IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/els/esrcls/035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopoly Pricing with Social Learning

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Ottaviani

Abstract

This paper analyzes optimal dynamic pricing by a monopolist in a market where buyers learn about the quality of the good by observing each other. In the initial phase the monopolist prefers prices that allow more transmission of information from current to future buyers. Eventually the monopolist will stop the learning process, either by exiting or by capturing the entire market. Once an expensive good becomes popular, it is optimal for the monopolist to reduce the price and to sell to all consumers. The expected long-run inefficiency is shown to be generally lower than in the model with fixed prices. Efficiency can be enhanced by pricing below marginal cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Ottaviani, "undated". "Monopoly Pricing with Social Learning," ELSE working papers 035, ESRC Centre on Economics Learning and Social Evolution.
    • Handle: RePEc:els:esrcls:035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.repec.org/RePEc/els/esrcls/monopoly.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst R. Berndt & Linda T. Bui & David H. Lucking-Reiley & Glen L. Urban, 1996. "The Roles of Marketing, Product Quality, and Price Competition in the Growth and Composition of the U.S. Antiulcer Drug Industry," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of New Goods, pages 277-328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Welch, Ivo, 1992. "Sequential Sales, Learning, and Cascades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 695-732, June.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 1996. "Market Experimentation and Pricing," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1122, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1995. "Design Innovation and Fashion Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 771-792, September.
    5. Russell Cooper & Thomas W. Ross, 1984. "Prices, Product Qualities and Asymmetric Information: The Competitive Case," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 197-207.
    6. Vettas, Nikolaos, 1997. "On the Informational Role of Quantities: Durable Goods and Consumers' Word-of-Mouth Communication," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(4), pages 915-944, November.
    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. Subir Bose & Gerhard Orosel & Marco Ottaviani & Lise Vesterlund, 2006. "Dynamic monopoly pricing and herding," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 910-928, December.
    2. Xu Guan & Yulan Wang & Zelong Yi & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2020. "Inducing Consumer Online Reviews Via Disclosure," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(8), pages 1956-1971, August.
    3. Heski Bar-Isaac, 2001. "Self-Confidence and Survival," FMG Discussion Papers dp395, Financial Markets Group.
    4. Cao, H. Henry & Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David, 2011. "Taking the road less traveled by: Does conversation eradicate pernicious cascades?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    5. Subir Bose & Gerhard Orosel & Marco Ottaviani & Lise Vesterlund, 2008. "Monopoly pricing in the binary herding model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(2), pages 203-241, November.

    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. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose Luis, 2000. "Quality uncertainty and informative advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 615-640, May.
    2. Hsiaw, Alice, 2014. "Learning tastes through social interaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 64-85.
    3. Andreas Kraft & Raghunath Singh Rao, 2025. "Signaling quality via demand lockout," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-44, March.
    4. Chang, Eric C. & Cheng, Joseph W. & Khorana, Ajay, 2000. "An examination of herd behavior in equity markets: An international perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1651-1679, October.
    5. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    6. Wang, Peiwen & Chen, Minghua & Wu, Ji & Yan, Yuanyun, 2023. "Do peer effects matter in bank risk? Some cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Alexander Ljungqvist & William J. Wilhelm, 2003. "IPO Pricing in the Dot‐com Bubble," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 723-752, April.
    8. ,, 2009. "Monopolistic group design with peer effects," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), March.
    9. Cappetta, Rossella & Cillo, Paola & Ponti, Anna, 2006. "Convergent designs in fine fashion: An evolutionary model for stylistic innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1273-1290, November.
    10. Eric Rasmusen, 2008. "Quality-Ensuring Profits," Working Papers 2008-10, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    11. Davide Crapis & Bar Ifrach & Costis Maglaras & Marco Scarsini, 2017. "Monopoly Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3586-3608, November.
    12. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2020. "Collectivism and commonality in liquidity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 137-162.
    13. Bate, Roger & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Mathur, Aparna, 2011. "Does price reveal poor-quality drugs? Evidence from 17 countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1150-1163.
    14. Sam‐Ho Lee, 2023. "Theory of cultural capital: Productive use of an unproductive activity," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(2), pages 359-375, April.
    15. Gill, David & Sgroi, Daniel, "undated". "The Optimal Choice of Pre-launch Reviewer: How Best to Transmit Information using Tests and Conditional Pricing," Economic Research Papers 269888, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    16. Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Ponti, Giovanni & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2011. "Error cascades in observational learning: An experiment on the Chinos game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 136-146, September.
    17. Silvio Vismara, 2022. "Expanding corporate finance perspectives to equity crowdfunding," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 1629-1639, December.
    18. Corneo, Giacomo & Jeanne, Olivier, 1999. "Segmented communication and fashionable behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 371-385, July.
    19. Patrick Hummel & Brian Knight, 2015. "Sequential Or Simultaneous Elections? A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-887, August.
    20. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John List, 2006. "Information Cascades: Evidence from An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," NBER Working Papers 12767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • 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

    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:els:esrcls:035. 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: s. malkani The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask s. malkani to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/elucluk.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.