IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urnsici0932-4569(201406)1702_225tmoagt_2.0.tx_2-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Too Much of a Good Thing? Welfare Consequences of Market Transparency

Author

Listed:
  • Yiquan Gu
  • Burkhard Hehenkamp

Abstract

This paper studies welfare consequences of consumer-side market transparency with endogenous entry of firms. Different from most studies, we consider the unique symmetric entry equilibrium, which is in mixed strategies. We identify two effects of market transparency on welfare: a competition effect and a novel market-structure effect. We show, surprisingly, that for almost all demand functions the negative market-structure effect eventually dominates the positive competition effect as the market becomes increasingly transparent. Consumer-side market transparency can therefore be socially excessive even without collusion. The only exception among commonly used demand functions is the set of constant demand functions.

Suggested Citation

  • Yiquan Gu & Burkhard Hehenkamp, 2014. "Too Much of a Good Thing? Welfare Consequences of Market Transparency," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 170(2), pages 225-248, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201406)170:2_225:tmoagt_2.0.tx_2-z
    DOI: 10.1628/093245613X13895979380392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/too-much-of-a-good-thing-welfare-consequences-of-market-transparency-101628093245614x13895979380392
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1628/093245613X13895979380392?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. Boone, Jan & Pottersz, Jan, 2006. "Transparency and prices with imperfect substitutes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 398-404, December.
    2. Albaek, Svend & Mollgaard, Peter & Overgaard, Per B, 1997. "Government-Assisted Oligopoly Coordination? A Concrete Case," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 429-443, December.
    3. Zhou, Jidong, 2009. "Prominence and Consumer Search: The Case With Multiple Prominent Firms," MPRA Paper 12554, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers & Jidong Zhou, 2009. "Prominence and consumer search," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 209-233, June.
    5. Johan Stennek, 1997. "Coordination in Oligopoly," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 541-554, December.
    6. Svend Albæk & Peter Møllgaard & Per B. Overgaard, 1997. "Government‐Assisted Oligopoly Coordination? A Concrete Case," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 429-443, December.
    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. Jeannette Brosig‐Koch & Burkhard Hehenkamp & Johanna Kokot, 2023. "Who benefits from quality competition in health care? A theory and a laboratory experiment on the relevance of patient characteristics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(8), pages 1785-1817, August.
    2. Xu, Lili & Matsumura, Toshihiro, 2023. "Market transparency in a mixed oligopoly," MPRA Paper 118415, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Martin, Simon, 2020. "Market transparency and consumer search - Evidence from the German retail gasoline market," DICE Discussion Papers 350, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    2. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 2003. "Entry in telecommunication: customer loyalty, price sensitivity and access prices," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 55-72, March.
    3. Michael Gmeiner, 2019. "Seasonal Demand and Net Entry," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1135-1143.
    4. Liliane Karlinger, 2008. "How Demand Information Can Destabilize a Cartel," Vienna Economics Papers 0803, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    5. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2000. "Does information about competitors' actions increase or decrease competition in experimental oligopoly markets?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 39-57, January.
    6. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.
    7. Ethan M. J. Lieber, 2017. "Does It Pay to Know Prices in Health Care?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 154-179, February.
    8. Boone, J. & Potters, J.J.M., 2002. "Transparency, Prices and Welfare with Imperfect Substitutes," Discussion Paper 2002-7, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    9. Kyle Hampton & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2012. "Demand shocks, capacity coordination, and industry performance: lessons from an economic laboratory," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 139-166, March.
    10. Kwon, Illoong & Jun, Daesung, 2015. "Information disclosure and peer effects in the use of antibiotics," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-16.
    11. Christian Lorenz, 2008. "Screening markets for cartel detection: collusive markers in the CFD cartel-audit," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 213-232, October.
    12. Christos Genakos & Pantelis Koutroumpis & Mario Pagliero, 2018. "The Impact of Maximum Markup Regulation on Prices," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 239-300, June.
    13. Sarah Grunewald & Ted C. Schroeder & Clement E. Ward, 2004. "Cattle Feeder Perceptions of Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 26(4), pages 521-538.
    14. Klaus Friesenbichler & George Clarke & Michael Wong, 2014. "Price competition and market transparency: evidence from a random response technique," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 5-21, February.
    15. Guoming Lai & Wenqiang Xiao & Jun Yang, 2012. "Supply Chain Performance Under Market Valuation: An Operational Approach to Restore Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(10), pages 1933-1951, October.
    16. Itai Ater & Oren Rigbi, 2018. "The Effects of Mandatory Disclosure of Supermarket Prices," CESifo Working Paper Series 6942, CESifo.
    17. Porter, Robert H., 2020. "Mergers and coordinated effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    18. Nejat Anbarci & Nick Feltovich, 2018. "Pricing in Competitive Search Markets: The Roles of Price Information and Fairness Perceptions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1101-1120, March.
    19. Iwan Bos & Ronald Peeters & Erik Pot, 2017. "Competition versus collusion: The impact of consumer inertia," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(4), pages 387-400, December.
    20. Ireland, Norman & Waterson, Michael, 2006. "Cartels and Search," Economic Research Papers 269740, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • 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:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201406)170:2_225:tmoagt_2.0.tx_2-z. 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: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    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.