IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jincot/v6y2006i3p183-193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Robustness of the High-Quality Advantage under Vertical Differentiation

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Schmidt

Abstract

The idea that the high-quality provider in a vertically differentiated duopoly earns the higher profit (the so-called “high-quality advantage”) appears to be an established fact among economists. This note shows that the high-quality advantage is not a robust feature of vertical differentiation models. A low-quality advantage can be predicted under perfectly plausible assumptions, such as a concave utility–quality and/or a convex unit cost–quality relation. The existence of a high- or a low-quality advantage depends on the nature of the firms’ strategic interaction. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Schmidt, 2006. "On the Robustness of the High-Quality Advantage under Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 183-193, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jincot:v:6:y:2006:i:3:p:183-193
    DOI: 10.1007/s10842-006-0029-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10842-006-0029-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10842-006-0029-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heidrun C. Hoppe & Ulrich Lehmann‐Grube, 2001. "Second‐Mover Advantages in Dynamic Quality Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 419-433, September.
    2. Ulrich Lehmann-Grube, 1997. "Strategic Choice of Quality When Quality is Costly: The Persistence of the High-Quality Advantage," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(2), pages 372-384, Summer.
    3. Reiko Aoki, 2003. "Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 21(2), pages 653-672, March.
    4. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    5. Champsaur, Paul & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1989. "Multiproduct Duopolists," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 533-557, May.
    6. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    7. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    8. Crampes, Claude & Hollander, Abraham, 1995. "Duopoly and quality standards," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 71-82, January.
    9. Wauthy, Xavier, 1996. "Quality Choice in Models of Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 345-353, September.
    10. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1983. "Natural Oligopolies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1469-1483, September.
    11. Uri Ronnen, 1991. "Minimum Quality Standards, Fixed Costs, and Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(4), pages 490-504, Winter.
    12. Choi, Chong Ju & Shin, Hyun Song, 1992. "A Comment on a Model of Vertical Product Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 229-231, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yi-Ling Cheng & Shin-Kun Peng, 2012. "Quality and Quantity Competition in a Multiproduct Duopoly," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(1), pages 180-202, July.
    2. George Geronikolaou, 2018. "A Note on Vertical Differentiation of Durable Goods: Sellers, Renters and Moral Hazard," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 97-106, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Buehler, Benno & Schuett, Florian, 2014. "Certification and minimum quality standards when some consumers are uninformed," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 493-511.
    2. Schmidt, Robert C., 2009. "Welfare in differentiated oligopolies with more than two firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 501-507, July.
    3. Stefan Napel & Gunnar Oldehaver, 2011. "A dynamic perspective on minimum quality standards under Cournot competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 29-49, February.
    4. Stefan Napel & Gunnar Oldehaver, 2007. "Static Costs vs. Dynamic Benefits of a Minimum Quality Standard under Cournot Competition," Discussion Papers 23, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    5. Michael Kuhn, "undated". "Low Quality Leadership in Vertically Differentiated Duopoly," Discussion Papers 00/38, Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Gregory S. Amacher & Erkki Koskela & Markku Ollikainen, 2005. "Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 391-405, October.
    7. José Luis Moraga Gonzales & Jean-Marie Viaene, 2001. "Trade and Industrial Policy of Transition Economies," CESifo Working Paper Series 446, CESifo.
    8. Pei‐Cheng Liao, 2008. "A Note On Market Coverage In Vertical Differentiation Models With Fixed Costs," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 27-44, January.
    9. Sreya Kolay & Rajeev K. Tyagi, 2022. "On the Effects of Raised Rival’s Costs," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 60(4), pages 567-586, June.
    10. Nathan H. Miller, 2008. "Competition When Consumers Value Firm Scope," EAG Discussions Papers 200807, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    11. Ralph Siebert, 1999. "Credible Vertical Preemption," CIG Working Papers FS IV 99-20, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG), revised Jul 2003.
    12. Francisco Martínez-Sánchez, 2007. "Why Does The Pirate Decide To Be The Leader In Prices?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2007-01, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    13. Kuhn, Michael, 2007. "Minimum quality standards and market dominance in vertically differentiated duopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 275-290, April.
    14. M. Alvisi, 2000. "Quality Choice, Fixed Costs and Equilibrium in Models of Vertical Differentiation ," Working Papers 437, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    15. Ralph Siebert, 1999. "The Impact of R&D Subsidies on the Introduction of New Products by Incumbent Firms old title -(New Product Introduction by Incumbent Firms)," CIG Working Papers FS IV 99-19, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG), revised Aug 2003.
    16. Cédric Argenton, 2010. "Exclusive Quality," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 690-716, September.
    17. Ya‐chin Wang & Leonard F.s. Wang, 2009. "Equivalence Of Competition Mode In A Vertically Differentiated Duopoly With Delegation," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(4), pages 577-590, December.
    18. Wang, X. Henry & Yang, Bill Z., 2001. "Mixed-strategy equilibria in a quality differentiation model," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 213-226, January.
    19. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose Luis & Viaene, Jean-Marie, 2005. "Trade policy and quality leadership in transition economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 359-385, February.
    20. Morita, Hodaka & Nguyen, Xuan, 2021. "FDI and quality-enhancing technology spillovers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    vertical differentiation; high-quality advantage; maximum differentiation; covered market equilibrium; non-linearity; L13; L15;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jincot:v:6:y:2006:i:3:p:183-193. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.