This paper studies the incentives to merge in a Bertrand competition model where firms sell differentiatedproducts and consumers search for satisfactory deals. In the pre-merger symmetricequilibrium, the probability that a firm is the next one to be visited by a consumer is equal acrossfirms not...

See also the article <I>Search Costs, Demand-side Economies, and the Incentives to merge under Bertrand Competition</I> in the 'Rand Journal of Economics'(2013). Volume 44, issue 3, pages 391-424.<P> This paper studies the incentives to merge in a Bertrand competitionmodel where firms sell differentiated...</p></i>

In many markets consumers have imperfect information about the utility they derive from the products that are on offer and need to visit stores to find the product that is the most preferred. This paper develops a discrete-choice model of demand with optimal consumer search. Consumers first...