Can Rivalry Increase Prices?
Abstract
Spatially differentiated duopolists set higher-than-monopoly prices at some distances. This phenomenon is shown to occur in any finite- dimensional space for a class of reservation prices that covers concavity and convexity in perceived distance from a design. But an upper bound on the equilibrium duopoly price converges monotonically and quickly to the monopoly price in dimensionality. If consumers care about sufficiently many features of the product (a very small number of criteria is enough), monopoly nearly leads to an extreme price.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Microeconomics with number 0509007.Length: 39 pages
Date of creation: 26 Sep 2005
Date of revision: 27 Sep 2005
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0509007
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 39
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://128.118.178.162
Related research
Keywords: price effect of competition; multidimensional product spaces; duopoly pricing; spatial competition;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - General
- D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
- L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
- L43 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Legal Monopolies and Regulation or Deregulation
- C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2005-10-04 (All new papers)
- NEP-COM-2005-10-04 (Industrial Competition)
- NEP-IND-2005-10-04 (Industrial Organization)
- NEP-MIC-2005-10-04 (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.:
- Capozza, Dennis R & Van Order, Robert, 1977. "Pricing under Spatial Competition and Spatial Monopoly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(6), pages 1329-38, September.
- Greenhut, M L & Hwang, M & Ohta, H, 1975. "Observations on the Shape and Relevance of the Spatial Demand Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(4), pages 669-82, July.
- Irmen, Andreas & Thisse, Jacques-François, 1996.
"Competition in Multi-characteristics Spaces: Hotelling was Almost Right,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
1446, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Irmen, Andreas & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1998. "Competition in Multi-characteristics Spaces: Hotelling Was Almost Right," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 76-102, January.
- Andreas IRMEN & Jean-François THISSE, 1996. "Competition in Multi-Characteristics Spaces: Hotelling Was Almost Right," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 9613, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP.
- IRMEN, Andreas & THISSE, Jacques-Francois, 1997. "Competition in multi-characteristics spaces: hotelling was almost right," CORE Discussion Papers 1997053, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
- Capozza, Dennis R & Van Order, Robert, 1978. "A Generalized Model of Spatial Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 896-908, December.
- Feenstra, Robert C & Levinsohn, James A, 1995. "Estimating Markups and Market Conduct with Multidimensional Product Attributes," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 19-52, January.
- Grandmont, Jean-Michel, 1978. "Intermediate Preferences and the Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(2), pages 317-30, March.
- Novshek, William & Sonnenschein, Hugo, 1979. "Marginal Consumers and Neoclassical Demand Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1368-76, December.
- Nicholas Economides, 1986. "Nash Equilibrium in Duopoly with Products Defined by Two Characteristics," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(3), pages 431-439, Autumn.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0509007For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (EconWPA).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

