IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ier/iecrev/v44y2003i2p573-597.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

If at First You Don't Succeed: Profits, Prices, and Market Structure in a Model of Quality with Unknowable Consumer Heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • Kala Krishna
  • Tor Winston

Abstract

Why are higher quality niches seen as intrinsically more profitable in business circles? Why do high quality products sometimes have a low real price, whereas it is unusual to see low quality products with high real prices? Can markets have quality differentiation as well as quality bunching? How does the rate at which fixed costs change with quality affect market structure? In this article we develop a new model of quality that casts light on such issues. Copyright 2003 By The Economics Department Of The University Of Pennsylvania And Osaka University Institute Of Social And Economic Research Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Kala Krishna & Tor Winston, 2003. "If at First You Don't Succeed: Profits, Prices, and Market Structure in a Model of Quality with Unknowable Consumer Heterogeneity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 573-597, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:ier:iecrev:v:44:y:2003:i:2:p:573-597
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    2. Weitzman, Martin L, 1979. "Optimal Search for the Best Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 641-654, May.
    3. Kala Krishna & Tor Winston, 1998. "A New Model of Quality," NBER Working Papers 6580, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. repec:bla:econom:v:43:y:1976:i:17:p:127-37 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bouckaert, Jan & Degryse, Hans, 2000. "Price competition between an expert and a non-expert," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 901-923, August.
    6. Swan, Peter L, 1970. "Durability of Consumption Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(5), pages 884-894, December.
    7. d'Aspremont, C & Gabszewicz, Jean Jaskold & Thisse, J-F, 1979. "On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1145-1150, September.
    8. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    9. Shetty, Y. K., 1987. "Product quality and competitive strategy," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 46-52.
    10. 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. Alexandre Gaudeul, 2004. "Shareware competition: Selling an experience," Game Theory and Information 0409008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Dulleck, Uwe & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2009. "Experts vs. discounters: Consumer free-riding and experts withholding advice in markets for credence goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 15-23, January.
    3. David Bardey, 2004. "A paradoxical risk aversion effect on the consumers' demand for quality," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 70(1), pages 109-115.

    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. 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.
    2. S. Baranzoni & P. Bianchi & L. Lambertini, 2000. "Multiproduct Firms, Product Differentiation, and Market Structure," Working Papers 368, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    3. Chia-Ling Hsu & Rafael Matta & Sergey V. Popov & Takeharu Sogo, 2017. "Optimal Product Placement," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(1), pages 127-145, August.
    4. Andrea Mangani & Paolo Patelli, 2002. "The Max-Min Principle of Product Differentiation: An Experimental Analysis," LEM Papers Series 2002/05, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    5. Jørgen Hansen & Jørgen Nielsen, 2009. "Dumping and Injury Margins in Markets with Horizontal as well as Vertical Product Differentiation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 233-250, September.
    6. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    7. Beschorner, Patrick Frank Ernst, 2008. "Do Shorter Product Cycles Induce Patent Thickets?," ZEW Discussion Papers 08-098, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    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. José Luis Moraga-González & Jean-Marie Viaene, 2004. "Anti-Dumping, Intra-Industry Trade and Quality Reversals," CESifo Working Paper Series 1365, CESifo.
    10. Barigozzi, Francesca & Ma, Ching-to Albert, 2018. "Product differentiation with multiple qualities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 380-412.
    11. 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.
    12. Gerstle, Ari D. & Waldman, Michael, 2016. "Mergers in durable-goods industries: A re-examination of market power and welfare effects," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 677-692.
    13. 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.
    14. Wright, Donald J., 2004. "The drug bargaining game: pharmaceutical regulation in Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 785-813, July.
    15. Sibly, Hugh, 2012. "A decomposition of monopolistic quality distortion," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 97-105.
    16. Anderson, Simon P. & Ginsburgh, Victor A., 1994. "Price discrimination via second-hand markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 23-44, January.
    17. Yogesh V. Joshi & David J. Reibstein & Z. John Zhang, 2016. "Turf Wars: Product Line Strategies in Competitive Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 128-141, January.
    18. Constantatos, Christos & Perrakis, Stylianos, 1995. "Différenciation verticale et structure du marché," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 71(1), pages 71-98, mars.
    19. Auer, Raphael A. & Sauré, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-205.
    20. Baake, Pio & Boom, Anette, 2001. "Vertical product differentiation, network externalities, and compatibility decisions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 267-284, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

    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:ier:iecrev:v:44:y:2003:i:2:p:573-597. 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-Blackwell Digital Licensing or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.