The spokes model of nonlocalised spatial competition provides a new analytical tool for differentiated oligopoly and a representation of spatial monopolistic competition. An increase in the number of firms leads to lower equilibrium prices when consumers have relatively high product valuations, but, surprisingly, to higher equilibrium prices for intermediate consumer valuations. New entry alters consumer and social welfare through price, market expansion, and matching effects. With free entry, the market may provide too many or too few varieties from a social welfare perspective, and the equilibrium price remains above marginal cost even when the number of firms is arbitrarily large. Copyright 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2007.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 117 (2007) Issue (Month): 522 (07) Pages: 897-921 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)