IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2004.39.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Competition with Information Disparities in a Vertically Differentiated Duopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Cavaliere

    (Università degli Studi di Pavia)

Abstract

In this paper we extend the model of vertical product differentiation to also consider information disparities about the extent of quality differences. Equilibrium prices turn out to depend not only on the share of informed consumers but also on uninformed consumers beliefs about quality differences. If uninformed consumers overestimate vertical differentiation, informed consumers exert a positive externality on the purchasers of the high quality good as its price decreases when the share of informed consumers decreases. Considering also that the price of the low quality good increases with the share of informed consumers, higher prices can-not signal high quality goods. If uninformed consumers have pessimistic beliefs and underestimate the extent of vertical differentiation, informed consumers can exert a positive externality on firms. In fact either market demands are inelastic to prices and the profits of the high quality firm increase with the share of informed consumers or market demands are elastic to prices and the profits of both firms increase with the share of informed consumers. In the latter case prices are also equal to those that would prevail with perfect information. In the case of optimistic consumers we can then find some theoretical foundation concerning the fact that information undermines brand, while with pessimistic consumers we can explain demand collapses and insensitivity to price changes due to consumer suspicions about product quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Cavaliere, 2004. "Price Competition with Information Disparities in a Vertically Differentiated Duopoly," Working Papers 2004.39, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2004.39
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2004-039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel Waldfogel & Lu Chen, 2006. "Does Information Undermine Brand? Information Intermediary Use And Preference For Branded Web Retailers," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 425-449, December.
    2. Kenneth L. Judd & Michael H. Riordan, 1994. "Price and Quality in a New Product Monopoly," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 773-789.
    3. Garella, Paolo G. & Martinez-Giralt, Xavier, 1989. "Price competition in markets for dichotomous substitutes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 357-367.
    4. Asher Wolinsky, 1983. "Prices as Signals of Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 647-658.
    5. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    6. Alan Schwartz & Louis L. Wilde, 1985. "Product Quality and Imperfect Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(2), pages 251-262.
    7. Darby, Michael R & Karni, Edi, 1973. "Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 67-88, April.
    8. 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.
    9. Yuk-Shee Chan & Hayne Leland, 1982. "Prices and Qualities in Markets with Costly Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(4), pages 499-516.
    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. Alberto Cavaliere, 2005. "Price Competition and Consumer Externalities in a Vertically Differentiated Duopoly with Information Disparities," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 29-64, October.

    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. Alberto Cavaliere & Giovanni Crea, 2016. "Vertical Differentiation With Consumers Misperceptions And Information Disparities," DEM Working Papers Series 122, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    2. Alberto Cavaliere & Giovanni Crea, 2017. "Vertical Differentiation With Optimistic Misperceptions And Information Disparities," DEM Working Papers Series 137, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    3. A. Cavaliere & G. Crea, 2022. "Brand premia driven by perceived vertical differentiation in markets with information disparity and optimistic consumers," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 223-253, April.
    4. Dubovik, Andrei & Janssen, Maarten C.W., 2012. "Oligopolistic competition in price and quality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 120-138.
    5. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim Ijaz Khwaja, 2017. "Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test Scores on Educational Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1535-1563, June.
    6. Ellingsen, Tore, 1997. "Price signals quality: The case of perfectly inelastic demand," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 43-61, November.
    7. Bester, Helmut & Ritzberger, Klaus, 2001. "Strategic pricing, signalling, and costly information acquisition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1347-1361, November.
    8. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose Luis, 2000. "Quality uncertainty and informative advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 615-640, May.
    9. Silvia Martínez-Gorricho, 2014. "Information and consumer fraud in a signalling model," Working Papers. Serie AD 2014-01, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    10. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    11. Atsuo Utaka, 2015. "High Price Strategy and Quality Signalling," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(3), pages 408-420, September.
    12. Jeanne DALL'ORSO & Romain GAURIOT & Lionel PAGE, 2016. "Disappointment looms around the corner: Visibility and local businesses' market power," QuBE Working Papers 041, QUT Business School.
    13. Bing Jing, 2011. "Seller honesty and product line pricing," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 403-427, December.
    14. Baomin Dong & Guixia Guo & Frank Yong Wang, 2021. "A signalling model of loss leader pricing strategy," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 289-307, June.
    15. Ralston, Roy W., 2003. "The effects of customer service, branding, and price on the perceived value of local telephone service," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 201-213, March.
    16. Michael Waldman, 1984. "The Role of Integrity in Economic Interaction," UCLA Economics Working Papers 350, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Albrecht, James & Lang, Harald & Vroman, Susan, 2002. "The effect of information on the well-being of the uninformed: what's the chance of getting a decent meal in an unfamiliar city?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 139-162, February.
    18. Garcia, René, 1986. "La théorie économique de l’information : exposé synthétique de la littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 62(1), pages 88-109, mars.
    19. Schneider, Mark & Stephenson, Daniel Graydon, 2021. "Bargains, price signaling, and efficiency in markets with asymmetric information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 160-181.
    20. Silvia Martinez-Gorricho, 2020. "Signalling, Information and Consumer Fraud," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vertical product differentiation; Asymmetric information; Quality uncertainty; Prices as quality signals;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • 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:fem:femwpa:2004.39. 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: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.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.