IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v32y2000i5p601-609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of brand selection on price competition - a double-edged sword

Author

Listed:
  • Marcel Cohen

Abstract

Brand selection - the number of alternative brands of a particular product - is a double-edged sword in that on the one hand it increases rivalry and so stimulates price competition but on the other hand it causes consumers to be poorly informed and thus vulnerable to exploitation and so dampens price competition. This phenomenon is demonstrated analytically and empirically, with analytical work based on Hotelling's unit market line. Using price dispersion as a measure of the state of price competition, it is shown that a widening in price dispersion, that is, a lessening of price competition, arises from an increase in brand selection. Any increase in the number of alternative brands on offer (brand selection) causes an increase in 'DIF-ness' (Distortion in Information Function) which in turn causes an increase in price dispersion (a lessening of price competition). The phenomenon is demonstrated empirically through a small survey of household beverages.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcel Cohen, 2000. "The impact of brand selection on price competition - a double-edged sword," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 601-609.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:32:y:2000:i:5:p:601-609
    DOI: 10.1080/000368400322507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/000368400322507
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/000368400322507?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.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark Rogers & Joanne Loundes, 2003. "The Rise of Trade Marking in Australia in the 1990s," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2003n08, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Hu Wang & Di Li & Changbin Jiang & Yuxiang Zhang, 2023. "Exploring the Interactive Relationship between Retailers’ Free Shipping Decisions and Manufacturers’ Product Sales in Digital Retailing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-19, August.

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:32:y:2000:i:5:p:601-609. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.