to industry profit maximization. This decentralization result applies to various upstream agreements including cross-licensing agreements among patent-holding manufacturers, interconnection agreements among telecommunication companies, interbank payments for ATM networks, and data-sharing agreements among competitors or complementors.
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