2012
Autores
Gabszewicz, JJ; Resende, J;
Publicação
INFORMATION ECONOMICS AND POLICY
Abstract
This paper analyses price competition between two firms producing horizontally and vertically differentiated goods. These are assumed to be credence goods, as consumers can hardly ascertain the quality of the commodities. To illustrate the model, we adapt it to represent a newspaper industry with two outlets, when the population of readers have preferences both on the political stance of the newspapers and on the accuracy of the news they dispatch.
2022
Autores
Laussel, D; Long, NV; Resende, J;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
Abstract
Using a Markov-perfect equilibrium model, we show that the use of customer data to practice intertemporal price discrimination will improve monopoly profit if and only if information precision is higher than a certain threshold level. This U-shaped relationship lends support to a popular view that knowledge is good only if it is sufficiently refined. When information accuracy can only be achieved through costly investment, we find that investing in profiling is profitable only if this allows to reach a high enough level of information precision. Consumers expected surplus being a hump-shaped function of information accuracy, we show that consumers have an incentive to lobby for privacy protection legislation which raises the cost of monopoly's investment in information accuracy. However, this cost should not dissuade firms to collect some information on customers' tastes, as the absence of consumers' profiling is actually detrimental to consumers.
2022
Autores
Laussel, D; Resende, J;
Publicação
MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Abstract
This paper investigates duopoly competition when horizontally differentiated firms are able to make personalized product-price offers to returning customers, within a behavior-based discrimination model. In the second period, firms can profile old customers according to their preferences, selling them targeted products at personalized prices. Product-price personalization (PP) allows firms to retain all old customers, eliminating second-period customer poaching. The overall profit effects of PP are shown to be ambiguous. In the second period, PP improves the matching between customers??? preferences and firms??? offers, but firms do not make any revenues in the rival???s turf. In the Bertrand outcome, second-period profits only increase for both firms if the size of their old turfs are not too different or initial products are not too differentiated. However, the additional secondperiod profits may be offset by lower first-period profits. PP is likely to increase firms??? overall discounted profits when consumers??? (firms???) discount factor is low (high) and firms??? initial products are exogenous and sufficiently different. When the location of initial products is endogenous, profits are hurt because of an additional location (strategic) effect aggravating head-to-head competition in the first period. Likewise, when a fraction of active consumers conceals their identity, PP increases second-period profits at the cost of aggressive first-period price competition. Finally, we show that the room for profitable PP enlarges considerably if firms rely on PP as an effective device to sustain tacit collusive outcomes, with firms credibly threatening to respond to first-period price deviations with
2016
Autores
Garcia, F; Resende, J;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF DYNAMICS AND GAMES
Abstract
This paper deals with dynamic price competition in markets in which the perception of consumers regarding the value of goods depends on the choices of other consumers in the market. In particular, we consider the case in which consumers exhibit conformist preferences, which leads them to imitate their peers. In the context of a finite horizon model, we show that conformity based behavior creates new channels of dynamic interaction between firms, changing the nature of price competition. We focus on the case of high network effects for which we obtain V-shaped equilibrium price paths and oscillating trajectories of market shares. We provide also a new rationale for the inversion of fashion trends.
2014
Autores
Amir, R; Gabszewicz, J; Resende, J;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY
Abstract
We explore the issue of minorities' survival in the presence of positive network externalities. We rely on a simple example of thematic clubs to illustrate why and how such survival problems might appear, first considering the case of simple-network effects (fully anonymous externalities) and then the case of cross-network effects (type-dependent externalities). In both cases, the analysis is framed as a simple noncooperative game with a continuum of players and binary action sets. There is a unique and interior Nash equilibrium under mild network effects and two corner equilibria under strong network effects, with one club driven out. A utilitarian planner would accentuate the clustering effects of network externalities, and call for the disappearance of the minority club more often than the noncooperative solution. A simple myopic learning algorithm capturing the progression of network lock-in effects is studied.
2014
Autores
Laussel, D; Resende, J;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS
Abstract
This paper studies the dynamic price competition between two firms that sell horizontally differentiated durable goods and, subsequently, provide exclusive complementary goods and services to their customers. The paper analyzes how optimal pricing strategies are affected by the existence of network effects associated with the size of firms' consumer base. The interaction is thoroughly analyzed as a continuous time linear-quadratic differential game. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a unique duopoly equilibrium in affine strategies. When this condition holds, we show that optimal pricing strategies crucially depend on the nature of the network effects.
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