IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trf/wpaper/271.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopoly Distortions in Durability and Multi-Dimensional Quality

Author

Listed:
  • Strausz, Roland

Abstract

I show that Swan’s (1970) independence result requires a multiplicative interaction between durability and all other quality attributes. Because there is no compelling argument for a multiplicativity in quality, monopolists tend to distort durability, even with constant marginal costs. Distortions in durability and other quality aspects are aligned exactly when the marginal cost of quality do not increase too much with durability.

Suggested Citation

  • Strausz, Roland, 2009. "Monopoly Distortions in Durability and Multi-Dimensional Quality," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 271, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13281/1/271.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roland Strausz, 2009. "Planned Obsolescence as an Incentive Device for Unobservable Quality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1405-1421, October.
    2. Inderst, Roman, 2008. "Durable goods with quality differentiation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 173-177, August.
    3. David Levhari & Yoram Peles, 1973. "Market Structure, Quality and Durability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 4(1), pages 235-248, Spring.
    4. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    5. Peter L. Swan, 1970. "Market Structure and Technological Progress: The Influence of Monopoly on Product Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(4), pages 627-638.
    6. Chi, Woody Chih-Yi, 1999. "Quality choice and the Coase problem," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 107-115, July.
    7. E. Sieper & P. L. Swan, 1973. "Monopoly and Competition in the Market for Durable Goods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 333-351.
    8. E. Kleiman & T. Ophir, 1966. "The Durability of Durable Goods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 33(2), pages 165-178.
    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. Morton I. Kamien & Nancy Schwartz, 1975. "Optimal Capital Accumulation and Durable Goods Production," Discussion Papers 141, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    2. Choi Jay Pil, 2001. "Planned Obsolescence As A Signal of Quality," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 59-79.
    3. Oded Koenigsberg & Rajeev Kohli & Ricardo Montoya, 2011. "The Design of Durable Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 111-122, 01-02.
    4. Sibly, Hugh, 2007. "Loss aversion, price and quality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 771-788, October.
    5. Gerstle, Ari D. & Waldman, Michael, 2016. "Mergers in durable-goods industries: A re-examination of market power and welfare effects," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 677-692.
    6. Adriano A. Rampini, 2019. "Financing Durable Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(2), pages 664-701, February.
    7. Kuppelwieser, Volker G. & Klaus, Phil & Manthiou, Aikaterini & Boujena, Othman, 2019. "Consumer responses to planned obsolescence," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 157-165.
    8. Facanha, Luis Otavio & Resende, Marcelo, 2004. "Price cap regulation, incentives and quality:: The case of Brazilian telecommunications," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 133-144, November.
    9. Brueckner, Jan K. & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2020. "Market structure and quality determination for complementary products: Alliances and service quality in the airline industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Fethke, Gary & Jagannathan, Raj, 2000. "Why would a durable good monopolist also produce a cost-inefficient nondurable good?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 793-812, July.
    11. Jayarajan, Dinakar & Siddarth, S. & Silva-Risso, Jorge, 2018. "Cannibalization vs. competition: An empirical study of the impact of product durability on automobile demand," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 641-660.
    12. Asano, Takao & Shibata, Akihisa, 2011. "Optimal pricing and quality choice of a monopolist under Knightian uncertainty," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 746-754.
    13. Carlaw, Kenneth I., 2005. "Optimal obsolescence," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 21-45.
    14. Roland Strausz, 2009. "Planned Obsolescence as an Incentive Device for Unobservable Quality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1405-1421, October.
    15. Fethke, Gary & Jagannathan, Raj, 2002. "Monopoly with endogenous durability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1009-1027, June.
    16. Sibly, Hugh, 2008. "Quality Versus Quantity in Vertically Differentiated Products Under Non-Linear Pricing," Working Papers 7335, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, revised 01 Jun 2008.
    17. Sibly, Hugh, 2008. "Vertical Product Differentiation with Linear Pricing," Working Papers 7335, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, revised 01 Jul 2008.
    18. T. Randolph Beard & Jeffrey T. Macher & John W. Mayo, 2015. "'Can you Hear Me Now?' Exit, Voice and Loyalty Under Increasing Competition," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    19. Roland Strausz, "undated". "Planned Obsolescence and the Provision of Unobservable Quality," Papers 028, Departmental Working Papers.
    20. Oscar Gutiérrez & Francisco Ruiz-Aliseda, 2011. "Real options with unknown-date events," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 171-198, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Durability; quality; monopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    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:trf:wpaper:271. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (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.