Choice of Product Variety for the Durable Goods Monopolist
Abstract
This paper analyzes the strategic choice of variety by a monopolist seller of a durable good as a means to mitigate his commitment problem. The monopolist chooses his product variety with a goal of ensuring that a strong reduction in future prices will not be profitable because it allows the firm to attract few additional consumers. The main result that emerges from considering product variety as an endogenous variable is that, contrary to the case in which it is exogenously determined, social welfare is always higher when the monopolist cannot commit that when he can.Download Info
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Paper provided by Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Economía Aplicada III (Econometría y Estadística) in its series BILTOKI with number 1999-02.Length:
Date of creation: Jan 1999
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ehu:biltok:199902
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Postal: Dpto. de Econometría y Estadística, Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad del País Vasco, Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre 83, 48015 Bilbao, Spain
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Related research
Keywords: durable goods monopolist; commitment; product variety;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Monopoly
- L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-1999-05-03 (All new papers)
- NEP-IND-1999-05-03 (Industrial Organization)
- NEP-MIC-1999-05-03 (Microeconomics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-49, April.
- d'Aspremont, C & Gabszewicz, Jean Jaskold & Thisse, J-F, 1979. "On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1145-50, September.
- Malueg, David A. & Solow, John L., 1987. "On requiring the durable goods monopolist to sell," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 283-288.
- Kahn, Charles M, 1986. "The Durable Goods Monopolist and Consistency with Increasing Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 275-94, March.
- Malueg, David A & Solow, John L, 1989. "A Note on Welfare in the Durable-Goods Monopoly," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 56(224), pages 523-27, November.
- Butz, David A, 1990. "Durable-Good Monopoly and Best-Price Provisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1062-76, December.
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