Technology products markets are often characterized expectations of decreasing prices. We model a sequential sales process in a market wherein each transaction prices sets an upper bound on the next and use our model to analyze the selling strategy of a product distributor selling for a manufacturer. This model offers a rationale for price maintenance policies implemented by the manufacturer as a means of preventing premature exit by the distributor. (Joint work with Prof. Steven Lippman, UCLA.)

Collaboration governs many work processes, especially in business-to-business services. In this paper, we study when collaboration takes place in a collaborative project, and how the dynamics of collaboration are affected by the project deadline, the verifiability of efforts, and the type of contract adopted by the parties involved in the project. Modeling the work process as a dynamic stochastic game between two parties, we show that, if the parties could verify each other's efforts, collaboration would arise when the project is nearly completed, either because it has reached a high state or because there is limited time left before the deadline. When efforts are not verifiable, the dynamics of collaboration strongly depend on the type of contract: Revenue-sharing contracts yield less collaboration and lower output than if efforts were verifiable; fixed-wage contracts do not induce collaboration near the project deadline; and linear-wage contracts never lead to collaboration.