IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ebg/iesewp/d-0869.html

Nonsequential search equilibrium with search cost heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose L.

    (IESE Business School)

  • Sandor, Zsolt

    (University of Groningen)

  • Wildenbees, Matthijs R.

    (Kelly School of Business)

Abstract

We generalize the model of Burdett and Judd (1983) to the case where an arbitrary finite number of firms sells a homogeneous good to buyers who have heterogeneous search costs. We show that a price dispersed symmetric Nash equilibrium always exists. Numerical results show that the behavior of prices with respect to the number of firms hinges upon the shape of the search cost distribution: when search costs are relatively concentrated (dispersed), entry of firms leads to higher (lower) average prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose L. & Sandor, Zsolt & Wildenbees, Matthijs R., 2010. "Nonsequential search equilibrium with search cost heterogeneity," IESE Research Papers D/869, IESE Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0869
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/DI-0869-E.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dan Yavorsky & Elisabeth Honka & Keith Chen, 2021. "Consumer search in the U.S. auto industry: The role of dealership visits," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-52, March.
    2. Ryan Martin, 2020. "Identifying Consumer-Welfare Changes when Online Search Platforms Change Their List of Search Results," Staff Working Papers 20-5, Bank of Canada.
    3. Araujo, Julia P. & Rodrigues, Mauro, 2020. "Evidence on search costs under hyperinflation in Brazil: The effect of Plano Real," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 40(1), August.
    4. Atayev, Atabek, 2022. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    5. De los Santos, Babur & Kim, In Kyung & Lubensky, Dmitry, 2018. "Do MSRPs decrease prices?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 429-457.
      • Babur De los Santos & In Kyung Kim & Dmitry Lubensky, 2013. "Do MSRPs Decrease Prices?," Working Papers 2013-13, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    6. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Uncertain Product Availability in Search Markets," Papers 2109.15211, arXiv.org.
    7. Lach, Saul & Moraga-González, José-Luis, 2009. "Heterogeneous Price Information and the Effect of Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 7319, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. David P. Myatt & David Ronayne, 2026. "Asymmetric Models of Sales," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 281-311, February.
    9. Xulia González & Daniel Miles-Touya, 2018. "Price dispersion, chain heterogeneity, and search in online grocery markets," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 115-139, March.
    10. David P. Myatt & David Ronayne, 2025. "Finding a Good Deal: Stable Prices, Costly Search, and the Effect of Entry," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 524, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Jason R. Blevins & Garrett T. Senney, 2019. "Dynamic selection and distributional bounds on search costs in dynamic unit‐demand models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), pages 891-929, July.
    12. Omid Zamani & Thomas Bittmann & Jens‐Peter Loy, 2024. "Does the internet bring food prices closer together? Exploring search engine query data in Iran," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 688-715, June.
    13. Vladimir Yankov, 2014. "In Search of a Risk-free Asset," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-108, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Vladimir Yankov, 2024. "In Search of a Risk‐Free Asset: Search Costs and Sticky Deposit Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(5), pages 1053-1098, August.
    15. Atayev, Atabek, 2021. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-089, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Zsolt Sandor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, "undated". "Do higher search costs make the markets less competitive?," Working Papers 2013-08, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    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:ebg:iesewp:d-0869. 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: Noelia Romero (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ienaves.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.