IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/1277.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Consumers Search for the Highest Price? Equilibrium and Monopolistic Optimum in Differentiated Products Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Schulz, Norbert
  • Stahl, Konrad

Abstract

We develop a model of search among substitutes for the best combination of commodity variant and price, in which the structure of search costs can be manipulated by the suppliers of these variants, e.g. by joining an existing market or opening a new one. We analyse the subgame perfect equilibria arising in a multistage game involving specialized firms' choice of entry, variant and price; and compare them to a multiproduct monopolist's optimal choice. Together with the existence and uniqueness of (symmetric) equilibria we show that equilibrium prices increase in the number of substitutes sold in one market, and that a monopolist selling the same number of variants charges lower prices. The monopolist will also end up selling at least as much variety. Hence, in the situation considered here, monopoly tends to increase welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Schulz, Norbert & Stahl, Konrad, 1995. "Do Consumers Search for the Highest Price? Equilibrium and Monopolistic Optimum in Differentiated Products Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 1277, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1277
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1277
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information; Monopoly; Oligopoly; Search;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:cpr:ceprdp:1277. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.