IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1302.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Entry and Vertical Differentiation

Author

Abstract

This paper analyzes the entry of new products into vertically differentiated markets where an entrant and an incumbent compete in quantities. The value of the new product is initially uncertain and new information is generated through purchases in the market. We derive the (unique) Markov perfect equilibrium of the infinite horizon game under the strong long run average payoff criterion. The qualitative features of the optimal entry strategy are shown to depend exclusively on the relative ranking of established and new products based on current beliefs. Superior products are launched relatively slowly and at high initial prices whereas substitutes for existing products are launched aggressively at low initial prices. The robustness of these results with respect to different model specifications is discussed. Classification-JEL: C72, C73, D43, D83 Keywords: Entry, Duopoly, Quantity Competition, Vertical Differentiation, Bayesian Learning,Markov Perfect Equilibrium, Experimentation, Experience Goods

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Bergemann & Valimaki Juuso, 2001. "Entry and Vertical Differentiation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1302, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1302
    Note: CFP 1056.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d13/d1302.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton & Christopher Harris & Bruno Jullien, 1991. "Optimal Learning by Experimentation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(4), pages 621-654.
    2. Aghion, Philippe & Espinosa, Maria Paz & Jullien, Bruno, 1993. "Dynamic Duopoly with Learning through Market Experimentation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 3(3), pages 517-539, July.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 1997. "Market Diffusion with Two-Sided Learning," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 773-795, Winter.
    4. Rothschild, Michael, 1974. "A two-armed bandit theory of market pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 185-202, October.
    5. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    6. Kenneth L. Judd & Michael H. Riordan, 1994. "Price and Quality in a New Product Monopoly," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 773-789.
    7. Richard Ericson & Ariel Pakes, 1995. "Markov-Perfect Industry Dynamics: A Framework for Empirical Work," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82.
    8. 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.
    9. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    10. Esther Gal-Or, 1983. "Quality and Quantity Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 590-600, Autumn.
    11. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "The Ignorant Monopolist: Optimal Learning with Endogenous Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 565-581, August.
    12. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    13. Mirman, Leonard J & Samuelson, Larry & Urbano, Amparo, 1993. "Monopoly Experimentation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 549-563, August.
    14. McLennan, Andrew, 1984. "Price dispersion and incomplete learning in the long run," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 331-347, September.
    15. Dutta, P.K., 1991. "What Do Discounted Optima Converge To? A Theory of Discount Rate Asymptotics in Economic Models," RCER Working Papers 264, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    16. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    17. Harrington Jr. , Joseph E., 1995. "Experimentation and Learning in a Differentiated-Products Duopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 275-288, June.
    18. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1983. "Natural Oligopolies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1469-1483, September.
    19. Godfrey Keller & Sven Rady, 1998. "Market Experimentation in a Dynamic Differentiated-Goods Duopoly," Game Theory and Information 9810001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Aug 1999.
    20. Patrick Bolton & Christopher Harris, 1999. "Strategic Experimentation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 349-374, March.
    21. Andrew Ching, 2000. "Dynamic Equilibrium in the US Prescription Drug Market After Patent Expiration," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1242, Econometric Society.
    22. Easley, David & Kiefer, Nicholas M, 1988. "Controlling a Stochastic Process with Unknown Parameters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1045-1064, September.
    23. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1980. "Entry (and exit) in a differentiated industry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 327-338, April.
    24. Prescott, Edward C, 1972. "The Multi-Period Control Problem Under Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(6), pages 1043-1058, November.
    25. McFadden, Daniel L & Train, Kenneth E, 1996. "Consumers' Evaluation of New Products: Learning from Self and Others," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 683-703, August.
