We propose a computational model to study (the evolution of) post-secondary education. “Consumers” who differ in quality shop around for desirable colleges or universities. “Firms” that differ in quality signal the availability of their services to desirable students. As long as they...

I compare certification and self-regulation, two widely used quality assurance mechanisms in markets where consumers do not observe the quality of goods. Certification is a mechanism in which an external firm offers a certificate to producers who undergo a testing procedure, issues the...

In the classical literature on vertical differentiation, goods are assumed to be single products each offered by a different firm and consumed separately one from another. This paper departs from the standard setup and explores the price competition in a vertically differentiated market where a...

We study price discrimination in a monopolistic software market. The monopolist charges different prices for the upgrade version and for the full version. Consumers are heterogeneous in taste for infinitely durable software and there is no resale. We show that price discrimination leads to a...

This paper provides an explanation as to why software manufacturers from developed countries tolerate widespread copyright infringement in less developed countries and often even offer local versions of their products. In a simple two-period framework, I show that if network externalities are...