IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/118311.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Does Competition Affect Incentives for Market Research?

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmed, Rafayal
  • Shopp, Colin

Abstract

We analyze firms’ incentives to acquire information about market demand in a differentiated goods duopoly setting. We find two distinct benefits of having better information. Firstly, with better information, each firm can better match its price to demand. This benefit is decreasing in the level of market competition. Secondly, better information allows each firm to coordinate their prices with each other in different states, and each firm can make better use of its own information if the other firm acquires better information. This benefit is inverse u-shaped in the level of competition. Based on which effect dominates, each firm’s total benefit from information can either be decreasing, or inverse u-shaped in the level of competition. Given endogenous information acquisition decisions by firms, the effect of competition on consumer welfare is ambiguous.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmed, Rafayal & Shopp, Colin, 2022. "How Does Competition Affect Incentives for Market Research?," MPRA Paper 118311, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:118311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/118311/1/Market%20Research%20and%20Competition.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hwang, Hae-shin, 1995. "Information Acquisition and Relative Efficiency of Competitive, Oligopoly and Monopoly Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(2), pages 325-340, May.
    2. Ronald Goettler & Brett Gordon, 2014. "Competition and product innovation in dynamic oligopoly," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-42, March.
    3. Esther Hauk & Sjaak Hurkens, 2001. "Secret information acquisition in Cournot markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 18(3), pages 661-681.
    4. Nicola Persico, 1996. "Information Acquisition in Affiliated Decision Problems," Discussion Papers 1149, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    5. Vives, Xavier, 1984. "Duopoly information equilibrium: Cournot and bertrand," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 71-94, October.
    6. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sjaak Hurkens, 2014. "Bayesian Nash equilibrium in “linear” Cournot models with private information about costs," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 10(2), pages 203-217, June.
    2. Juan-José Ganuza & Jos Jansen, 2013. "Too Much Information Sharing? Welfare Effects of Sharing Acquired Cost Information in Oligopoly," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 845-876, December.
    3. Tao Wang, 2020. "Competitive Intelligence and Disclosure of Cost Information in Duopoly," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 57(3), pages 665-699, November.
    4. Myatt, David P. & Wallace, Chris, 2015. "Cournot competition and the social value of information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 466-506.
    5. Markus Christen, 2005. "Research Note---Cost Uncertainty Is Bliss: The Effect of Competition on the Acquisition of Cost Information for Pricing New Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(4), pages 668-676, April.
    6. Esther Gal-Or & Mordechai Gal-Or & Anthony Dukes, 2007. "Optimal information revelation in procurement schemes," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 400-418, June.
    7. Kazunori Miwa, 2021. "An Experimental Study on Information Acquisition and Disclosure in a Cournot Duopoly Market," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 13-01-Rev, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    8. Nicola Persico, 2000. "Information Acquisition in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 135-148, January.
    9. Ui, Takashi & Yoshizawa, Yasunori, 2015. "Characterizing social value of information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 507-535.
    10. Hurkens, Sjaak & Vulkan, Nir, 2006. "Endogenous private information structures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 35-54, January.
    11. Eliane Catilina, 2002. "Information Acquisition in Cournot Markets: An (enhanced) two- Stage Approach," Game Theory and Information 0205005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Liu, Ting & Wang, Tao, 2018. "Information Acquisition, signaling and learning in duopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 155-191.
    13. Qihong Liu Konstantinos Serfes, 2001. "Endogenous Acquisition Of Information On Consumer Willingness To Pay In A Product Differentiated Duopoly," Industrial Organization 0110001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Catilina, Eliane, 2019. "Information Acquisition with Endogenously Determined Cost in Cournot Markets with Stochastic Demand," MPRA Paper 93896, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard P. McLean, 2018. "On the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Bayesian Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 100-129, February.
    16. Xu Guan & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2016. "Timing of information acquisition in a competitive environment," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(1), pages 3-22, February.
    17. Medín, J. Andrés Faíña & Rodríguez, Jesús López & Rodríguez, José López, 2003. "Information Exchanges in Cournot Duopolies," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 57(1), January.
    18. Jos Jansen, 2008. "Information Acquisition and Strategic Disclosure in Oligopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 113-148, March.
    19. Einy, Ezra & Moreno, Diego & Shitovitz, Benyamin, 2002. "Information Advantage in Cournot Oligopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 151-160, September.
    20. Kazunori Miwa, 2013. "The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure on Information Acquisition: Theory and Experiment," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 13-01, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information acquisition; Bertrand duopoly; signals; competition.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:pra:mprapa:118311. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.