This paper studies a model in which some consumers shop on the basis of price alone, without attention to potential differences in product quality. A firm may offer a low-quality product to exploit these inattentive consumers. In the unique symmetric equilibrium of the model, firms choose prices...

A sizable literature has grown up in recent years focusing on two-sided markets in which economies of scale combined with complementarities between a platform and its associated `software' or `services' can generate indirect network effects (that is positive feedback between the number of...

This paper studies competition between firms when consumers observe a private signal of their preferences over products. Within the class of signal structures which induce pure-strategy pricing equilibria, we derive signal structures which are optimal for firms and those which are optimal for...

We consider a Stackelberg model under demand slope uncertainty in an environment where the follower owns information advantage. Specifically, we show that the second mover obtains higher expected profit than the first mover when the leader only knows the prior beliefs and the follower gains the...

We consider a Stackelberg model under demand slope uncertainty in an environment where the follower owns information advantage. Specifically, we show that the second mover obtains higher expected profit than the first mover when the leader only knows the prior beliefs and the follower gains the...

I survey the use of nonlinear pricing as a method of price discrimination, both with monopoly and oligopoly supply. Topics covered include an analysis of when it is profitable to offer quantity discounts and bundle discounts, connections between second- and third-degree price discrimination, the...

A firm's incentive to invest in product safety is affected by both the market environment and the liability when its product causes consumer harm. A long-standing question in law and economics is whether competition can (partially) substitute for product liability in motivating firms to improve...

This paper proposes a model of competitive bundling with an arbitrary number of firms. In the regime of pure bundling, we find that relative to separate sales pure bundling tends to raise market prices, benefit firms, and harm consumers when the number of firms is above a threshold. This is in...

How does market structure affect quality innovation efforts and social welfare? This study considers three allocation mechanisms in a model of dynamic quality innovation: monopoly, duopoly, and the social planner. In this model, quality advances depend upon a stock of accumulated know-how,...

Firms signal high quality through high prices even if the market structure is highly competitive and price competition is severe. In a symmetric Bertrand oligopoly where products may differ only in their quality, production cost is increasing in quality and the quality of each firm’s product...