IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00197137.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The economic analysis of product diversity

Author

Listed:
  • Heritiana Ranaivoson

    (MATISSE - UMR 8595 - Modélisation Appliquée, Trajectoires Institutionnelles et Stratégies Socio-Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Product diversity is a long-debated issue in economics. We remind that mainly two questions have been given answers: (a) To which extent does the market provide diversity? (b) Why should this diversity be promoted? The first one stands out as the core of most articles on product diversity, whereas the second one is more evoked than really deepened. However, the economic analysis of product diversity stands out as a paradox. Actually, the definition of diversity itself has been somewhat forgotten. We try to give ways to overcome this absence so that product diversity can eventually be concretely assessed.

Suggested Citation

  • Heritiana Ranaivoson, 2005. "The economic analysis of product diversity," Post-Print halshs-00197137, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00197137
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00197137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00197137/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Perloff, Jeffrey M & Salop, Steven, 1984. "Equilibrium with product differentiation," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt4cq0m6s3, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    2. Donsimoni, Marie-Paule & Geroski, Paul & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1984. "Concentration Indices and Market Power: Two Views," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 419-434, June.
    3. Unknown, 1967. "Index," 1967 Conference, August 21-30, 1967, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 209796, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Jeffrey M. Perloff & Steven C. Salop, 1985. "Equilibrium with Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 107-120.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Llerena, Patrick & Oltra, Vanessa, 2002. "Diversity of innovative strategy as a source of technological performance," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 179-201, June.
    7. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & André De Palma & Jacques-François Thisse, 1989. "Demand for Differentiated Products, Discrete Choice Models, and the Characteristics Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 21-35.
    9. Raymond Deneckere & Michael Rothschild, 1992. "Monopolistic Competition and Preference Diversity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(2), pages 361-373.
    10. Suen, Wing, 1991. "The Value of Product Diversity," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 217-223, April.
    11. K. J. Arrow, 1971. "The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: F. H. Hahn (ed.), Readings in the Theory of Growth, chapter 11, pages 131-149, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. repec:bla:econom:v:50:y:1983:i:198:p:203-06 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    14. Martin L. Weitzman, 1994. "Monopolistic Competition with Endogenous Specialization," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 45-56.
    15. Gerald Silverberg & Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Orsenigo, 2000. "Innovation, Diversity and Diffusion: A Self-Organisation Model," Chapters, in: Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics, chapter 14, pages 410-432, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Pier P. Saviotti, 1996. "Technological Evolution, Variety and the Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 727.
    17. Russell Cooper & Thomas W. Ross, 1984. "Prices, Product Qualities and Asymmetric Information: The Competitive Case," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 197-207.
    18. Scherer, F M, 1979. "The Welfare Economics of Product Variety: An Application to the Ready-to-Eat Cereals Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 113-134, December.
    19. Joan Robinson, 1934. "What is Perfect Competition?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 49(1), pages 104-120.
    20. repec:bla:econom:v:41:y:1974:i:164:p:359-67 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Lancaster, Kelvin, 1975. "Socially Optimal Product Differentiation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(4), pages 567-585, 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. Jiancai Pi & Xiangyu Huang, 2021. "Product Variety and Wage Inequality," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 22(1), pages 135-151, May.
    2. Dobis, Elizabeth A. & Delgado, Michael S. & Florax, Raymond J.G.M & Mulder, Peter, 2015. "The Significance of Urban Hierarchy in Explaining Population Dynamics in the United States," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205869, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    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. Heritiana Ranaivoson, 2005. "The economic analysis of product diversity," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05083, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    2. Sällström, Susanna, 2009. "Functional Differentiation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7187, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Anderson, Simon P. & de Palma, Andre, 2000. "From local to global competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 423-448, March.
    4. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    5. Horrace, William C. & Huang, Rui & Perloff, Jeffrey M., 2016. "Effects of increased variety on demand, pricing, and welfare," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 569-587.
    6. Horrace, William & Huang, Rui & Perloff, Jeffrey, 2009. "Variety: Consumer Choice and Optimal Diversity," Research Reports 149942, University of Connecticut, Food Marketing Policy Center.
    7. Steven Berry & Amit Gandhi & Philip Haile, 2013. "Connected Substitutes and Invertibility of Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(5), pages 2087-2111, September.
    8. Ushchev, Philip & Zenou, Yves, 2018. "Price competition in product variety networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 226-247.
    9. Clarissa Yeap, 2006. "The Production Decisions of Large Competitors: Detecting Cost Advantages and Strategic Behavior in Restaurants," Working Papers 06-19, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Simon P. Anderson & Regis Renault, 1999. "Pricing, Product Diversity, and Search Costs: A Bertrand-Chamberlin-Diamond Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 719-735, Winter.
    11. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2017. "Monopolistic competition, the Dixit–Stiglitz model, and economic analysis," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 798-802.
    12. Jean J. Gabszewicz & Jacques-François Thisse, 2000. "Microeconomic theories of imperfect competition," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(1), pages 47-99.
    13. Mojduszka, Eliza M., 2001. "Integration Of A Product Choice Model And A Latent Variable Model Of Nutrition Information," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20678, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Christou, C. & Vettas, N., 2008. "On informative advertising and product differentiation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 92-112, January.
    15. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and monopolistic competition," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 645-649.
    16. Jacques-François Thisse & Philip Ushchev, 2018. "Monopolistic competition without apology," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 5, pages 93-136, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, 2018. "Green Growth and Taste Heterogeneity," IBS Working Papers 07/2018, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    18. Creane, Anthony & Manduchi, Agostino, 2022. "Informative advertising in monopolistically competitive markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Behrens, Kristian & Murata, Yasusada, 2007. "General equilibrium models of monopolistic competition: A new approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 776-787, September.
    20. Torshizi Mohammad & Fulton Murray E. & Gray Richard S., 2018. "Non-Linear Demand in a Linear Town," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 1-12, November.

    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:hal:journl:halshs-00197137. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.