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....

A durable good monopolist faces a continuum of heterogeneous customers who make purchase decisions by comparing present and expected price-quality offers. The monopolist designs a sequence of price-quality menus to segment the market. We consider the Markov Perfect Equilibrium (MPE) of a game...

We examine time-consistent intertemporal price and quality discrimination by a durable goods monopolist facing a continuum of rational buyers with heterogeneous preferences over product quality. We focus the analysis on the "gap" case, where it is profitable for the monopolist to trade with the...

This paper considers a novel and strategic use of quality as a means for solving the durable-goods time inconsistency problem. It demonstrates how durable-goods producers can exploit the cannibalization of high-quality markets by low-quality goods. Relative to the static product line solution,...