IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/germec/v4y2003i4p497-501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Buyer Subsidies in an Equilibrium Model of Price Dispersion

Author

Listed:
  • Henrik Orzen
  • Martin Sefton

Abstract

. We present a model of equilibrium price dispersion in which a per‐unit subsidy to buyers can reduce average prices. The reason is that subsidies have two effects on average prices that work in opposite directions. First, subsidies raise buyers' willingness‐to‐pay, and by itself this causes firms to charge higher prices. However, since a higher willingness‐to‐pay lowers the relative cost of search, subsidies also induce more search. This creates a second effect that puts pressure on firms to reduce prices. We show that the second effect can dominate, thus causing an overall reduction in average price.

Suggested Citation

  • Henrik Orzen & Martin Sefton, 2003. "Buyer Subsidies in an Equilibrium Model of Price Dispersion," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(4), pages 497-501, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i:4:p:497-501
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-6485.2003.00091.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-6485.2003.00091.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-6485.2003.00091.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wilde, Louis L, 1992. "Comparison Shopping as a Simultaneous Move Game," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(412), pages 562-569, May.
    2. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i::p:497-501 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Paulson Gjerde, Kathy A. & Slotnick, Susan A., 2004. "Quality and reputation: The effects of external and internal factors over time," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 1-20, May.
    3. Allen, Beth & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1992. "Price Equilibria in Pure Strategies for Homogeneous Oligopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 63-81, Spring.
    4. Kyle Bagwell & Garey Ramey, 1988. "Advertising and Limit Pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 59-71, Spring.
    5. Jianqiang Zhang & Weijun Zhong & Shue Mei, 2012. "Competitive effects of informative advertising in distribution channels," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 561-584, September.
    6. McCarthy, Ian M., 2016. "Advertising intensity and welfare in an equilibrium search model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 20-26.
    7. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2012. "Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, March.
    8. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Nonlinear Prices, Homogeneous Goods, Search," Papers 2109.15198, arXiv.org.
    9. Alisdair McKay, 2011. "Household Saving Behavior and Social Security Privatization," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2011-027, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    10. Edgardo Arturo Ayala Gaytán, 2009. "Social network externalities and price dispersion in online markets," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-28, November.
    11. repec:bla:germec:v:1:y:2000:i:2:p:221-240 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2015. "Meeting technologies and optimal trading mechanisms in competitive search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-15.
    13. Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter A. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2017. "Search frictions, competing mechanisms and optimal market segmentation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 453-473.
    14. Raskovich, Alexander, 2007. "Ordered bargaining," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1126-1143, October.
    15. Burdett, Kenneth & Menzio, Guido, 2017. "The (Q,S,s) pricing rule: a quantitative analysis," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 784-797.
    16. Ewa Gałecka-Burdziak, 2012. "Labour market matching – the case of Poland," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 43(3), pages 31-46.
    17. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Mandelman, Federico & Yu, Yang & Zanetti, Francesco, 2021. "The “Matthew effect” and market concentration: Search complementarities and monopsony power," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 62-90.
    18. Guido Menzio & Nicholas Trachter, 2018. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion Across and Within Stores," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 28, pages 205-220, April.
    19. Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio, 2016. "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 771-825.
    20. Vineeth S. Varma & Samson Lasaulce & Julien Mounthanyvong & Irinel-Constantin Morarescu, 2020. "Allocating marketing resources over social networks: A long-term analysis," Papers 2011.09268, arXiv.org.
    21. Randall Lewis & Dan Nguyen, 2015. "Display advertising’s competitive spillovers to consumer search," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 93-115, June.
    22. Attila Ambrus & Emilio Calvano & Markus Reisinger, 2016. "Either or Both Competition: A "Two-Sided" Theory of Advertising with Overlapping Viewerships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 189-222, August.

    More about this item

    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:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i:4:p:497-501. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.