TALKING,SEARCHING, AND PRICING*

I study the implications of interpersonal communication for incentives for consumers to acquire information and firms’ pricing behavior. Firms market a homogeneous product and choose its price; consumers acquire price information at some cost to themselves. Also, each consumer accesses the information acquired by a sample of other consumers—interpersonal communication. An exogenous increase in the level of interpersonal communication decreases the information that consumers acquire, and, when search costs are low, firms price less aggressively. In an extension, consumers may choose to invest in interpersonal communication at some cost. A decrease in the costs of interpersonal communication decreases firms’ competition.     

Platform intermediation in a market for differentiated products

We study a two-sided market where a platform attracts firms selling differentiated products and buyers interested in those products. In the subgame perfect equilibrium of the game, the platform fully internalises the network externalities present in the market and firms and consumers all participate in the platform with probability one. The monopolist intermediary extracts all the economic rents generated in the market, except when firms and consumers can trade outside the platform, in which case consumers obtain a rent that corresponds to the utility they would get if they did trade outside the platform. The market allocation is constraint-efficient in the sense that the monopoly platform does not introduce distortions over and above those arising from the market power of the differentiated product sellers. An increase in the number of retailers increases the amount of variety in the platform but at the same time increases competition. As a result, the platform lowers the firm fees and raises the consumer charges. In contrast, an increase in the extent of product differentiation raises the value of the platform for the consumers but weakens competition. In this case, the platform raises both the charge to the consumers and the fee for the firms.     

Can a decline in search cost increase prices?

This paper provides a new explanation of why a decline in consumers’ price search cost may not lead to lower prices. In a duopoly with price competition, I show that when some consumers are captive to one firm, there may be a non‐monotonic relationship between search cost and market power; firms may charge high prices with higher probability and the average price charged may be higher when consumers’ price search cost falls below a critical level. Furthermore, when firms have asymmetric captive segments, expected prices charged by each firm may move in opposite directions as search cost declines.     

Regulation,Local Monopolies and Spatial Competition

Many regulated industries involve an oligopoly market structure. We examine optimal incentive regulation for a duopoly model of spatial competition when firms have private cost information. Market structure is endogenous as regulation determines market segments for firms and output distribution across consumers in each firm's market. By varying the assignment of consumers to firms, a relatively more efficient firm can be rewarded with a larger market, thus reducing quantity incentive distortions. We derive the optimal policy, assess the impact of asymmetric information relative to full information, and examine extensions to allow for ex ante asymmetries in firm structure.     

The “Dark Side” of Deregulation: How Competition Affects the Size of the Shadow Economy

This paper builds a theory that explains the dramatic expansion of the underground economy in the late 1990s by the sharp increase in market competition worldwide. I model an oligopoly game where firms first decide on entry and sector, and then compete in price. Operating in the underground sector reduces variable costs, but comes at the risk of being detected and fined. As competition intensifies (i.e., as consumers become more and more price‐sensitive), underground firms attract more demand, thus stealing business and profits from official firms. As a consequence, more firms enter the underground economy. A lenient policy toward the underground economy may increase welfare when markups are high, but will be welfare‐detrimental when markups are low.     

Minimum safety standard,consumers’ information and competition

This paper explores the effects of a standard influencing care choice with an endogenous market structure. Under duopoly, firms compete either in prices or in quantities. Firm(s) may increase the probability of offering safe products by incurring a cost. A standard may correct a safety underinvestment by firms. It is shown that the market structure (duopoly or monopoly) linked to the standard depends on the available information. Under perfect information about safety for consumers, the selected standard is always compatible with competition. The absence of standard due to safety overinvestment by firms only emerges under competition in quantities and a relatively low cost of safety improvement. Under imperfect information about safety for consumers, the selected standard often leads to a monopoly situation, essential for covering the cost of safety improvement. However, for relatively high values of this cost, a standard cannot impede the market failure arising from the lack of information.      

