IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mtl/montec/8911.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty, Capacity And Flexibility: The Monopoly Case

Author

Listed:
  • BOYER, M.
  • MOREAUX, A.

Abstract

It is generally expected that profit maximisation leads a firm to choose a more flexible plant the more uncertain its demand function is and/or the more variable is the sequence of quantities to produce. In this paper we make explicit the precise conditions under which this intuitive argument is valid. We show that a sufficient condition is that the increase in uncertainty must involve only those states of demand for which the firm is initially active, that is for which it is able to cover quasi-fixed and variable costs. These are common assumptions in most flexibility choice models. But we also show that a reverse relation between the variability in demand and plant flexibility may exist under reasonable cost and demand conditions, even under the most common definition of increased uncertainty in demand and the most acceptable notion of plant flexibility. We give an example of such an inverse relation.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Boyer, M. & Moreaux, A., 1989. "Uncertainty, Capacity And Flexibility: The Monopoly Case," Cahiers de recherche 8911, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montec:8911
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meunier, Guy & Ponssard, Jean-Pierre, 2014. "Capacity decisions with demand fluctuations and carbon leakage," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 436-454.
    2. Marcel Boyer & Michel Moreaux, 1995. "Capacity Commitment Versus Flexibility: The Technological Choice Nexus in a Strategic Context," CIRANO Working Papers 95s-35, CIRANO.
    3. Thierry Lafay, 2011. "A Competitive Duopoly where Information Spillovers can be Mutually Advantageous," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 77(1), pages 79-100.
    4. Boyer, Marcel, 2020. "L’économie des organisations : Mythes et réalités," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 96(4), pages 471-498, Décembre.
    5. Boyer, Marcel, 1996. "L’économie des organisations," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 72(3), pages 247-274, septembre.
    6. Boyer, Marcel & Poitevin, Michel, 1989. "Commentaire sur le texte de Stylianos Perrakis," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 65(4), pages 547-554, décembre.
    7. David Martimort & Stéphane Straub, 2016. "How To Design Infrastructure Contracts In A Warming World: A Critical Appraisal Of Public–Private Partnerships," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 61-88, February.
    8. Boyer, Marcel & Moreaux, Michel, 2000. "Flexibilité et stratégies d’impartition," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 76(2), pages 199-224, juin.
    9. Marcel Boyer & Jacques Robert, 1996. "Ex Ante Incentives and Ex Post Flexibility," CIRANO Working Papers 96s-14, CIRANO.
    10. Marcel Boyer & Michel Moreaux, 1997. "Capacity Commitment versus Flexibility," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 347-376, June.
    11. Boyer, Marcel & Robert, Jacques, 2006. "Organizational inertia and dynamic incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 324-348, March.
    12. Marcel Boyer & Séverine Clamens, 1997. "Strategic Adoption of a New Technology under Uncertain Implementation," CIRANO Working Papers 97s-40, CIRANO.
    13. David Martimort & Stéphane Straub, 2011. "How to Design Public-Private Partnerships in a Warming World? - When Infrastructure Becomes a Really “Hot” Topic," Working Papers 2011/25, Maastricht School of Management.
    14. David Martimort & Stéphane Straub, 2016. "How To Design Infrastructure Contracts In A Warming World: A Critical Appraisal Of Public–Private Partnerships," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57, pages 61-88, February.

    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:mtl:montec:8911. 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: Sharon BREWER (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdmtlca.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.