IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v151y2017icp115-118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare-improving vertical separation with network externality

Author

Listed:
  • Choi, Kangsik
  • Lee, DongJoon

Abstract

Considering the interplay between network externalities and the degree of product substitutability in a vertical structure, we compare the outcomes of vertical integration and vertical separation. In contrast to previous results, we show that when both products are sufficiently close substitutes, there is a threshold level of the network externality parameter, beyond which vertical separation is more efficient than vertical integration. This is due to the internalization of the network externality by a multiproduct monopolist, which, in the balance between the extensive and intensive margin, leads to higher output prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Kangsik & Lee, DongJoon, 2017. "Welfare-improving vertical separation with network externality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 115-118.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:151:y:2017:i:c:p:115-118
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.12.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651630533X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.12.024?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. Rey, Patrick & Stiglitz, Joseph, 1988. "Vertical restraints and producers' competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 561-568, March.
    2. Chirco, Alessandra & Scrimitore, Marcella, 2013. "Choosing price or quantity? The role of delegation and network externalities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 482-486.
    3. Chou, Chien-fu & Shy, Oz, 1993. "Partial compatibility and supporting services," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 193-197.
    4. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael L. Katz, 2006. "Your network or mine? The economics of routing rules," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 692-719, September.
    5. Jean-Etienne de Bettignies, 2006. "Product market competition and boundaries of the firm," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(3), pages 948-970, August.
    6. G.F. Mathewson & R.A. Winter, 1984. "An Economic Theory of Vertical Restraints," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 27-38, Spring.
    7. Bhattacharjee Trishita & Pal Rupayan, 2014. "Network Externalities and Strategic Managerial Delegation in Cournot Duopoly: Is There a Prisoners’ Dilemma?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 343-353, January.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1985. "Common Marketing Agency as a Device for Facilitating Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 269-281, Summer.
    9. Shy,Oz, 2001. "The Economics of Network Industries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521805001, January.
    10. Bonanno, Giacomo & Vickers, John, 1988. "Vertical Separation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 257-265, March.
    11. Anomita Ghosh & Rupayan Pal, 2014. "Strategic trade policy for network goods oligopolies," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2014-039, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    12. Economides, Nicholas, 1996. "Network externalities, complementarities, and invitations to enter," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 211-233, September.
    13. Frank Mathewson & Ralph Winter, 1998. "The Law and Economics of Resale Price Maintenance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(1), pages 57-84, April.
    14. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 424-440, June.
    15. Hoernig, Steffen, 2012. "Strategic delegation under price competition and network effects," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 487-489.
    16. Buehler, Stefan & Schmutzler, Armin, 2008. "Intimidating competitors -- Endogenous vertical integration and downstream investment in successive oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 247-265, January.
    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. DongJoon Lee & Kangsik Choi & Tatsuhiko Nariu, 2020. "Endogenous vertical structure with network externalities," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(6), pages 827-846, December.
    2. Wang, Xingtang & Wang, Leonard F.S., 2021. "Vertical product differentiation, managerial delegation and social welfare in a vertically-related market," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 149-159.
    3. Jen-Yao Lee & Chen-Chia Fan & Chien-Shu Tsai, 2023. "Network Externalities and Downstream Collusion under Asymmetric Costs: A Note," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-11, March.
    4. Lee, DongJoon & Choi, Kangsik, 2018. "The efficiency of competing vertical chains with network externalities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 1-5.

    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. Lee, DongJoon & Choi, Kangsik, 2018. "The efficiency of competing vertical chains with network externalities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 1-5.
    2. DongJoon Lee & Kangsik Choi & Tatsuhiko Nariu, 2020. "Endogenous vertical structure with network externalities," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(6), pages 827-846, December.
    3. Anomita Ghosh & Rupayan Pal, 2017. "Welfare Ranking of Alternative Export Taxes Revisited," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(2), pages 1033-1044.
    4. Anomita Ghosh & Rupayan Pal, "undated". "Welfare ranking of alternative export tariffs revisited," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2015-009, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    5. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    6. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2018. "Profitability of corporate social responsibility in network industries," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(3), pages 271-289, September.
    7. Naskar, Mili & Pal, Rupayan, 2020. "Network externalities and process R&D: A Cournot–Bertrand comparison," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 51-58.
    8. Chung-Hui Chou, 2020. "Do Consumers Gain or Lose when Network Externalities Become Stronger?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2193-2200.
    9. Debasmita Basak & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2021. "Social efficiency of entry: Implications of network externalities," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 820-829, November.
    10. Anomita Ghosh & Rupayan Pal, 2014. "Strategic trade policy for network goods oligopolies," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2014-039, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    11. Patrick Rey & Joseph Stiglitz, 1995. "The Role of Exclusive Territories in Producers' Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(3), pages 431-451, Autumn.
    12. Shrivastav, Sumit, 2021. "Network compatibility, intensity of competition and process R&D: A generalization," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 152-163.
    13. Yasuhiko Nakamura, 2021. "Price versus quantity in a duopoly with network externalities under active and passive expectations," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 120-133, January.
    14. Fanti, Luciano & Buccella, Domenico, 2015. "Bargaining agenda in a unionised monopoly with network effects," MPRA Paper 64090, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Tsuyoshi Toshimitsu, 2016. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly With Network Compatibility Effects," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 495-512, December.
    16. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2016. "Bargaining Agenda and Entry in a Unionised Model with Network Effects," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 2(1), pages 91-121, March.
    17. Domenico Buccella & Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2023. "Strategic product compatibility in network industries," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 141-168, October.
    18. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2016. "Network externalities and corporate social responsibility," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2043-2050.
    19. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2017. "Bargaining agenda in a unionised monopoly with network effects: when corporate social responsibility may be welfare-reducing," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 34(3), pages 471-489, December.
    20. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2017. "Manager‐Union Bargaining Agenda Under Monopoly and with Network Effects," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(6), pages 717-730, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Double-margin distortion; Product differentiation; Network externalities; Vertical separation; Vertical integration;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics

    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:eee:ecolet:v:151:y:2017:i:c:p:115-118. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.