Price competition and innovation in markets with brand loyalty

Intuition suggests that in markets with consumer lock-in (‘brand loyalty’), firms with a large customer base earn higher profits. We show for a homogeneous goods duopoly that the intuition can be misleading, as the intensity of price competition depends on the initial market split. We derive mixed-strategy equilibria, and show that competition is often most intense when the market is split evenly. As a result, firms coordinate on an asymmetric split when consumers are not yet attached to firms. We also allow for asymmetric costs, and analyze when firms with a larger customer base are more eager to innovate.     

企业差异化战略对价格和质量竞争博弈均衡解的影响研究

消费者在购买商品时不仅考虑商品价格而且还要考虑商品质量水平的需求市场,如果存在两寡头企业提供某商品,必然会导致价格和质量的竞争博弈。本文研究表明:为了达到纳什均衡状态,两企业必须采取一定的差异化策略。而且在均衡状态下,如果市场是价格敏感市场,企业的差异化程度越高,对企业和消费者都越有利;如果市场是质量敏感市场,当敏感程度相对很低时,企业的差异化程度越高,对企业和消费者也都越有利;当敏感程度一般时企业可选择适当的差异化程度使得企业和消费者同时达到最大的均衡利润;但当敏感度非常高,企业差异化程度越高对企业的均衡利润越大,可对消费者的均衡利润却越小。     

Do exclusivity arrangements harm consumers?

This paper explores the ramifications of exclusivity arrangements, e.g., iPhone’s partnership with wireless carriers, for market competition and consumer welfare. Two firms compete in a primary good market, and a monopolistic firm offers a value-adding good. The primary good can be consumed alone, while the value-adding good must be consumed with the primary good. The monopolistic firm forms an exclusivity partnership with one of the primary good providers. Buyers are able to consume the value-adding good only if they patronize the monopolistic firm’s exclusive partner. This practice allows the monopolistic firm to extract surplus from the primary good market. Surprisingly, consumers benefit from the exclusivity arrangement. However, overall social welfare declines, despite improvements to consumer welfare.     

DOUBLE‐SIDED ADVERSE SELECTION IN THE PRODUCT MARKET AND THE ROLE OF THE INSURANCE MARKET*

I investigate the interrelation between a product market and an insurance market when adverse‐selection problems exist both in consumers and in firms. Firms offer warranties for product failures. Consumers may further purchase first‐party insurance for the residual risks of product failures. Given that the insurance market exists, two types of equilibria are possible: (a) Different firm types offer different pooling warranties attracting both good and bad consumer types or (b) good firms attract only bad consumers and bad firms attract both types of consumers. I discuss the existence and the efficiency implication of the insurance market.     

Stakeholders’ relationships and product market competition

In this article, we study the relationships between main stakeholders (shareholders, consumers and employees) when firms are consumer oriented (CO) in the sense of caring about consumers’ interests in the objective function. We let these firms first bargain with labour union over their employees’ wages and then compete either in the quantity space (Cournot competition) or in the price space (Bertrand competition). Our model shows that taking care of the consumers’ interests when determining product market strategies may reverse the traditional ranking between Cournot and Bertrand equilibria. This implies that if shareholders in a CO firm can choose either a quantity or a price strategy, they will surprisingly choose the latter. Moreover, we show that the conflicting interests between main stakeholders are attenuated under Bertrand competition compared to Cournot competition.     

Market share dynamics in a duopoly model with word-of-mouth communication

We analyze dynamic price competition in a homogeneous goods duopoly, where consumers exchange information via word-of-mouth communication. A fraction of consumers, who do not learn any new information, remain locked-in at their previous supplier in each period. We analyze Markov perfect equilibria in which firms use mixed pricing strategies. Market share dynamics are driven by the endogenous price dispersion. Depending on the parameters, we obtain different ‘classes’ of dynamics. When firms are impatient, there is a tendency towards equal market shares. When firms are patient, there are extended intervals of market dominance, interrupted by sudden changes in the leadership position.     

