IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v63y2008i1p41-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Delegation and commitment in durable goods monopolies

Author

Listed:
  • Coury, Tarek
  • Petkov, Vladimir P.

Abstract

This paper studies a simultaneous-move infinite-horizon delegation game in which the principal of a durable goods monopoly entrusts pricing decisions to a manager who enjoys consuming her monetary rewards but dislikes production effort. The delegation contract allows for continual interference with managerial incentives: in each period the principal rewards the manager according to her performance. We show that when the cost of delegation is low relative to profits, the principal can attain the precommitment price plan in a perfect rational expectations equilibrium. The paper analyzes the robustness of this result under alternative specifications of timing and objectives. We also provide a numerical characterization of the equilibrium strategies for the case of linear-quadratic payoffs.

Suggested Citation

  • Coury, Tarek & Petkov, Vladimir P., 2008. "Delegation and commitment in durable goods monopolies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 41-55, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:1:p:41-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(07)00135-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    2. Fershtman, Chaim & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 927-940, December.
    3. Eric W. Bond & Larry Samuelson, 1984. "Durable Good Monopolies with Rational Expectations and Replacement Sales," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 336-345, Autumn.
    4. Driskill, Robert & McCafferty, Stephen, 2001. "Monopoly and Oligopoly Provision of Addictive Goods," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(1), pages 43-72, February.
    5. Bulow, Jeremy I, 1982. "Durable-Goods Monopolists," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 314-332, April.
    6. Steven D. Sklivas, 1987. "The Strategic Choice of Managerial Incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(3), pages 452-458, Autumn.
    7. Miller, Nolan H & Pazgal, Amit I, 2001. "The Equivalence of Price and Quantity Competition with Delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 284-301, Summer.
    8. Paul Klein & Per Krusell & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2004. "Time-Consistent Public Expenditures," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000652, UCLA Department of Economics.
    9. Nancy L. Stokey, 1981. "Rational Expectations and Durable Goods Pricing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(1), pages 112-128, Spring.
    10. Rogers, Carol Ann, 1987. "Expenditure taxes, income taxes, and time-inconsistency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 215-230, March.
    11. Baye, Michael R & Crocker, Keith J & Ju, Jiandong, 1996. "Divisionalization, Franchising, and Divestiture Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 223-236, March.
    12. Gul, Faruk & Sonnenschein, Hugo & Wilson, Robert, 1986. "Foundations of dynamic monopoly and the coase conjecture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 155-190, June.
    13. Jeremy Bulow, 1986. "An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 729-749.
    14. Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-149, April.
    15. Basu, Kaushik, 1995. "Stackelberg equilibrium in oligopoly: An explanation based on managerial incentives," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 459-464, October.
    16. Kahn, Charles M, 1986. "The Durable Goods Monopolist and Consistency with Increasing Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 275-294, March.
    17. Nancy L. Stokey, 1979. "Intertemporal Price Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 355-371.
    18. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. repec:prg:jnlpep:v:preprint:id:712:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Yong-Cong Yang & Pu-Yan Nie & Zhao-Hui Wang & Tan Zheng-Xun, 2019. "Spatial Monopoly with Upgrades of Durable Goods," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2019(5), pages 516-531.

    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. Michael Waldman, 2004. "Antitrust Perspectives for Durable-Goods Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 1306, CESifo.
    2. Ngo Long, 2015. "Dynamic Games Between Firms and Infinitely Lived Consumers: A Review of the Literature," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 467-492, December.
    3. Fethke, Gary & Jagannathan, Raj, 2000. "Why would a durable good monopolist also produce a cost-inefficient nondurable good?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 793-812, July.
    4. Luca Bossi & Vladimir Petkov, 2013. "Monopoly, Time Consistency, and Dynamic Demands," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 339-359, September.
    5. Gregory Goering & Michael Pippenger, 2003. "Dynamic consistency and monopoly," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 31(2), pages 188-194, June.
    6. Paul S. Calem, 1997. "Durable Goods Monopoly with Limited Choice of Commitment Strategy: When Should the Monopolist Precommit?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(1), pages 104-117, July.
    7. Jerrell Richer, 1995. "Urban Congestion and Developer Precommitments: Unilateral Solutions to Dynamic Inconsistency," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 32(8), pages 1279-1291, August.
    8. Edward Kutsoati & Jan Zabojnik, 2001. "Durable Goods Monopoly, Learning-by-doing and "Sleeping Patents"," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0105, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    9. Tian Xia & Richard Sexton, 2010. "Brand or Variety Choices and Periodic Sales as Substitute Instruments for Monopoly Price Discrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(4), pages 333-349, June.
    10. Francesco Nava & Pasquale Schiraldi, 2019. "Differentiated Durable Goods Monopoly: A Robust Coase Conjecture," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1930-1968, May.
    11. Karp, Larry, 1995. "Depreciation Erodes the Coase Conjecture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt1fs6j5nn, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    12. Buehler, Stefan & Eschenbaum, Nicolas, 2021. "Dynamic Monopoly Pricing With Multiple Varieties: Trading Up," Economics Working Paper Series 2113, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    13. Michael Waldman, 2003. "Durable Goods Theory for Real World Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 131-154, Winter.
    14. Kempe, Wolfram, 1996. "Monopoly," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1997,4, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    15. Fethke, Gary & Jagannathan, Raj, 2002. "Monopoly with endogenous durability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1009-1027, June.
    16. Karp, Larry, 1996. "Depreciation erodes the Coase Conjecture," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 473-490, February.
    17. Susanna Esteban & Matthew Shum, 2007. "Durable-goods oligopoly with secondary markets: the case of automobiles," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 332-354, June.
    18. Harikesh Nair, 2007. "Intertemporal price discrimination with forward-looking consumers: Application to the US market for console video-games," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 239-292, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

    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:eee:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:1:p:41-55. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.