IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v56y2020i3d10.1007_s11151-019-09704-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When Does Variety Increase with Quality?

Author

Listed:
  • Suren Basov

    (The University of Melbourne)

  • Svetlana Danilkina

    (The University of Melbourne)

  • David Prentice

    (Infrastructure Victoria)

Abstract

In this paper we provide a novel explanation of the relationship between product quality and variety. We develop a simple theoretical model with nearly rational consumers, who randomize among all alternatives that yield the same utility for them but could make a mistake of choosing a slightly worse alternative. We show that it is optimal for a firm to offer more varieties of its higher quality, more profitable, products, in order to price discriminate more effectively. When the market is thin at the very top quality level, the number of varieties first increases and then decreases, which results in the overall hump-shaped relationship between the number of varieties and quality. We find empirical support for our qualitative predictions in the Australian car market.

Suggested Citation

  • Suren Basov & Svetlana Danilkina & David Prentice, 2020. "When Does Variety Increase with Quality?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(3), pages 463-487, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:56:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11151-019-09704-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-019-09704-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11151-019-09704-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-019-09704-7?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ansari, A. & Economides, N. & Steckel, J., 1996. "The Max-Min-Min Principle of product Differentiation," Working Papers 96-10, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    2. Fudenberg, D. & Harris, C., 1992. "Evolutionary dynamics with aggregate shocks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 420-441, August.
    3. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    4. Kelvin Lancaster, 1990. "The Economics of Product Variety: A Survey," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(3), pages 189-206.
    5. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2009. "Product Variety and Endogenous Pricing with Evaluation Costs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(8), pages 1338-1346, August.
    6. Champsaur, Paul & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1989. "Multiproduct Duopolists," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 533-557, May.
    7. Jonah Berger & Michaela Draganska & Itamar Simonson, 2007. "The Influence of Product Variety on Brand Perception and Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 460-472, 07-08.
    8. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    9. Basov Suren, 2003. "Incentives for Boundedly Rational Agents," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, June.
    10. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    11. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    12. Donnenfeld, Shabtai & White, Lawrence J, 1990. "Quality Distortion by a Discriminating Monopolist: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 941-945, September.
    13. Young, H Peyton, 1993. "The Evolution of Conventions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 57-84, January.
    14. Josef Hofbauer & William H. Sandholm, 2002. "On the Global Convergence of Stochastic Fictitious Play," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2265-2294, November.
    15. Srinagesh, Padmanabhan & Bradburd, Ralph M, 1989. "Quality Distortion by a Discriminating Monopolist," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 96-105, March.
    16. Michaela Draganska & Dipak C. Jain, 2006. "Consumer Preferences and Product-Line Pricing Strategies: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 164-174, 03-04.
    17. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    18. Simon P. Anderson & Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2004. "Noisy Directional Learning and the Logit Equilibrium," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 581-602, October.
    19. Neven, D. & Thisse, J-F., 1989. "On Quality And Variety Competition," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1989020, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    20. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    21. Huber, Joel & Puto, Christopher, 1983. "Market Boundaries and Product Choice: Illustrating Attraction and Substitution Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(1), pages 31-44, June.
    22. Machina, Mark J, 1985. "Stochastic Choice Functions Generated from Deterministic Preferences over Lotteries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(379), pages 575-594, September.
    23. Steven Berry & Ariel Pakes, 2007. "The Pure Characteristics Demand Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1193-1225, November.
    24. Mattsson, Lars-Goran & Weibull, Jorgen W., 2002. "Probabilistic choice and procedurally bounded rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 61-78, October.
    25. M.‐Y. Cheng & P. Hall, 1998. "Calibrating the excess mass and dip tests of modality," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 60(3), pages 579-589.
    26. Steven M. Shugan, 1989. "Product Assortment in a Triopoly," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 304-320, March.
    27. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, April.
    28. Dmitri Kuksov & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2010. "When More Alternatives Lead to Less Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 507-524, 05-06.
    29. Daniel J. Henderson & Christopher F. Parmeter & R. Robert Russell, 2008. "Modes, weighted modes, and calibrated modes: evidence of clustering using modality tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 607-638.
    30. repec:bla:ecorec:v:85:y:2009:i:s1:p:s29-s34 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Michaela Draganska & Dipak C. Jain, 2005. "Product‐Line Length as a Competitive Tool," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 1-28, March.
    32. P. M. Hartigan, 1985. "Computation of the Dip Statistic to Test for Unimodality," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 34(3), pages 320-325, November.
    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. repec:bla:ecorec:v:85:y:2009:i:s1:p:s29-s34 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Williams, Noah, 2022. "Learning and equilibrium transitions: Stochastic stability in discounted stochastic fictitious play," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Demichelis, Stefano & Ritzberger, Klaus, 2003. "From evolutionary to strategic stability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 51-75, November.
    3. , & , H. & ,, 2015. "Sampling best response dynamics and deterministic equilibrium selection," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), January.
    4. Juan I Block & Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine, 2017. "Learning Dynamics Based on Social Comparisons," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000001375, David K. Levine.
    5. Golman, Russell, 2012. "Homogeneity bias in models of discrete choice with bounded rationality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-11.
    6. Staudigl, Mathias, 2012. "Stochastic stability in asymmetric binary choice coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 372-401.
    7. Block, Juan I. & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2019. "Learning dynamics with social comparisons and limited memory," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    8. Kets, W., 2008. "Networks and learning in game theory," Other publications TiSEM 7713fce1-3131-498c-8c6f-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Reinoud Joosten, 2009. "Paul Samuelson's critique and equilibrium concepts in evolutionary game theory," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-16, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    10. Emerson Melo, 2022. "On the uniqueness of quantal response equilibria and its application to network games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 681-725, October.
    11. Lahkar, Ratul & Riedel, Frank, 2015. "The logit dynamic for games with continuous strategy sets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 268-282.
    12. Ianni, A., 2002. "Reinforcement learning and the power law of practice: some analytical results," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 203, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    13. Ball, Richard, 2017. "Violations of monotonicity in evolutionary models with sample-based beliefs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 100-104.
    14. Tsakas, Elias & Voorneveld, Mark, 2009. "The target projection dynamic," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 708-719, November.
    15. Daniele Condorelli & Massimiliano Furlan, 2024. "Deep Learning to Play Games," Papers 2409.15197, arXiv.org.
    16. Mengel, Friederike, 2014. "Learning by (limited) forward looking players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 59-77.
    17. Zibo Xu, 2013. "The instability of backward induction in evolutionary dynamics," Discussion Paper Series dp633, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    18. Fudenberg, Drew & Imhof, Lorens A., 2006. "Imitation processes with small mutations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 251-262, November.
    19. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2008. "Contagion and efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 251-274, November.
    20. Hofbauer, Josef & Hopkins, Ed, 2005. "Learning in perturbed asymmetric games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 133-152, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price discrimination; Product variety; Bounded rationality; Nearly rational consumers; Cars;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    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:kap:revind:v:56:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11151-019-09704-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.