We consider a simple two period model where consumers have different switching costs. Before the market opens, there was an incumbent who sold to all consumers. We identify the equilibrium both with Stackelberg and Bertrand competition and show how the presence of low switching cost consumers...

We consider a simple two period model where consumers have different switching costs. Before the market opens, there was an incumbent who sold to all consumers. We identify the equilibrium both with Stackelberg and Bertrand competition and show how the presence of low switching cost consumers...

We study the pricing decision of firms in the presence of consumer inertia. Inertia can arise from habit formation, brand loyalty, switching costs, or search, and it has important implications for the interpretation of equilibrium outcomes and counterfactual analysis. In particular, consumer...

We provide a framework for empirical analysis of negotiated-price markets. Using mortgage market data and a search and negotiation model, we characterize the welfare impact of search frictions and quantify the role of search costs and brand loyalty for market power. Search frictions reduce...

We assess how the advent of smartphones affected consumer switching costs in the mobile communications market, using data from two surveys conducted in South Korea. A nested logit random utility model is employed to explain consumers' choice over service type and carrier, and to estimate...

This paper studies the implications of consumer misperception in a market for a (horizontally) differentiated product. Two distinct type of misperceptions are considered: (i) a common misperception that leads consumers to similarly overestimate the benefit from both firms' products; and (ii) a...

We propose a general framework for consumer demand in two-sided markets, modelling the way externalities between customer groups affect the price sensitivity of demand on both sides of the market. We define a measure for the strength of the externalities and establish the conditions for the...

We analyze platform competition where user data is collected to improve adtargeting. Considering that users incur privacy costs, we show that the equilibrium level of data provision is distorted and can be inefficiently high or low: if overall competition is weak or if targeting benefits are...

The presence of sticky, often labelled ‘unengaged', consumers is arguably one of the most intractable issues faced by competition regulators, in that it entrenches incumbency advantage. We develop a spatial linear model of heterogeneous switching costs that allows for asymmetric distributions...

The presence of sticky, often labelled ‘unengaged', consumers is arguably one of the most intractable issues faced by competition regulators, in that it entrenches incumbency advantage. We develop a spatial linear model of heterogeneous switching costs that allows for asymmetric distributions...