Location choices and third‐degree spatial price discrimination

This paper studies how firms choose their product differentiation levels when they engage in third‐degree price discrimination in the following product market competition in a location‐price model. We show that firms will not choose to locate at the two endpoints if different consumer groups have similar sizes. Hence, the principle of maximum differentiation does not hold, resulting in a more intense product market price competition. Only if the size of one group of consumers is sufficiently larger than that of the other group, would firms make their products as differentiated as possible by choosing the two endpoints as their locations.     

Minimum quality standard regulation under imperfect quality observability

Minimum quality standards (MQS) constitute an important regulatory tool that can be used to raise product qualities, to benefit consumers and to increase market participation. One of the main assumptions in the existing literature is that firms must comply with standards. Nevertheless, in many industries, and in particular the service industry, quality observability and enforceability are not perfect. Some low quality firms do not comply with standards. What are the welfare implications of an MQS regulation in such an environment? We develop a price competition model of vertical differentiation that accounts for these empirical observations. Contrary to well-established results in the literature, MQS can increase quality disparity between firms and raise hedonic prices. Some consumers get hurt and market participation decreases.     

GOVERNANCE AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION IN TEAM SPORTS

Antitrust law distinguishes vertical and horizontal restraints. A horizontal restraint is one which exists between competing firms supplying rival products in a market, and a vertical restraint is one which exists between firms that jointly contribute to supplying a particular product in a market. Horizontal agreements receive much closer antitrust scrutiny because they often enable firms to limit competition at the expense of consumers, while vertical restraints may be legal or illegal depending on whether they tend to enhance or reduce competition or the exploitation of market power. This paper argues that there are important vertical restraints that operate in sports leagues which have been mostly neglected in the literature but have a significant impact. We focus on intraleague restraints, where member clubs of a league agree to control the organization of league competition, and interleague restraints, where horizontal agreement such as the Reserve Clause relies on agreements not to compete for players competing in senior or junior leagues. ( JEL L83, L42, L44)     

A note on the Hotelling principle of minimum differentiation: Imitation and crowd

This paper investigates price competition in the Hotelling location model with linear transportation costs when consumer preferences are affected by the number of consumers shopping at the same store. A consumption externality permits us to consider the imitation and the congestion effects which are opposite forces at work. The coexistence of the two effects confers new validity to the principle of minimum differentiation as it was in the original Hotelling model. I show that firms do not need to set apart in order to earn higher profits. The results show firms endogenously choosing to locate in the center of the interval sharing the market with positive prices.     

The Influence of a Neighbouring Market on Product Qualities and Prices

This paper analyses a model of vertical product differentiation in which there is a primary market with two firms and a secondary market with no firms. Consumers in the secondary market incur a cost when purchasing the product from the primary market. The firms sequentially choose product quality and then simultaneously choose prices. Firm 1 always chooses the maximum quality, while firm 2's quality and the prices depend on the cost. Also, the cost determines which firm(s), if either, serves the secondary market. It is shown that the firms and the consumers of each market prefer different levels of costs.     

Microcredit market structure and financing obstacles for micro firms

Using rich survey data of micro firms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, I analze the effect of recent changes in microcredit market structure on perceived financing obstacles. Controlling for country, time and firm characteristics, lower microcredit market concentration is associated with firms reporting financing as a more severe obstacle to their operations. This indicates that rising competition between microfinance institutions may have led to reduced financial access. The results are consistent with information‐based theoretical predictions that lenders with less market power have weaker incentives to invest in lending relationships with opaque firms and that greater competition aggravates borrower screening.     

Biased managers with network externalities

In network industry under Cournot and Bertrand competition, we examine a model when owners of firms hire biased managers who have incorrect market demand. Contrast to previous studies, we show that (i) regardless of the strength of network externalities when consumers form the responsive and passive expectations, owners realize strategic advantage by hiring biased managers to be more aggressive under Cournot and Bertrand competition, (ii) firms prefer facing passive expectations for the weak network externalities and vice versa for the strong network exteranlities under Bertrand and Cournot competition, (iii) if the network size is sufficiently large, then the prisoner's dilemma that firms hire aggressive managers no longer exists under both competition modes. As with no delegation case, we obtain the different rankings of firms' profit depending on both network externalities and forming of expectations under Cournot and Bertrand competition.