Perception and Quality Choice in Vertically Differentiated Markets PDF Download

Author: E. J. D. Webb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Vugar Ahmadov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumers
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Author: Yong-Hwan Noh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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This dissertation explores models of heterogeneous product markets that rely on the "vertical product differentiation" formulation. The demand structure applied here is the covered-market configuration under the vertical product differentiation. With this specification, product market equilibria of the monopoly and duopoly market are derived. In particular, parameter restrictions on the degree of relative consumer heterogeneity associated with the covered-market setting are identified and used to interpret analytical results. Based on the specified demand structure, I revisit two industrial organization topics from the perspectives of vertical product differentiation. The first essay analyzes the entry of a new product into a vertically differentiated market where an entrant and an incumbent compete in prices. Many models on strategic entry deterrence deal with "limit quantities" as the established firm's strategic tool to deter or accommodate entry. Here, however, the entry-deterrence strategies of the incumbent firm rely on "limit qualities". With a sequential choice of quality, quality-dependent marginal production cost, and a fixed entry cost, I relate the entry-quality decision and the entry-deterrence strategies to the level of an entry cost and the degree of consumer heterogeneity. In particular, the incumbent influences the quality choice of the entrant by choosing its quality level before the entrant. This allows the incumbent to "limit" the entrant's entry decision and quality levels. Quality-dependent marginal production costs in the model entail the possibility of inferior-quality entry as well as the incumbent's aggressive entry-deterrence strategies by increasing its quality level towards potential entry. Welfare evaluation confirms that social welfare is not necessarily improved when entry is encouraged rather than deterred. The second essay is motivated by some specific economic questions that have arisen with the introduction of 'genetically modified' (GM) agricultural products. A duopoly market-entry model associated with the vertical product differentiation is developed to show how the existence of segregation costs biases the firm's quality choice behavior. Thus, the key factor of the model is the cost of segregation activities that are necessary to distinguish GM products from non-GM products. With an increasing and convex cost of quality, the model predicts that the entrant firm has an increased incentive to enter the market with a low-quality good to reduce production costs if segregation costs are sufficiently high. When consumers are homogeneous enough, however, entry may occur with the high-quality good.

Author: John Beath
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521335522
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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There are few industries in modern market economies that do not manufacture differentiated products. This book provides a systematic explanation and analysis of the widespread prevalence of this important category of products. The authors concentrate on models in which product selection is endogenous. In the first four chapters they consider models that try to predict the level of product differentiation that would emerge in situations of market equilibrium. These market equilibria with differentiated products are characterised and then compared with social welfare optima. Particular attention is paid to the distinction between horizontal and vertical differentiation as well as to the related issues of product quality and durability. This book brings together the most important theoretical contributions to these topics in a succinct and coherent manner. One of its major strengths is the way in which it carefully sets out the basic intuition behind the formal results. It will be useful to advanced undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in industrial economics and microeconomic theory.

Author: Tarek H. Selim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Spatial quality choice is introduced, where consumers are horizontally differentiated by taste and firms vertically differentiated by quality location, within an equilibrium model of duopoly competition characterized by asymmetric fixed and variable costs. Firms choose quality location followed by prices but then may vertically re-locate their quality offerings based on changing horizontal consumer taste. A monopolistic equilibrium solution arises with firms achieving positive economic profits through price-quality markups exceeding marginal costs. Under strict inequality conditions, each firm acts as a monopolistic competitor within a range of quality choices governed by multiple relative differentiation outcomes. On the other hand, vertical re-location exhibits a resistance to change on the part of vertically located firms such that firms dislike quality re-location and prefer stable preferences in quality. Such resistance to change is overcome by firms re-locating their quality offerings to maximize monopolistic brand-space gains. It is argued that more horizontal differentiation may force more product differentiation by vertical quality relocation. A relative change in quality preferences may result in wider quality spreads in the market through vertical quality re-locations, even though the resistance to change arguments may still hold good.

Author: Barry Krissoff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475753292
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Consumers have always been concerned about the quality, and particularly the safety, of the foods they eat. In recent years this concern has taken on additional prominence. Consumer focus on food safety has been sharpened by reports about new risks, such as that posed by "mad cow" disease, and about more familiar sources of risk, such as food borne pathogens, pesticides, and hormones. At the same time, some consumers are in creasingly interested in knowing more about how their food is produced and in selecting products based on production practices. Some of the questions consumers are asking in clude whether food is produced with the use of modern biotechnology, whether it is or ganically produced, how animals are treated in meat and egg production systems, and whether food is produced using traditional methods. Recent trends also show increased consumer demand for a variety of food products that are fresh, tasty, and available on a year-round basis. This has fostered increased global trade in food. For example, consumers in temperate climates such as North America are able to buy raspberries throughout the year, and Europeans can enjoy South American coffee. Trade in processed food products is actually increasing more rapidly than trade in agricultural commodities, further addressing the demand for variety among consumers.

