Strategic R&D policy under multiproduct duopoly and quality-price competition

This paper analyses strategic R&D policy in a third-country trade model where multiproduct firms with different production technologies compete in a vertically differentiated market. I show that the optimal R&D policies for both countries are subsidies when the product market is under price competition.     

STRATEGIC TRADE AND DELEGATED COMPETITION WITH ENDOGENOUS QUALITY CHOICE: IS EXPORT POLICY NEEDED?

This paper introduces the relative‐performance contract into a vertically differentiated product market and examines how the optimal trade policy and quality choice respond to the incentive mechanism. We find that the high quality firm makes better use of the delegation than the low quality firm in a cross‐border decentralized model. The main difference between the present paper and the strategic trade theory literature is that in this paper the optimal policy is free trade, which does not depend on whether firms compete by prices or quantities, and on whether the goods are substitutes or full complements.     

Nesting Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation with Location Choices

This study solves a location‐then‐price game in which horizontal and vertical differentiation are combined using an asymmetric distribution of consumers’ taste. Boundary locations are robust when the taste disparity of the population is not large and out‐of‐market locations are not allowed. Firms may have incentives to move either inside or outside the market in other situations, so the equilibrium prices are never differentiated. The restrictions of vertical differentiation under this framework are further examined. A model with the entrance of a vertically differentiated product is also discussed.     

Cost-based access regulation and collusion in a differentiated duopoly

This paper revisits the conventional doctrine that “it is easier to collude among equals”, applied in the context of vertically related markets. In a differentiated duopoly model, we study how cost-based access price regulation may hinder the sustainability of tacit collusion.     

QUALITY DIFFERENTIATION,WELFARE, AND THE MODE OF COMPETITION IN A VERTICALLY DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCT MARKET: A NOTE*

We analyse the implications of quality differences in a vertically differentiated product market for social welfare by employing an endogenous quality choice model. We find that in of Bertrand and Cournot duopolies, the degree of quality differentiation at equilibrium in an unregulated market is larger or smaller, respectively, than that of the socially second‐best optimum. This implies that a reduction in quality difference, respectively, increases or decreases social welfare in the case of Bertrand or Cournot duopolies.     

Process and Product Innovation: Complementarity in a Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with Discrete Consumer Types

This paper examines the complementarity between process and product innovation where process innovation reduces the marginal cost of quality. In the context of a vertically differentiated monopolistic market with discrete consumer types, we investigate how the nature of (fixed versus variable) innovation costs and the distribution of consumers over different types affect the complementarity between process and product innovation. We show that under variable innovation costs a process innovation is more likely to occur alone than both innovations together when taste diversity (or consumer heterogeneity) is not significant and/or when there are more low-type than high-type consumers.     

R&D subsidies in a duopoly market with outsourcing to the rival firm

This paper investigates the effects of a public uniform R&D subsidy policy in a downstream duopoly market in which a nonintegrated firm, which faces a lower marginal cost, outsources inputs from its vertically integrated rival. The findings show that, in this market structure, such a policy has relevant effects largely differentiated between downstream competitors, as it can significantly modify the relative market shares and profitability of competing firms. Unlike the standard Cournot setting augmented with R&D, results show that the subsidy policy can have different (counterintuitive) effects on R&D investments, output, and profits of the vertically integrated producer and the vertically separated firm, which hold in both cases of exogenous and endogenous (optimal) subsidy. Our findings offer some testable implications and suggest that a subsidy policy in a market with outsourcing to a rival should also consider the different effects of this approach on competitors.     

Technological choices and unemployment benefits in a matching model with heterogenous workers

This article aims at understanding the interactions between public policies, such as unemployment benefit systems, and firms’ technological choices. For this purpose, we use a matching model in which workers are vertically differentiated and where the nature of jobs is endogenous. We show that an improvement in unemployment benefits leads to an increase in productivity by making agents more selective and jobs more complex. However, the impact on labour market participation is negative.     

Differentiated Products,Vertical Related Markets,and Optimal Export Policy

This paper studies the optimal export policy in the context of a vertically related industry with differentiated products, and analyzes the effects of the degree of product substitutability and market structure on the determination of such a policy. It is shown that the results obtained in a similar model with homogeneous goods rivalry no longer hold when the goods are differentiated. Indeed, the degree of product substitutability plays an important role in the determination of export policies, and also determines whether a country can be better off under a trade policy war compared to free trade. The use of a differentiated product setting also allows one to compare export policies and countries' welfare levels under both Cournot and Bertrand competition. It is found that the results of the comparison are also sensitive to the degree of product substitutability.     

Newspapers and public grants: A matter of quality

The present paper deals with the issue of newspaper subsidies in a framework of endogenous quality provision. We compare monopoly and duopoly cases in a vertically differentiated model. For monopolies we show that a per‐copy subsidy reduces quality. Conversely, in duopolies in the vertically differentiated model, we show that a state subsidy might increase the quality of the low‐quality newspaper and decrease the quality of the high‐quality newspaper.     

QUALITY AND WELFARE IN MIXED DUOPOLY: EFFECTS OF CAPACITY REDUCTION*

Under rationing of a public service due to its lower price and higher quality, the “privatization” could be regarded as a reduction in the capacity of the public service. We develop a model of mixed duopoly in which the service is vertically differentiated, a public firm is in a Stackelberg leader position, rationing happens, and the market is not covered. In one of two possible cases, it is shown that any reduction in the capacity of a public service will lower total surplus unless the price of the public service is too low and its quality is too high.     

