This paper seeks to explain two related phenomena: (i) it is often the case that when the new variety of a product is launched, some consumers do not purchase the latest variety and (ii) the quality of the latest variety of a product is often not significantly superior compared to the existing...

In Colombia, in spite of the changes carried out with the reform of 1994, in the sector of drinking water the structural problems persist in many municipalities. They are associated to the quality, efficiency, continuity, coverage, and availability of the resource ; besides, the goals of...

We consider the problem of a monopolist who must sell her inventory before some deadline, facing n buyers with independent private values. The monopolist posts prices but has no commitment power. The seller faces a basic trade-off between imperfect price discrimination and maintaining an...

This paper examines one of the most important marketing strategies by software producers on the Internet. That is whether to offer free samples and if so, whether to list the samples on shareware repositories. I show that firms with higher value products have a greater incentive to offer free...

Le contrat de régulation optimale d'un monopole avec deux paramètres d'information privée et d'antisélection (productivité et niveau d'émissions polluantes) est caractérisé. Dans ce contexte de screening bidimensionnel, un aspect d'économie politique est introduit en considérant...

When a monopolist asks consumers to choose a particular nonlinear tariff option, consumers do not completely know their type. Their valuations of the good and/or optimal quantity purchases are only fully realized after the optional tariff has been subscribed. In order to characterize the menu of...

It is commonly believed that consumers behave irrationally when subscribing optional telephone tariffs. The fact that they show a strong preference for flat rate options has commonly been interpreted as evidence of irrational behavior since such a choice is believed not to be cost-minimizing ex...

Electronic commerce and flexible manufacturing allow personalization of initially standardized products at low cost. Will customers provide the information necessary for personalization? Assuming that a consumer can control the amount of information revealed, we analyze how her decision...

Based on the critical assumption of strategic complementarity, this paper builds a general model to describe and solve the screening problem faced by the monopolist seller of a network good. By applying monotone comparative static tools, we demonstrate that the joint presence of asymmetric...

I consider the problem of the design of an optimal self-selecting contract scheme for a principal who is buying a good from an agent which has the opportunity of making a cost-reducing unobservable investment prior to the contracting stage. Because of a hold-up problem, the agent will randomizes...