This dissertation consists of three essays evaluating topics in industrial organization. The first essay investigates a market structure or property regime in which a final good exists only by assembling multiple, monopoly-supplied components. In such dynamic settings, any sunk cost results in an outcome of hold-up, also known as tragedy of the anticommons. I design a model showing conditions for which two factors that reduce sunk cost, refunds and complementarities, mitigate hold-up. If the first component purchased has positive stand alone value or the first seller offers a full refund, hold-up is mitigated. My results suggest several policies that can mitigate inefficient outcomes in assembly problems, including legal requirements on full refunds, regulation on the purchasing order of components, and prohibition of price discrimination. The second essay applies Bayesian statistics to single-firm event studies used in securities litigation and antitrust investigations. Inference based on Bayesian analysis does not require an assumption of normality that potentially invalidates standard inference of classical single-firm event studies. I investigate ten events, five from actual securities litigation cases. Various Bayesian models, including replication of the frequentist approach, are examined. A flexible Bayesian model, replacing parametric likelihood functions with the empirical distribution function, also is explored. Our approach suggests an alternative, valid method for inference with easy implementation and interpretation. The third essay, motivated in the context of pharmaceutical advertising, analyzes demand rotations caused by an exogenously determined advertising parameter under Cournot oligopoly competition. We find that firms and consumers prefer extreme levels of advertising, but preferences for which extreme do not necessarily align. However, these differences can be alleviated with few or many firms in the market or cheap or expensive technologies. Therefore, advertising levels, regulated or not, might not serve consumers' best interests unless certain market attributes hold.

Traditionally, the corporate governance scholarship has emphasized heavily the "dispersed shareholder regimes" in the United States and the United Kingdom, although "controlling shareholder regimes" constitute the vast majority of the world's economy. Since there have been few systematic studies concerning controlling shareholder regimes (in particular, controlling shareholder regimes in developing countries), they have remained in a black box. With this concern in mind, in this dissertation, I proposed various analytical frameworks for understanding the corporate governance of controlling shareholder regimes that, improperly, have been overlooked for a long time. In the first chapter of my dissertation, entitled Reenvisioning the Controlling Shareholder Regime: Why Controlling Shareholders and Minority Shareholders Embrace Each Other, I proposed theories to explain why controlling shareholders and minority shareholders "voluntarily" embrace each other in an emerging capital market while the legal system in that jurisdiction does not require controllers to protect investors. In the second chapter, entitled Controlling Shareholders - "Roving" v. "Stationary," I explored two types of controlling shareholders (i.e., "roving" and "stationary" controllers) and delved into why an economy with stationary controllers is better in terms of corporate governance and more likely to be prosperous than an economy with roving controllers. In the third chapter, entitled Transplanting a Poison Pill to a Controlling Shareholder Regime, I analyzed how a poison pill would affect the market for corporate control and the corporate governance of controlling shareholder regimes. In this dissertation, I have proposed many unconventional analyses and views on controlling shareholder regimes (in some cases, the concepts may be counterintuitive from the perspective of the conventional corporate governance scholarship). I hope that my research will guide scholars in a theoretical way to understand the various aspects of law and economics related to corporate governance that mostly have not been recognized or that have been misunderstood in the standard scholarly studies of corporate governance.

This paper explores the economic rationales underpinning potential hedge fund regulation, and reviews the arguments about why rules aimed to mitigate systemic risk may be economically efficient. The paper presents a limited definition of systemic risk, and proposes that an international macro-prudential supervisory body be set up for the Ontario, U.S. and U.K. markets to collect systemically important information about hedge funds and to recommend policy changes in light of this information. The paper also reviews the proposed regulatory reforms in the United States that will apply to hedge funds, and argues that while helpful, such regulations are sub-optimal because they do not consider certain important characteristics of systemic risk.

This paper explores the economic rationales underpinning potential hedge fund regulation, and reviews the arguments about why rules aimed to mitigate systemic risk may be economically efficient. The paper presents a limited definition of systemic risk, and proposes that an international macro-prudential supervisory body be set up for the Ontario, U.S. and U.K. markets to collect systemically important information about hedge funds and to recommend policy changes in light of this information. The paper also reviews the proposed regulatory reforms in the United States that will apply to hedge funds, and argues that while helpful, such regulations are sub-optimal because they do not consider certain important characteristics of systemic risk.

In December of 2010, Costco v. Omega came down from the Supreme Court. The Switzerland-based watchmaker Omega sold Seamaster Collection watches, which were affixed with its copyrighted logo, in the United States as well as in foreign markets. Omega priced watches in the United States market higher than elsewhere. Costco obtained Omega’s watches from a third party that had purchased the watches abroad, then sold them at its membership warehouses for cheaper prices than authorized Omega dealers in the United States. Consequently, Omega sued Costco for copyright infringement. Costco pursued a defense based on the first sale doctrine in response. While from a legal perspective the case was a copyright dispute, this categorization does not make sense from an economic view. Rather, the application of economic models reveals that the core issue in Costco centers about price discrimination, not copyright. This thesis uses a law and economics framework to analyze the facts of and the decision in Costco to determine whether the outcome was welfare maximizing and to assess the implications that the case will have on copyright law in the future.

Part One defends the thesis, first advanced by Aristotle, that the conclusion of practical reasoning is an action, and argues for its philosophical significance. Opposition to the thesis rests on a contestable way of distinguishing between acts and contents of reasoning and on a picture of normative principles as external to the actions that fall under them. The resulting view forces us to choose between the efficacious, world-changing character of practical thought and its subjection to objective rational standards. This is a false choice. Aristotle's own understanding of the thesis points the way to an alternative conception of practical reason on which it is at once a power to effect changes in the world and to get things right. Practical reasoning endows the action performed on its basis with a principle that is not imposed on it from outside: instead, it makes the action what it is. Properly understood in terms of the relevant acts of a rational subject, the thesis is defensible and philosophically attractive. Furthermore, it helps us understand the continuity and discontinuity that exists between the motions of human beings and those of other animals, as Aristotle showed. / Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-163). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--2002. / Title from initial PDF page image (viewed Dec. 13, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisors: Maxwell Stinchcombe and R. Preston McAfee. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.