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The Max-Min-Min Principle of Product Differentiation

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Author Info
Asim Ansari (Graduate School of Business, Columbia University)
Nicholas Economides (Stern School of Business, New York University)
Joel Steckel (Stern School of Business, New York University)

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Abstract

We analyze two and three-dimensional variants of Hotelling's model of differentiated products. In our setup, consumers can place different importance on each product attribute; this is measured by a weight in the disutility of distance in each dimension. Two firms play a two-stage game; they choose locations in stage 1 and prices in stage 2. We seek subgame-perfect equilibria. We find that all such equilibria have maximal differentiation in one dimension only; in all other dimensions, they have minimum differentiation. An equilibrium with maximal differentiation in a certain dimension occurs when consumers place sufficient importance (weight) on that attribute. Thus, depending on the importance consumers place on each attribute, in two dimensions there is a max-min equilibrium, a min-max equilibrium, or both. In three dimensions, depending on the weights, there can be a max-min-min equilibrium, a min-max-min equilibrium, a min-min-max equilibrium, any two of them, or all three.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Industrial Organization with number 9702001.

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Length: 36 pages
Date of creation: 05 Feb 1997
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:9702001

Note: Type of Document - PDF/PostScript; prepared on IBM; to print on HP; pages: 36; figures: included at the end. forthcoming, Journal of Regional Science (1997)
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L - Industrial Organization

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Green, Paul E & Srinivasan, V, 1978. " Conjoint Analysis in Consumer Research: Issues and Outlook," Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 103-23, Se.
  3. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Economides, Nicholas, 1986. "Minimal and maximal product differentiation in Hotelling's duopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 67-71. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Economides, Nicholas, 1989. "Symmetric equilibrium existence and optimality in differentiated product markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 178-194, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Economides, Nicholas, 1984. "The principle of minimum differentiation revisited," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 345-368, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 1994. "Two-stage two-dimensional spatial competition between two firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 207-227, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Neven, Damien, 1985. "Two Stage (Perfect) Equilibrium in Hotelling's Model," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 317-25, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Economides, Nicholas, 1993. "Quality variations in the circular model of variety-differentiated products," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 235-257, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Olivier Coibion & Liran Einav & Juan Carlos Hallak, 2006. "Equilibrium Demand Elasticities across Quality Segments," Working Papers 550, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Duarte Brito & Pedro Pereira, 2007. "Product Differentiation when Competing with the Suppliers of Bottleneck Inputs," Working Papers 25, Portuguese Competition Authority. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Maarten C.W. Janssen & Vladimir A. Karamychev & Peran van Reeven, 2003. "Multi-Store Competition: Market Segmentation or Interlacing?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-033/1, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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