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Damaged Durable Goods

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  • Hahn, Jong-Hee

    (Keele University)

Abstract

A durable-goods monopolist may use quality degradation as a commitment not to lower price in the future. The introduction of damaged goods expedites low-valuation consumers' future demands, and helps the firm to mitigate the Coasian time-consistency problem. In such a case, damaged goods are more likely to be observed relative to the static setting where only the price-discrimination aspect of quality degradation is in effect. However, it is more likely to reduce welfare by inducing low-valuation buyers to buy the low-quality good early rather than to wait and buy the high-quality good later. So, quality degradation of durable goods is more likely to occur but less promising to the society, relative to the case of non-durable goods where damaged goods are rarely observed but more likely to be Pareto-improving.

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  • Hahn, Jong-Hee, 2003. "Damaged Durable Goods," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 98, Royal Economic Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2003:98
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    Cited by:

    1. Ali K. Parlaktürk, 2012. "The Value of Product Variety When Selling to Strategic Consumers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 371-385, July.
    2. Beccuti, Juan & Möller, Marc, 2021. "Screening by mode of trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 400-420.
    3. S. Nageeb Ali & Navin Kartik & Andreas Kleiner, 2023. "Sequential Veto Bargaining With Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(4), pages 1527-1562, July.
    4. Hasan Cavusoglu & Huseyin Cavusoglu & Xianjun Geng, 2020. "Bloatware and Jailbreaking: Strategic Impacts of Consumer-Initiated Modification of Technology Products," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 240-257, March.
    5. Jay Pil Choi & Byung‐Cheol Kim, 2010. "Net neutrality and investment incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(3), pages 446-471, September.
    6. Jong-Hee Hahn, 2004. "Durable Goods Monopoly with Endogenous Quality," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 665, Econometric Society.
    7. Buehler, Stefan & Eschenbaum, Nicolas, 2021. "Dynamic Monopoly Pricing With Multiple Varieties: Trading Up," Economics Working Paper Series 2113, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    8. Ding, Yucheng, 2014. "Why Branded Firm may Benefit from Counterfeit Competition," MPRA Paper 52933, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Gergely Csorba & Jong‐Hee Hahn, 2006. "Functional Degradation And Asymmetric Network Effects," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 253-268, June.
    10. S. Nageeb Ali & Navin Kartik & Andreas Kleiner, 2022. "Sequential Veto Bargaining with Incomplete Information," Papers 2202.02462, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    11. 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.
    12. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19111 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Francesco Nava & Pasquale Schiraldi, 2019. "Differentiated Durable Goods Monopoly: A Robust Coase Conjecture," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1930-1968, May.
    14. Brzustowski, Thomas & Georgiadis Harris, Alkis & Szentes, Balázs, 2023. "Smart contracts and the Coase conjecture," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117950, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. McAfee, R. Preston, 2007. "Pricing Damaged Goods," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    16. Choi, Jay & Kim, Byung-Cheol, 2008. "Net Neutrality and Investment Incentives," Working Paper Series 19111, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    17. Saracho, Ana I., 2011. "Licensing information goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 187-199, March.
    18. Jay Pil Choi & Byung‐Cheol Kim, 2010. "Net neutrality and investment incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(3), pages 446-471, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    damaged goods; quality degradation; durable-good monopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • 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

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