IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/113517.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Targeted product design

Author

Listed:
  • Bar-Isaac, Heski
  • Caruana, Guillermo
  • Cuñat, Vicente

Abstract

We propose an intuitive representation of product design in which firms locate inside a circle and consumers in its outer circumference. Designs trade off horizontal and vertical transport costs. Our setting encompasses all linear demand rotations. Firms with lower quality or higher marginal costs choose niche designs that cater to specific consumers at the expense of alienating the rest. Firms choose intermediate designs or more polarized ones, instead, depending on the convexity of the vertical transport cost. We examine such design choices in monopoly, duopoly, and monopolistic competition settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Bar-Isaac, Heski & Caruana, Guillermo & Cuñat, Vicente, 2023. "Targeted product design," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113517, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:113517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113517/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cindy Chan & Jonah Berger & Leaf Van Boven, 2012. "Identifiable but Not Identical: Combining Social Identity and Uniqueness Motives in Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(3), pages 561-573.
    2. Asher Wolinsky, 1986. "True Monopolistic Competition as a Result of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 493-511.
    3. Irmen, Andreas & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1998. "Competition in Multi-characteristics Spaces: Hotelling Was Almost Right," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 76-102, January.
    4. Osborne, Martin J & Pitchik, Carolyn, 1987. "Equilibrium in Hotelling's Model of Spatial Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 911-922, July.
    5. González-Maestre, Miguel & Granero, Lluís M., 2018. "Competition with targeted product design: Price, variety, and welfare," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 406-428.
    6. Simon P. Anderson & Regis Renault, 1999. "Pricing, Product Diversity, and Search Costs: A Bertrand-Chamberlin-Diamond Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 719-735, Winter.
    7. González-Maestre, Miguel & Granero, Lluís M., 2020. "Excessive vs. insufficient entry in spatial models: When product design and market size matter," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 27-35.
    8. Jonathan Vogel, 2008. "Spatial Competition with Heterogeneous Firms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 423-466, June.
    9. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    10. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Michael D. Smith, 2003. "Consumer Surplus in the Digital Economy: Estimating the Value of Increased Product Variety at Online Booksellers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1580-1596, November.
    11. Mark B. Vandenbosch & Charles B. Weinberg, 1995. "Product and Price Competition in a Two-Dimensional Vertical Differentiation Model," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(2), pages 224-249.
    12. Bart J. Bronnenberg, 2015. "The provision of convenience and variety by the market," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(3), pages 480-498, September.
    13. Nathan Larson, 2013. "Niche products, generic products, and consumer search," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 793-832, March.
    14. Thomas von Ungern-Sternberg, 1988. "Monopolistic Competition and General Purpose Products," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(2), pages 231-246.
    15. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    16. Dmitri Kuksov, 2004. "Buyer Search Costs and Endogenous Product Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 490-499, May.
    17. J. Yannis Bakos, 1997. "Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(12), pages 1676-1692, December.
    18. Economides, Nicholas, 1989. "Symmetric equilibrium existence and optimality in differentiated product markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 178-194, February.
    19. A. Michael Spence, 1975. "Monopoly, Quality, and Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(2), pages 417-429, Autumn.
    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. Burak Dindaroglu, 2023. "Product design in monopolistic competition," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 19(3), pages 471-488, September.
    2. Levaggi, Laura & Levaggi, Rosella, 2023. "Competition in the provision of hospital care: Are mixed markets a valid alternative?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).

    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. Heski Bar-Isaac & Guillermo Caruana & Vicente Cunat, 2012. "Search, Design, and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1140-1160, April.
    2. Moraga-González, José-Luis & Sun, Yajie, 2022. "Product Quality and Consumer Search," CEPR Discussion Papers 14669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Gamp, Tobias & Krähmer, Daniel, 2022. "Competition in Search Markets with Naive Consumers," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 364, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    4. Mariana Cunha & António Osório & Ricardo Ribeiro, 2016. "Endogenous product design and quality with rationally inattentive consumers," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    5. Tobias Gamp & Daniel Krähmer, 2022. "Competition in search markets with naive consumers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(2), pages 356-385, June.
    6. Tobias Gamp & Daniel Kraehmer, 2018. "Deception and Competition in Search Markets," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_014_2018, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    7. Fernando Branco & Monic Sun & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2012. "Optimal Search for Product Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(11), pages 2037-2056, November.
    8. Hui Song, 2017. "Ordered search with asymmetric product design," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 105-132, June.
    9. Huanxing Yang, 2013. "Targeted search and the long tail effect," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(4), pages 733-756, December.
    10. Arthur Fishman & Nadav Levy, 2015. "Search Costs and Investment in Quality," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 625-641, December.
    11. Auer, Raphael A. & Sauré, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-205.
    12. Nathan Larson, 2013. "Niche products, generic products, and consumer search," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 793-832, March.
    13. Alexandre de Cornière, 2016. "Search Advertising," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 156-188, August.
    14. Muxin Li, 2023. "Do Lower Search Costs Benefit Intermediaries?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 63(3), pages 373-405, November.
    15. Bing Jing, 2016. "Lowering Customer Evaluation Costs, Product Differentiation, and Price Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 113-127, January.
    16. Qiang Gong & Qihong Liu & Yi Zhang, 2016. "Optimal product differentiation in a circular model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 219-252, November.
    17. Gamp, Tobias, 2015. "Search, Differentiated Products, and Obfuscation," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112886, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Degryse, Hans & Irmen, Andreas, 2001. "Attribute dependence and the provision of quality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 547-569, September.
    19. Torbenko, A., 2015. "Linear City Models: Overview and Typology," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 12-38.
    20. González-Maestre, Miguel & Granero, Lluís M., 2020. "Excessive vs. insufficient entry in spatial models: When product design and market size matter," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 27-35.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • 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:ehl:lserod:113517. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.