IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/23105.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Business of Business is Business: Why (Some) Firms Should Provide Public Goods when they Sell Private Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Chien-Yu Lai
  • Andreas Lange
  • John A. List
  • Michael K. Price

Abstract

This note links the commodity bundling literature with the literature on the private provision of public goods. We discuss the potential profitability of bundling strategies for both private firms and charitable organizations. Even in the absence of consumption complementarities, we show important cases when private and public goods should be bundled. For example, both a monopolist and a charity can profit from bundling the goods they provide. Linking sales to charitable contributions can also be beneficial for for-profit firms as it alleviates price-competition. Beyond providing a theoretical framework for understanding the incentive properties of bundling private and public goods, the study lends insights into the debate on the efficacy of corporate social responsibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Chien-Yu Lai & Andreas Lange & John A. List & Michael K. Price, 2017. "The Business of Business is Business: Why (Some) Firms Should Provide Public Goods when they Sell Private Goods," NBER Working Papers 23105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23105
    Note: EEE IO PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23105.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Loureiro & Justus Lotade, 2005. "Interviewer Effects on the Valuation of Goods with Ethical and Environmental Attributes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 30(1), pages 49-72, January.
    2. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2007. "Retailing public goods: The economics of corporate social responsibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1645-1663, September.
    3. repec:wly:soecon:v:83:2:y:2016:p:380-398 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Matthew J. Kotchen, 2006. "Green Markets and Private Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(4), pages 816-845, August.
    5. Tyner, Wally & Adams, John, 1976. "Rural Electrification In India: Biogas Versus Large Scale Power," 1976 Annual Meeting, August 15-18, State College, Pennsylvania 283822, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Abagail McWilliams & Donald S. Siegel & Patrick M. Wright, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 1-18, January.
    7. McManus, Brian & Bennet, Richard, 2011. "The demand for products linked to public goods: Evidence from an online field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 403-415, June.
    8. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Moore, Michael R., 2007. "Private provision of environmental public goods: Household participation in green-electricity programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Elfenbein, Daniel W. & McManus, Brian, 2010. "Last-minute bidding in eBay charity auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 42-45, April.
    10. William James Adams & Janet L. Yellen, 1976. "Commodity Bundling and the Burden of Monopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(3), pages 475-498.
    11. Barry Nalebuff, 2004. "Bundling as an Entry Barrier," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 159-187.
    12. Peter T. L. Popkowski Leszczyc & Michael H. Rothkopf (deceased), 2010. "Charitable Motives and Bidding in Charity Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(3), pages 399-413, March.
    13. McManus, Brian & Bennet, Richard, 2011. "The demand for products linked to public goods: Evidence from an online field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 403-415.
    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. Andreas Lange & Claudia Schwirplies, 2021. "Bargaining With Charitable Promises: True Preferences and Strategic Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 9129, CESifo.
    2. Jintao Lu & Mengshang Liang & Chong Zhang & Dan Rong & Hailing Guan & Kristina Mazeikaite & Justas Streimikis, 2021. "Assessment of corporate social responsibility by addressing sustainable development goals," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 686-703, March.

    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. Schwirplies, Claudia & Lange, Andreas, 2024. "Posted offers with charitable promises: True preferences and strategic behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 308-326.
    2. Marieta Valente, 2015. "Ethical Differentiation and Consumption in an Incentivized Market Experiment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(1), pages 51-69, August.
    3. John List & Michael Price, 2012. "Charitable Giving Around the World: Thoughts on How to Expand the Pie," Natural Field Experiments 00470, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Markus Kitzmueller, 2008. "Economics and Corporate Social Responsibility," Economics Working Papers ECO2008/37, European University Institute.
    5. Gregory S. Crawford, 2015. "The economics of television and online video markets," ECON - Working Papers 197, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Sang‐Hyun Kim & Jong‐Hee Hahn, 2022. "On the profitability of interfirm bundling in oligopolies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 657-673, August.
    7. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.
    8. Vasileiou, Efi & Georgantzís, Nikolaos, 2015. "An experiment on energy-saving competition with socially responsible consumers: Opening the black box," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-10.
    9. Takanori Adachi & Takeshi Ebina & Makoto Hanazono, 2011. "Option Package Bundling," KIER Working Papers 785, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Crawford, Gregory, 2015. "The Economics of Television and Online Video Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10676, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Aseem Kaul & Jiao Luo, 2018. "An economic case for CSR: The comparative efficiency of for‐profit firms in meeting consumer demand for social goods," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1650-1677, June.
    12. Tarek Abdallah, 2019. "On the Benefit (Or Cost) of Large‐Scale Bundling," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(4), pages 955-969, April.
    13. Jihui Chen & Qiang Fu, 2017. "Do exclusivity arrangements harm consumers?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 311-339, June.
    14. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Valeria Costantini & Susanna Mancinelli & Massimilano Corradini, 2011. "Environmental and Innovation Performance in a Dynamic Impure Public Good Framework," Working Papers 201117, University of Ferrara, Department of Economics.
    15. Alexei Alexandrov & Özlem Bedre-Defolie, 2014. "The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 259-272, March.
    16. Paul Pecorino, 2016. "A Portion of Profits to Charity: Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Profitability," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 380-398, October.
    17. Dennis W. Carlton & Michael Waldman, 2014. "Robert Bork's Contributions to Antitrust Perspectives on Tying Behavior," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 121-144.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7fsnj6af7v9ncrf76qn5p5on9e is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2017. "Profit with Purpose? A Theory of Social Enterprise," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 19-58, August.
    20. Andreas Nilsson & David T. Robinson, 2018. "What Is the Business of Business?," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 79-106.
    21. Michele Fioretti, 2022. "Caring or Pretending to Care? Social Impact, Firms' Objectives, and Welfare (former title: Social Responsibility and Firm's Objectives)," SciencePo Working papers hal-03393065, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    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:nbr:nberwo:23105. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.