IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15537.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asymmetric Information and Delegated Selling

Author

Listed:
  • Janssen, Maarten
  • Roy, Santanu

Abstract

Asymmetric information about product quality can create incentives for a privately informed manufacturer to sell to uninformed consumers through a retailer and to maintain secrecy of upstream pricing. Delegating retail price setting to an intermediary generates pooling equilibria that avoid signaling distortions associated with direct selling even under reasonable restrictions on beliefs; these beliefs can also prevent double marginalization by the retailer. Expected profit, consumer surplus and social welfare can all be higher with intermediated selling. However, if secrecy of upstream pricing cannot be maintained, selling through a retailer can only lower the expected profit of the manufacturer.

Suggested Citation

  • Janssen, Maarten & Roy, Santanu, 2020. "Asymmetric Information and Delegated Selling," CEPR Discussion Papers 15537, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15537
    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 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. Keith J. Crocker, 1983. "Vertical Integration and the Strategic use of Private Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 236-250, Spring.
    2. Igal Hendel & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2002. "The Role of Leasing under Adverse Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 113-143, February.
    3. Katz, Michael L., 1989. "Vertical contractual relations," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 655-721, Elsevier.
    4. Vincent Glode & Christian Opp, 2016. "Asymmetric Information and Intermediation Chains," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2699-2721, September.
    5. Choi, Jay Pil, 1998. "Information concealment in the theory of vertical integration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 117-131, March.
    6. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    7. Cho, In-Koo & Sobel, Joel, 1990. "Strategic stability and uniqueness in signaling games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 381-413, April.
    8. Michael H. Riordan & David E. M. Sappington, 1987. "Information, Incentives, and Organizational Mode," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 243-263.
    9. Levent Koçkesen & Efe A. Ok, 2004. "Strategic Delegation By Unobservable Incentive Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 397-424.
    10. , & , M. & ,, 2013. "Hierarchical cheap talk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), January.
    11. Kaufmann, Patrick J & Lafontaine, Francine, 1994. "Costs of Control: The," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 417-453, October.
    12. Kenneth J. Arrow, 1975. "Vertical Integration and Communication," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(1), pages 173-183, Spring.
    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. Maarten C.W. Janssen & Santanu Roy, 2023. "Unobserved Wholesale Contracts," Departmental Working Papers 2310, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    2. Graziano, Clara, 1995. "Cost observability and renegotiation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 359-372, December.
    3. Antonovitz, Frances & Buhr, Brian L. & Liu, Donald J., 1996. "Vertical Integration Incentives In Meat Product Markets," Staff Papers 13989, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    4. Choi, Jay Pil, 1998. "Information concealment in the theory of vertical integration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 117-131, March.
    5. Eduardo Perez & Delphine Prady, 2012. "Complicating to Persuade?," Working Papers hal-03583827, HAL.
    6. Eduardo Perez-Richet, 2014. "Interim Bayesian Persuasion: First Steps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 469-474, May.
    7. Dobrin R. Kolev & Thomas J. Prusa, 1997. "Tariff Policy for a Monopolist Under Incomplete Information," NBER Working Papers 6090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Dominiak, Adam & Lee, Dongwoo, 2023. "Testing rational hypotheses in signaling games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    9. Andrei Bremzen & Elena Khokhlova & Anton Suvorov & Jeroen van de Ven, 2015. "Bad News: An Experimental Study on the Informational Effects Of Rewards," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 55-70, March.
    10. Noldeka, G. & Samuelson, L., 1994. "Learning to Signal in Market," Working papers 9409, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    11. Ellingsen, Tore, 1997. "Price signals quality: The case of perfectly inelastic demand," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 43-61, November.
    12. Iñaki Aguirre, 1999. "Information transmission and incentives not to price discriminate," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 283-299.
    13. Mehmet Ekmekci & Nenad Kos, 2020. "Signaling Covertly Acquired Information," Working Papers 658, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    14. Johanna Hertel & John Smith, 2013. "Not so cheap talk: costly and discrete communication," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 267-291, August.
    15. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Kos, Nenad, 2023. "Signaling covertly acquired information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    16. James W. Roberts & Andrew Sweeting, 2013. "When Should Sellers Use Auctions?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1830-1861, August.
    17. Figueroa, Nicolás & Guadalupi, Carla, 2021. "Testing the sender: When signaling is not enough," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    18. Hisashi Sawaki, 2015. "Horizontal Mergers Under Asymmetric Information About Synergies," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 167-184, September.
    19. B. Douglas Bernheim & Sergei Severinov, 2003. "Bequests as Signals: An Explanation for the Equal Division Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 733-764, August.
    20. Peter M. DeMarzo & Ilan Kremer & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2005. "Bidding with Securities: Auctions and Security Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 936-959, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric information; Product quality; Delegation; Intermediary; Signaling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:15537. 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: 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.