In this paper, we quantitatively investigate the effectiveness of a sales tax reduction in stimulating sales and profits of durable goods manufacturers. Our question is motivated by policy makers' recent interest in helping ailing automobile manufacturers and in replacing a fleet of highly...

This paper studies optimal nonlinear pricing for a monopolist when consumers' preferences exhibit temptation and self-control as in Gul and Pesendorfer (2001a). Consumers are subject to temptation inside the store but exercise self-control, and those foreseeing large self-control costs do not...

We examine the effects of durability on equilibrium producer behavior in the car market In this setting forward-looking producers take into account the effect that their current production decisions have on their current and future profits due to the existence of a secondary market First we...

We build a dynamic equilibrium model of a durable goods oligopoly with a competitive secondary market to evaluate the bias in estimating the structural parameters of demand and supply when durability is omitted. We simulate data from our dynamic model and use them to estimate the model's static...

Do active secondary markets aid or harm durable goods manufacturers? We build a dynamic equilibrium model of durable goods oligopoly, with consumers who incur lumpy costs when transacting in the secondary market, and calibrate it to U.S. automobile industry data. By varying transaction costs, we...

In this paper, we analyze the problem of store design when consumers have preferences with temptation and self-control, as introduced by Gul and Pesendorfer (2001). We say that a monopolist designs its stores when it chooses the number of stores to open and the quality and price of the goods to...

It is a common practice for governments to offer scrappage subsidies in order to stimulate the early removal of used cars and modify the distribution of vehicle holdings. In this paper, we analyze the market implications of such subsidies when producers have market power and face competition...