Abstract: I analyze how the loss aversion of consumers affects the strategies of the government and the incumbent to avoid commercial piracy and the price competition between the incumbent and the pirate. To that end, I develop a sequential duopoly model of vertical product differentiation with price competition in which consumers have a reference-dependent utility….
ABSTRACT This paper explores the link between specialization across goods and specialization within goods along the quality dimension. It develops a tractable many-country, many-industry Ricar- dian model with an integer number of heterogeneous firms producing each good, under a generic assumption about the distributions of firm e ciencies. In equilibrium, each country exports a range…
ABSTRACT We analyze the potential trade-off between product variety and consumer information and the implications this trade-off has for product quality. We introduce a simple information accumulation process in a horizontal differentiation model with unobservable quality. As the number of brands increases, per-brand consumer information decreases, which leads to lower average quality. Eventually, the reduction…
ABSTRACT Currently personal data gathering in online markets is done on a far larger scale and much cheaper and faster than ever before. Within this scenario, a number of highly relevant companies for whom personal data is the key factor of production have emerged. However, up to now, the corresponding economic analysis has been restricted…
