IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1463.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopoly Pricing of Experience Goods

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We develop a dynamic model of experience goods pricing with independent private valuations. We show that the optimal paths of sales and prices can be described in terms of a simple dichotomy. In a mass market, prices are declining over time. In a niche market, the optimal prices are initially low followed by higher prices that extract surplus from the buyers with a high willingness to pay. We consider extensions of the model to integrate elements of social rather than private learning and turnover among buyers.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 2004. "Monopoly Pricing of Experience Goods," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1463R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1463
    Note: CFP 1175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d14/d1463-r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    2. Kenneth L. Judd & Michael H. Riordan, 1994. "Price and Quality in a New Product Monopoly," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 773-789.
    3. Ching, Andrew T., 2010. "Consumer learning and heterogeneity: Dynamics of demand for prescription drugs after patent expiration," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 619-638, November.
    4. Sobel, Joel, 1991. "Durable Goods Monopoly with Entry of New Consumers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1455-1485, September.
    5. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    6. Gregory S. Crawford & Matthew Shum, 2005. "Uncertainty and Learning in Pharmaceutical Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1137-1173, July.
    7. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    8. Keller, Godfrey & Rady, Sven, 2003. "Price Dispersion and Learning in a Dynamic Differentiated-Goods Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(1), pages 138-165, Spring.
    9. Bhattacharya, Jayanta & Vogt, William B, 2003. "A Simple Model of Pharmaceutical Price Dynamics," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 599-626, October.
    10. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2004. "Consumer Learning, Brand Loyalty, and Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 134-145, December.
    11. J. Miguel Villas‐Boas, 2006. "Dynamic Competition with Experience Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 37-66, March.
    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. Bipasa Datta & Clive D. Fraser, 2017. "The company you keep: Qualitative uncertainty in providing a club good," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(4), pages 763-788, August.
    2. Hopkins, Ed, 2007. "Adaptive learning models of consumer behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(3-4), pages 348-368.
    3. Sofia Berto Villas-Boas & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2008. "Learning, Forgetting, and Sales," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1951-1960, November.

    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. Martín-Rodríguez, María, 2018. "A dynamic monopoly with risk-averse consumers," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 61-70.
    2. Fischer, Greg & Karlan, Dean & McConnell, Margaret & Raffler, Pia, 2019. "Short-term subsidies and seller type: A health products experiment in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 110-124.
    3. Jie Bai, 2016. "Melons as Lemons: Asymmetric Information, Consumer Learning and Seller Reputation," Natural Field Experiments 00540, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias, 2017. "Advertising as signal jamming," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 91-113.
    5. Greg Fischer & Dean Karlan & Margaret McConnell & Pia Raffler, 2014. "To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda," Working Papers 1041, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. Tat Chan & Chakravarthi Narasimhan & Ying Xie, 2013. "Treatment Effectiveness and Side Effects: A Model of Physician Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1309-1325, June.
    7. Bipasa Datta & Clive D. Fraser, 2017. "The company you keep: Qualitative uncertainty in providing a club good," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(4), pages 763-788, August.
    8. Baojun Jiang & Bicheng Yang, 2019. "Quality and Pricing Decisions in a Market with Consumer Information Sharing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 272-285, January.
    9. Leonard J. Mirman & Marc Santugini, 2019. "The Informational Role of Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 606-629, April.
    10. Mahenc, Philippe & Meunier, Valérie, 2006. "Early Sales of Bordeaux grands crus," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 57-74, April.
    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. Monteiro, Paulo Klinger & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2003. "We Sold a Million Units -- The Role of Advertising Past-Sales," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 57(2), April.
    13. Philippe Mahenc, 2007. "Are green products over-priced?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(4), pages 461-473, December.
    14. Heiman, Amir & Ofir, Chezy, 2010. "The effects of imbalanced competition on demonstration strategies," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 175-187.
    15. Ajay Kalra & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 1998. "Response to Competitive Entry: A Rationale for Delayed Defensive Reaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 380-405.
    16. Tristan Gagnon-Bartsch & Antonio Rosato, 2024. "Quality Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Taste Projection in Markets with Observational Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(11), pages 3746-3787, November.
    17. Kim, Jeong-Yoo & Berg, Nathan, 2017. "Reexamining the Schmalensee effect," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-12.
    18. Li, Jianpei & Zhang, Wanzhu, 2022. "Behavior-based pricing and signaling of product quality," MPRA Paper 120263, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Jan 2023.
    19. Bester, Helmut & Ritzberger, Klaus, 2001. "Strategic pricing, signalling, and costly information acquisition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1347-1361, November.
    20. Hintermann, Beat & Lange, Andreas, 2013. "Learning abatement costs: On the dynamics of the optimal regulation of experience goods," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 625-638.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monopoly; dynamic pricing; learning; experience goods; continuous time; Markov perfect equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:cwl:cwldpp:1463. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.