    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. Alessandro Bonatti, 2008. "Continuous-Time Screening Contracts," 2008 Meeting Papers 493, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Alfranca, Oscar & Lemarie, Stephane, 2003. "Analysing Competition Between Seed Varieties: An Application To Hybrid Corn Seed In France," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22238, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Tamini, Lota D., 2012. "Optimal quality choice under uncertainty on market development," MPRA Paper 40845, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bauner, Christoph & Liu, Zexuan, 2022. "Incumbents’ pricing and nonpricing responses to entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    5. Axel Anderson & Luís M. B. Cabral, 2007. "Go for broke or play it safe? Dynamic competition with choice of variance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(3), pages 593-609, September.
    6. Krahmer, Daniel, 2003. "Entry and experimentation in oligopolistic markets for experience goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1201-1213, October.
    7. Hoppe, Heidrun C. & Lehmann-Grube, Ulrich, 2005. "Innovation timing games: a general framework with applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 30-50, March.
    8. Keller, Godfrey & Rady, Sven, 2020. "Undiscounted bandit games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 43-61.
    9. Weng, Xi, 2015. "Dynamic pricing in the presence of individual learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 262-299.
    10. Kolb, Aaron M., 2015. "Optimal entry timing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 973-1000.
    11. Krähmer, Daniel, 2002. "Entry and experimentation in oligopolistic markets for experience goods [Markteintritt und Experimentation in oligopolistischen Märkten für Erfahrungsgüter]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance FS IV 02-13, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    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. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 1999. "Entry and Innovation in Vertically Differentiated Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1226, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Fishman, Arthur & Rob, Rafael, 1998. "Experimentation and Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 299-320, February.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 1997. "Market Diffusion with Two-Sided Learning," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 773-795, Winter.
    4. Schlee, Edward E., 2001. "Buyer experimentation and introductory pricing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 347-362, March.
    5. Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Learning by doing and the value of optimal experimentation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 501-534, April.
    6. Mason, Robin & Välimäki, Juuso, 2011. "Learning about the arrival of sales," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1699-1711, July.
    7. Heski Bar-Isaac, 2001. "Self-Confidence and Survival," FMG Discussion Papers dp395, Financial Markets Group.
    8. Christos Koulovatianos & Leonard J. Mirman & Marc Santugini, 2006. "Investment in a Monopoly with Bayesian Learning," Vienna Economics Papers 0603, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    9. Günter J. Hitsch, 2006. "An Empirical Model of Optimal Dynamic Product Launch and Exit Under Demand Uncertainty," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(1), pages 25-50, 01-02.
    10. Godfrey Keller & Sven Rady, 1998. "Market Experimentation in a Dynamic Differentiated-Goods Duopoly," Game Theory and Information 9810001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Aug 1999.
    11. Chade, Hector & Schlee, Edward, 2002. "Another Look at the Radner-Stiglitz Nonconcavity in the Value of Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 421-452, December.
    12. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    13. Cellini, Roberto & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2018. "A dynamic model of quality competition with endogenous prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-206.
    14. Brekke, Kurt R. & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2010. "Price and quality in spatial competition," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 471-480, November.
    15. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Välimäki, 2000. "Experimentation in Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(2), pages 213-234.
    16. Langinier Corinne & Babcock Bruce A., 2008. "Agricultural Production Clubs: Viability and Welfare Implications," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-31, December.
    17. R. Cellini & L. Lambertini & A. Sterlacchini, 2009. "Managerial incentive and the firms' propensity to invest in product and process innovation," Working Papers 655, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    18. De Fraja, Giovanni, 1996. "Product line competition in vertically differentiated markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 389-414, May.
    19. Koulovatianos, Christos & Mirman, Leonard J. & Santugini, Marc, 2009. "Optimal growth and uncertainty: Learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 280-295, January.
    20. Nizovtsev, Dmitri & Novshek, William, 2004. "Money-back guarantees and market experimentation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 983-996, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    entry; duopoly; quantity competition; vertical differentiation; bayesian learning; markov perfect equilibrium; experimentation; experience goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwl:cwldpp:1302. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    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.