Author: Dirk Bergemann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Competition
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Author: Jens Beckert
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191665266
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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How can we engage in a market relationship when the quality of the goods we want to acquire is unknown, invisible, or uncertain? For market exchange to be possible, purchasers and suppliers of goods must be able to assess the quality of a product in relation to other products. Only by recognizing qualities and perceiving quality differences can purchasers make non-random choices, and price differences between goods be justified. "Quality" is not a natural given, but the outcome of a social process in which products become seen as possessing certain traits, and occupying a specific position in relation to other products in the product space. While we normally take the quality of goods for granted, quality at a closer look is the outcome of a highly complex process of construction involving producers, consumers, and market intermediaries engaged in judgment, evaluation, categorization, and measurement. The authors in this volume investigate the processes through which the quality of goods is established. They also investigate how product qualities are contested and how they change over time. The empirical cases discussed cover a broad range of markets in which quality is especially difficult to assess. The cases include: halal food, funeral markets, wine, labor, school choice, financial products, antiques, and counterfeit goods. The book contributes to the sociology of markets. At the same time it connects to the larger issue of the constitution of social order through cognitive processes of classification.

Author: Brandon James Hoffman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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This is a collection of essays on the topic of vertical markets and resellers. The first two chapters look at the effects of mandatory dealer laws on prices and profits in vertical markets with differentiated goods. The third chapter looks at the quality of products chosen when manufacturers use resellers compared to when they do not. All three chapters show that competition is lessened when mandatory dealer laws exist. Chapter 1 addresses the US automobile market which has laws in almost every state that require sales of new vehicles go through franchised dealers, and manufacturers are not allowed to sell directly to consumers. While vertical markets can provide many benefits to both producer and consumer alike, double-marginalization is often seen as a problem for producers and consumers with vertical markets; whereby firms on different levels both have market power and thus are both able to charge a markup over cost. Contracts and implicit agreements can mitigate or lessen the negative externality associated with double-marginalization, but I develop a model to show that double-marginalization can be a good thing for producers, while simultaneously being bad for consumers. The model has a single dimension on product differentiation and different levels of vertical markets. In this model, firms either sell to consumers or other firms. How far removed the manufacturer of the good is from the final consumer determines the number of vertical markets. A market with one level consists of a manufacturer who sells directly to consumers, while a market with two levels consists of a manufacturer who sells to a reseller who in turn sells to consumers. I find that the profits of the manufacturer of the good can be up to three times as high when there are two levels instead of one and that they will always be at least twice as high. This model also shows that manufacturers can benefit from the existence of a law that requires they use dealers, even though any one single manufacturer has an incentive to not use a dealer. Chapter 2 addresses mandatory dealer laws in a setting without perfectly inelastic demand. Under a certain set of circumstances, manufacturers can earn higher profits after the introduction of these mandatory dealer laws than they would be without them. In this chapter, I remove the perfectly inelastic total demand restriction, and instead show how the elasticity of total demand plays a role in a manufacturer's preference for a mandatory dealer law. For the model used in this paper, I find that total demand does not need to be very inelastic at all, and in fact, can be elastic at the equilibrium prices and quantities. The findings in this paper run contrary to expectation, where double-marginalization is something that hurts manufacture's profits. In chapter 3, I analyze the benefit of moving first in a vertically differentiated market with manufacturers and retailers. Both retailers and manufactures are assumed to be profit-maximizing entities. Here the choice of the incumbent manufacturer creates an indifference between entering with a higher quality or entering with a lower quality for the entering manufacturer. Entry-quality decisions and wholesale pricing are related to the competition of retailers selling the manufacturers product and the degree of consumers' taste for quality. I examine the indifference of the entering manufacturer and highlight the benefits of being able to set quality first as an incumbent manufacturer when pricing stages are simultaneous. Stackelberg competition in the quality stage allows for the possibility for inferior-quality entry as well as superior-quality entry. The first-mover advantage dominates the high-quality advantage in this setting which is consistent with my findings in the dock and boat-lift markets.

Author: Rajat Acharyya
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3790815969
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Through the process of globalization, the trade dependence and int- dependence of the developing countries have increased phenomenally than ever before. The characteristic of this late twentieth-century globalization process has been the new technological revolution that has led to a high rate of world exports of electronics and other high-technology products. This has marginalized most of the developing countries exporting largely the low quality and low value-addition manufacturing and primary products, barring a few exceptions like China, India and Mexico. The fruits of globalization have, therefore, been unevenly distributed so far across the developed and the developing countries. Moreover, whatever little growth in exports of medium technology products has been achieved by a few of them, is largely driven by outsourcing of low value-addition and low- stage of activities by the foreign multinationals. Outsourcing of software services, rather than development of software packages, in India and assembly line for automobiles in Mexico are the two glaring examples. These activities may have boosted the total exports of these countries, but they have failed to generate any feedback effect on the rest of the economy in terms of skill formation, increase in overall productivity level and product diversification.