IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cer/papers/wp478.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Software Upgrades under Monopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Jiri Strelicky
  • Kresimir Zigic

Abstract

We study price discrimination in a monopolistic software market. The monopolist charges different prices for the upgrade version and for the full version. Consumers are heterogeneous in taste for infinitely durable software and there is no resale. We show that price discrimination leads to a higher software quality but raises both absolute price and price per quality. This price discrimination does not increase sales and it decreases the total number of consumers compared to no discrimination. Finally, such discrimination decreases consumers' surplus but increases the developer's profit and social welfare that attains the social optimum in the limit.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiri Strelicky & Kresimir Zigic, 2013. "Software Upgrades under Monopoly," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp478, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
  • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp478
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp478.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1998. "Upgrades, Tradeins, and Buybacks," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 235-258, Summer.
    2. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2010. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521681599, November.
    3. Qiu_Hong Wang & Kai-Lung Hui, 2005. "Technology Timing and Pricing In the Presence of an Installed Base," Industrial Organization 0512013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Banerjee, Dyuti S., 2003. "Software piracy: a strategic analysis and policy instruments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 97-127, January.
    5. Jae Nahm, 2004. "Durable‐Goods Monopoly with Endogenous Innovation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 303-319, June.
    6. Inderst, Roman, 2008. "Durable goods with quality differentiation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 173-177, August.
    7. Nancy L. Stokey, 1981. "Rational Expectations and Durable Goods Pricing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(1), pages 112-128, Spring.
    8. Arthur Fishman & Rafael Rob, 2000. "Product Innovation by a Durable-Good Monpoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(2), pages 237-252, Summer.
    9. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    10. Nancy L. Stokey, 1979. "Intertemporal Price Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 355-371.
    11. Peitz, Martin & Waldfogel, Joel, 2012. "The Oxford Handbook of the Digital Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195397840.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Eduardo Correia de Souza & Jorge Chami Batista, 2015. "Replacement cycles, income distribution and dynamic price discrimination," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(31), pages 3292-3310, July.
    2. Michael Waldman, 2004. "Antitrust Perspectives for Durable-Goods Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 1306, CESifo.
    3. Qiu-Hong Wang & Kai-Lung Hui, 2017. "Technology Mergers and Acquisitions in the Presence of an Installed Base: A Strategic Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 46-63, March.
    4. William Caylor, 2016. "Credible Signals Of The Release Of New Versions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 862-878, April.
    5. Anton, James J. & Biglaiser, Gary, 2013. "Quality, upgrades and equilibrium in a dynamic monopoly market," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 1179-1212.
    6. Rodrigo Montes & Wilfried Sand-Zantman & Tommaso Valletti, 2019. "The Value of Personal Information in Online Markets with Endogenous Privacy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1342-1362, March.
    7. Athanasopoulos, Thanos, 2015. "Efficient Upgrading in Durable Network Goods: Is Commitment Always Good?," Economic Research Papers 270543, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    8. Calvano, Emilio, 2006. "Destructive Creation," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 653, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 30 Dec 2007.
    9. Utaka, Atsuo, 2008. "Pricing strategy, quality signaling, and entry deterrence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 878-888, July.
    10. Atsuo Utaka, 2015. "High Price Strategy and Quality Signalling," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(3), pages 408-420, September.
    11. Basak Altan, 2020. "Dynamic Durable Goods Monopoly and Market Power," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, May.
    12. Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2008. "Who Benefits From Online Privacy?," Working Papers 08-26, NET Institute.
    13. Vincent Mak & Amnon Rapoport & Eyran J. Gisches & Jiaojie Han, 2014. "Purchasing Scarce Products Under Dynamic Pricing: An Experimental Investigation," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 16(3), pages 425-438, July.
    14. James J. Anton & Gary Biglaiser, 2010. "Quality, Upgrades, and Equilibrium in a Dynamic Monopoly Model," Working Papers 10-36, Duke University, Department of Economics.
    15. Beccuti, Juan & Möller, Marc, 2021. "Screening by mode of trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 400-420.
    16. James J. Anton & Gary Biglaiser, 2007. "Quality Upgrades and the (loss) of Market Power in a Dynamic Monopoly Model," Working Papers 18, Portuguese Competition Authority.
    17. Vincent Mak & Amnon Rapoport & Eyran J. Gisches, 2018. "Dynamic Pricing Decisions and Seller-Buyer Interactions under Capacity Constraints," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, February.
    18. Tian Xia & Richard Sexton, 2010. "Brand or Variety Choices and Periodic Sales as Substitute Instruments for Monopoly Price Discrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(4), pages 333-349, June.
    19. Berck, Peter & Brown, Jennifer & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2008. "Sales: Tests of theories on causality and timing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1257-1273, November.
    20. Mahdi Mahmoudzadeh, 2020. "On the Non‐Equivalence of Trade‐ins and Upgrades in the Presence of Framing Effect: Experimental Evidence and Implications for Theory," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(2), pages 330-352, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    monopoly; durable goods; software; upgrades; price discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cer:papers:wp478. 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: Lucie Vasiljevova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eiacacz.html .

    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.