IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iuk/wpaper/2010-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nonsequential Search Equilibrium with Search Cost Heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez

    (University of Groningen and CESifo)

  • Zsolt Sandor

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

  • Matthijs R. Wildenbeest

    (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley 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

  • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Zsolt Sandor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2010. "Nonsequential Search Equilibrium with Search Cost Heterogeneity," Working Papers 2010-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2010-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/RePEc/iuk/wpaper/bepp2010-11-moraga-sandor-wildenbeest.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey M. Perloff & Steven C. Salop, 1985. "Equilibrium with Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 107-120.
    2. Saul Lach & José L. Moraga†González, 2017. "Asymmetric Price Effects of Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 767-803, December.
    3. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    4. Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2011. "An empirical model of search with vertically differentiated products," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 729-757, December.
    5. Seade, Jesus K, 1980. "On the Effects of Entry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 479-489, March.
    6. Matthew Lewis, 2008. "Price Dispersion And Competition With Differentiated Sellers," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 654-678, September.
    7. Fabio Sanches & Daniel Silva Junior & Sorawoot Srisuma, 2018. "Minimum Distance Estimation of Search Costs Using Price Distribution," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 658-671, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    10. Fershtman, Chaim & Fishman, Arthur, 1992. "Price Cycles and Booms: Dynamic Search Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1221-1233, December.
    11. Burdett, Kenneth & Judd, Kenneth L, 1983. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 955-969, July.
    12. José Luis Moraga‐González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2013. "Semi‐Nonparametric Estimation Of Consumer Search Costs," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 1205-1223, November.
    13. McAfee R. Preston, 1995. "Multiproduct Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 83-105, October.
    14. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    15. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2004. "Price Dispersion In The Small And In The Large: Evidence From An Internet Price Comparison Site," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 463-496, December.
    16. Moraga-González, José Luis & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2008. "Maximum likelihood estimation of search costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(5), pages 820-848, July.
    17. Haynes, Michelle & Thompson, Steve, 2008. "Price, price dispersion and number of sellers at a low entry cost shopbot," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 459-472, March.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 2000. "Wage and Technology Dispersion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 585-607.
    19. Han Hong & Matthew Shum, 2006. "Using price distributions to estimate search costs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 257-275, June.
    20. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Allender, William, 2016. "Search and price dispersion in online grocery markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 255-281.
    21. MacMinn, Richard D, 1980. "Search and Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 308-327, April.
    22. Barron, John M. & Taylor, Beck A. & Umbeck, John R., 2004. "Number of sellers, average prices, and price dispersion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1041-1066, November.
    23. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2008. "Price‐increasing competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 1042-1058, December.
    24. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    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. 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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. David P. Myatt & David Ronayne, 2023. "Asymmetric Models of Sales," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 450, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Atayev, Atabek, 2022. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    13. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Uncertain Product Availability in Search Markets," Papers 2109.15211, arXiv.org.
    14. 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.
    15. Atayev, Atabek, 2021. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-089, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    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. Atayev, Atabek, 2022. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. 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.
    3. Backus, Matthew R. & Podwol, Joseph Uri & Schneider, Henry S., 2014. "Search costs and equilibrium price dispersion in auction markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 173-192.
    4. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Uncertain Product Availability in Search Markets," Papers 2109.15211, arXiv.org.
    5. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Allender, William, 2016. "Search and price dispersion in online grocery markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 255-281.
    6. Atayev, Atabek, 2021. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-089, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. 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.
    8. Alfredo Martin-Oliver & Vicente Salas-Fumas & Jesús Saurina, 2008. "Search Cost and Price Dispersion in Vertically Related Markets: The Case of Bank Loans and Deposits," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(4), pages 297-323, December.
    9. Yassine Badra, 2020. "The impact of online low search costs on firms' incentives to invest in quality," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(8), pages 1629-1633, December.
    10. De los Santos, Babur, 2018. "Consumer search on the Internet," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 66-105.
    11. José L Moraga-González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R Wildenbeest, 2021. "Simultaneous Search for Differentiated Products: The Impact of Search Costs and Firm Prominence," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(635), pages 1308-1330.
    12. 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.
    13. Anania, Giovanni & Nisticò, Rosanna, 2014. "Price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 190-201.
    14. Natalia Fabra & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2022. "Product Lines and Price Discrimination in Markets with Information Frictions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 981-1001, February.
    15. Maarten C.W. Janssen & Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2004. "Consumer Search and Oligopolistic Pricing: An Empirical Investigation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-071/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Taehwan Kim, 2018. "Price Competition and Market Segmentation in Retail Gasoline: New Evidence from South Korea," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(3), pages 507-534, November.
    17. Donna, Javier D. & Schenone, Pablo & Veramendi, Gregory F., 2020. "Networks, frictions, and price dispersion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 406-431.
    18. Maarten Janssen & Paul Pichler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2009. "Sequential Search with Incompletely Informed Consumers: Theory and Evidence from Retail Gasoline Markets," Vienna Economics Papers 0914, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    19. Timothy J. Richards & Stephen F. Hamilton & Koichi Yonezawa, 2017. "Variety and the Cost of Search in Supermarket Retailing," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(3), pages 263-285, May.
    20. Martin, Simon, 2020. "Market transparency and consumer search - Evidence from the German retail gasoline market," DICE Discussion Papers 350, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    nonsequential search; oligopoly; arbitrary search cost distributions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    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:iuk:wpaper:2010-11. 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: Rick Harbaugh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpiubus.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.