IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kuiedp/1407.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Perception and quality choice in vertically differentiated markets

Author

Listed:
  • Edward J. Webb

    (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University)

Abstract

Consumers are assumed to be unable to discriminate between two goods of differing qualities provided that the qualities are close enough. It is shown that in a vertically differentiated duopoly this results in multiple equilibria. Demand for each firm's good is reduced. Firms' profits may be higher or lower depending on which equilibrium is selected.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward J. Webb, 2014. "Perception and quality choice in vertically differentiated markets," Discussion Papers 14-07, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/dp_2014/1407.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Consumer Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 803-843.
    2. Motta, Massimo, 1993. "Endogenous Quality Choice: Price vs. Quantity Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 113-131, June.
    3. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Salience Theory of Choice Under Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1243-1285.
    4. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 623-628, May.
    5. Jayachandran N. Variyam, 2008. "Do nutrition labels improve dietary outcomes?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(6), pages 695-708, June.
    6. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2016. "Competition for Attention," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 481-513.
    7. Brekke, Kurt R. & Holmas, Tor Helge & Straume, Odd Rune, 2011. "Reference pricing, competition, and pharmaceutical expenditures: Theory and evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 624-638.
    8. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    9. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    10. Botond Koszegi & Adam Szeidl, 2013. "A Model of Focusing in Economic Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 53-104.
    11. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2015. "Salience Theory of Judicial Decisions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S1), pages 7-33.
    12. Jonathan W. Leland, 2002. "Similarity Judgments and Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 574-581, October.
    13. Leland, Jonathan W, 1994. "Generalized Similarity Judgments: An Alternative Explanation for Choice Anomalies," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 151-172, October.
    14. Juan Carlos Hallak & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 417-474.
    15. Sileo Patrick W., 1995. "Intransitivity of Indifference, Strong Monotonicity, and the Endowment Effect," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 198-223, June.
    16. Elena Reutskaja & Rosemarie Nagel & Colin F. Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2011. "Search Dynamics in Consumer Choice under Time Pressure: An Eye-Tracking Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 900-926, April.
    17. Inderst, Roman & Valletti, Tommaso, 2011. "Incentives for input foreclosure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 820-831, August.
    18. David Buschena & David Zilberman, 1999. "Testing the Effects of Similarity on Risky Choice: Implications for Violations of Expected Utility," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 253-280, June.
    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. Edward John Dorrell Webb, 2014. "Do we see monopoly or duopoly? The influence of perception on entry deterrence," Discussion Papers 14-20, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    2. Edward J. D. Webb, 2017. "If It’s All the Same to You: Blurred Consumer Perception and Market Structure," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 1-25, February.

    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. Edward John Dorrell Webb, 2014. "Do we see monopoly or duopoly? The influence of perception on entry deterrence," Discussion Papers 14-20, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    2. Edward J. D. Webb, 2017. "If It’s All the Same to You: Blurred Consumer Perception and Market Structure," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 1-25, February.
    3. Königsheim, C. & Lukas, M. & Nöth, M., 2019. "Salience theory: Calibration and heterogeneity in probability distortion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 477-495.
    4. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Wenzel, Tobias, 2019. "Focusing and framing of risky alternatives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 289-304.
    5. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats & Peiseler, Florian, 2019. "Attention-driven demand for bonus contracts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-24.
    6. Jonathan W. Leland & Mark Schneider, 2016. "Salience, Framing, and Decisions under Risk, Uncertainty, and Time," Working Papers 16-08, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Balart, Pau, 2021. "Semiorder preferences and price-oriented buyers in a Hotelling model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 394-407.
    9. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sudeep Bhatia & Graham Loomes & Daniel Read, 2021. "Establishing the laws of preferential choice behavior," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(6), pages 1324-1369, November.
    11. Jonathan W. Leland & Mark Schneider & Jonathan Leland, 2016. "Axioms for Salience Perception," Working Papers 16-15, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    12. Sjursen, Ingrid Hoem, 2023. "Accountability and taxation: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 386-432.
    13. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats, 2017. "Local thinking and skewness preferences," DICE Discussion Papers 248, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    14. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2022. "Salience theory and the cross-section of stock returns: International and further evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 689-725.
    15. Lefgren, Lars J. & Stoddard, Olga B. & Stovall, John E., 2021. "Rationalizing self-defeating behaviors: Theory and evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Chen Lian & Yueran Ma & Carmen Wang, 2019. "Low Interest Rates and Risk-Taking: Evidence from Individual Investment Decisions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(6), pages 2107-2148.
    17. Ian Chadd & Emel Filiz-Ozbay & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2021. "The relevance of irrelevant information," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 985-1018, September.
    18. Hu, Shiyang & Xiang, Cheng & Quan, Xiaofeng, 2023. "Salience theory and mutual fund flows: Empirical evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    19. Ola Andersson & Jim Ingebretsen Carlson & Erik Wengström, 2021. "Differences Attract: An Experimental Study of Focusing in Economic Choice," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2671-2692.
    20. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Mats Köster, 2020. "Salience and Skewness Preferences [Risk-neutral Firms can Extract Unbounded Profits from Consumers with Prospect Theory Preferences]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2057-2107.
    21. Adrian Bruhin & Maha Manai & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2022. "Risk and rationality: The relative importance of probability weighting and choice set dependence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 139-184, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Perception; bounded rationality; vertical differentiation; oligopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • 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:kud:kuiedp:1407. 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: Thomas Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/okokudk.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.