IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1271.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Vertical Product Differentiation When Quality is Unobservable to Buyers

Author

Listed:
  • Gerhard Orosel
  • Klaus G. Zauner

Abstract

We analyze vertical product differentiation in a model where a good’s quality is unobservable to buyers before purchase, a continuum of quality levels is technologically feasible, and minimum quality is supplied under competitive conditions. After purchase the true quality of the good is revealed with positive probability. To provide firms with incentives to actually deliver promised quality, prices must exceed marginal cost. We derive sufficient conditions for these incentive constraints to determine equilibrium prices, and show that under certain conditions only one or both of the extreme levels of quality, minimum and maximum quality, are available in the market.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerhard Orosel & Klaus G. Zauner, 2004. "Vertical Product Differentiation When Quality is Unobservable to Buyers," CESifo Working Paper Series 1271, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1271.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Repullo, Rafael, 2004. "Capital requirements, market power, and risk-taking in banking," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 156-182, April.
    2. Bagwell, Kyle, 1990. "Informational product differentiation as a barrier to entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 207-223, June.
    3. Schmalensee, Richard, 1982. "Product Differentiation Advantages of Pioneering Brands," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 349-365, June.
    4. Jean J. Gabszewicz & Isabel Grilo, 1992. "Price Competition When Consumersare Uncertain About Which Firm Sells Which Quality," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(4), pages 629-650, December.
    5. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    6. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    7. Nelson, Phillip, 1970. "Information and Consumer Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 311-329, March-Apr.
    8. Klein, Benjamin & Leffler, Keith B, 1981. "The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 615-641, August.
    9. Helmut Bester, 1998. "Quality Uncertainty Mitigates Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(4), pages 828-844, Winter.
    10. William P. Rogerson, 1988. "Price Advertising and the Deterioration of Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(2), pages 215-229.
    11. Gabszewicz, Jean J. & Wauthy, Xavier Y., 2002. "Quality underprovision by a monopolist when quality is not costly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 65-72, September.
    12. 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.
    13. Esther Gal-Or, 1983. "Quality and Quantity Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 590-600, Autumn.
    14. 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.
    15. Carl Shapiro, 1983. "Premiums for High Quality Products as Returns to Reputations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(4), pages 659-679.
    16. Michael H. Riordan, 1986. "Monopolistic Competition with Experience Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 265-279.
    17. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1983. "Natural Oligopolies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1469-1483, 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. Franco Mariuzzo & Patrick Paul Walsh & Ciara Whelan, 2004. "EU Merger Control in Differentiated Product Industries," CESifo Working Paper Series 1312, CESifo.

    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. Gerhard O. Orosel & Klaus G. Zauner, 2011. "Quality Diversity and Prices in Markets for Experience Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 709-738, September.
    2. Brekke, Kurt R. & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2010. "Price and quality in spatial competition," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 471-480, November.
    3. Erik Gronqvist & Douglas Lundin, 2009. "Incentives for clinical trials," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(5), pages 513-531.
    4. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, September.
    5. Langinier Corinne & Babcock Bruce A., 2008. "Agricultural Production Clubs: Viability and Welfare Implications," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-31, December.
    6. repec:gbl:wpaper:2013-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Fluet, Claude & Garella, Paolo G., 2002. "Advertising and prices as signals of quality in a regime of price rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 907-930, September.
    8. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    9. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    10. Wipo, 2013. "World Intellectual Property Report 2013 - Brands: Reputation and Image in the Global Marketplace," WIPO Economics & Statistics Series, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division, number 2013:944, April.
    11. Cellini, Roberto & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2018. "A dynamic model of quality competition with endogenous prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-206.
    12. Ngo Van Long & Zhuang Miao, 2020. "Multiple‐quality Cournot oligopoly and the role of market size," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 932-952, October.
    13. Li, Jianpei & Zhang, Wanzhu, 2022. "Behavior-based pricing and signaling of product quality," MPRA Paper 120263, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Jan 2023.
    14. Fulan Wu, 2017. "Signaling Unobservable Quality Choice through Price and Advertising: The Case with Competing Firms," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(2), pages 243-260, March.
    15. Bergemann, Dirk & Valimaki, Juuso, 2002. "Entry and Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 91-125, September.
    16. Zan Zhang & Guofang Nan & Minqiang Li & Yong Tan, 2022. "Competitive Entry of Information Goods Under Quality Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2869-2888, April.
    17. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and industrial organization," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 511-517.
    18. De Fraja, Giovanni, 1996. "Product line competition in vertically differentiated markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 389-414, May.
    19. Keith Brouhle & Madhu Khanna, 2007. "Information And The Provision Of Quality Differentiated Products," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 377-394, April.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    experience goods; product differentiation; product quality; asymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    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:ces:ceswps:_1271. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.