Cross-border mergers in vertically related industries

We construct a tractable model of an oligopolistic industry that allows us to capture the role of the vertical structure in the incentives for and implications of cross-border horizontal mergers. We show that vertical integration can increase the gains from cross-border mergers. We also demonstrate how market concentration interacts with costs in the decision of a relatively efficient foreign firm located in one country (source) to merge with a disintegrated or an integrated firm in another country (target) when the industry is vertically related. Absent any merger incentives in an autarkic equilibrium, we demonstrate that vertical integration can raise the incentives for diversification in production and add to the gains from cross-border horizontal mergers. Any additional gain from cross-border horizontal mergers, due to the existence of a vertically integrated production structure, is shown to be sensitive to the relative market concentration across countries. Cross-border mergers will be triggered by a relatively cost-efficient source taking over a disintegrated target when pre-merger competition among the disintegrated firms is relatively intense but, otherwise, the initial target will be a vertically integrated firm.     

Differences in GDP Per Capita and the Share of Intraindustry Trade: The Role of Vertically Differentiated Trade

This paper examines the relationship between per capita GDP differences and bilateral intraindustry trade shares. The relationship is negative in OLS regressions but positive in fixed-effect regressions, and evidence is presented suggesting this is due to the presence of vertically differentiated trade. The paper begins by distinguishing between vertically and horizontally differentiated trade, and then finds a positive and significant relationship between GDP per capita differences and the trade shares only in the regressions on the vertically differentiated trade shares. It is shown also that the extent to which income distributions overlap affects only the share of vertically differentiated trade.     

Wage bargaining and vertical differentiation

This paper applies the Nash Bargaining solution to wage setting in a vertically differentiated oligopoly and studies its welfare effects. The market outcome crucially depends on the bargaining power attributed to the agents. I show that the wage bargaining structure is likely to lead to another source of inefficiency that adds to the classical one derived by oligopoly pricing and quality choice. (JEL: L11, J51)     

Advertising bans and product demand: how does marketing affect demand for a differentiated product?

Applied economists have made extensive use of product category time series studies to investigate the effects that an advertising ban might have on markets for potentially harmful products such as tobacco and alcohol. This paper argues that such studies can cast little light on the question, partly because they contain no plausible hypothesis of how advertising influences demand in a market for differentiated products. This paper extracts such an hypothesis from literature on the psychology of consumer behaviour, and uses it in simple economic model of a differentiated product market. The analytical results are sensitive to the precise assumptions made about the competitive structure of the market. This apparently negative conclusion is an important warning against making over-generalized predictions about the effects of an advertising ban. Finally, the paper makes several proposals about how its hypothesis could be tested empirically.     

Strategic Product R&D Investment Policy under International Rivalry in the Presence of Demand Spillover Effects

Abstract

We develop a model of product (i.e., quality-improving) research and development (R&D) investment competition in a horizontally differentiated duopoly. In particular, based on a third-country market model, we consider the optimal product R&D investment policy under international rivalry in the presence of demand spillover effects associated with improving the quality level of a product. We show how the optimality of a non-cooperative and a cooperative R&D investment policy depends on the strength of demand spillover effects. Furthermore, we consider the same issues in the case of heterogeneous consumers and alternative utility functions.     

Natural Oligopolies: A Vertical Differentiation Model

This article contains a more complete characterization of conditions under which vertically differentiated markets are or are not natural oligopolies than has been found previously in the literature. Specifically, previous results on markets in which firms have cost functions with constant returns are incomplete; these results are expanded. Moreover, results are provided for markets with firms having increasing or decreasing marginal cost functions.     

Vertical differentiation and collusion: Pruning or proliferation?

In this paper, we tackle the dilemma of pruning versus proliferation in a vertically differentiated oligopoly under the assumption that some firms collude and control both the range of variants for sale and their corresponding prices, likewise a multiproduct firm. We analyse whether pruning emerges and, if so, a fighting brand is marketed. We find that it is always more profitable for colluding firms to adopt a pricing strategy such that some variants are withdrawn from the market. Under pruning, these firms commercialize a fighting brand only when facing competitors in a low-end market.     

On the Social Desirability of Patents for Sequential Innovations in a Vertically Differentiated Market

We consider a market for vertically differentiated goods where firms enter over time, after having developed innovations characterised by different quality levels. We show that patent height and length interact to determine the ultimate emergence of duopoly. In general, imposing quality improvements on later entrants entails the persistence of monopoly, while a duopoly equilibrium emerges when the second innovator is allowed to produce a sufficiently inferior quality and the patent protection granted to the first innovator is not too long-lasting.     

Endogenous Product Differentiation,Market Size and Prices

This paper provides a framework to understand how market size affects firms' investments in product differentiation in a model of monopolistic competition. The theory proposes that consumers' love of variety makes them more sensitive to product differentiation efforts by firms, which leads to more differentiated products in larger markets. The framework also predicts an inverted U ‐shaped effect of trade liberalization on product differentiation, with trade liberalization leading to more differentiated products when starting from autarky but then leading to less differentiated products as the countries approach free trade.