کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
5066702 1476798 2014 16 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Buying frenzies in durable-goods markets
ترجمه فارسی عنوان
خرید فریزر در بازار کالا با دوام
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم انسانی و اجتماعی اقتصاد، اقتصادسنجی و امور مالی اقتصاد و اقتصادسنجی
چکیده انگلیسی


- We study why a durable goods monopolist may want to create a shortage.
- The scarcity strategy could be profitable in the presence of a secondary market.
- Optimistic consumers are strictly worse off when rationed out in buying frenzies.
- Pessimistic consumers do not lose out when rationed out.
- Banning the secondary market will improve welfare when marginal cost is very low.

We explain why a durable-goods monopolist would like to create a shortage during the launch phase of a new product. We argue that this incentive arises from the presence of a second-hand market and uncertainty about consumers׳ willingness to pay for the good. Consumers are heterogeneous and initially uninformed about their valuations but learn about them over time. Given demand uncertainty, first period sales may result in misallocation and lead to active trading on the secondary market after the uncertainty is resolved. Trading on the second-hand market will generate additional surplus. This surplus can be captured by the monopolist ex-ante because consumers are forward-looking, and the price they are willing to pay incorporates the product׳s resale value. As a consequence, when selling to uninformed consumers, the monopolist faces the trade-off between more sales today and a lower profit margin. Specifically, because the product׳s resale value is negatively related to the stock of the good in the second-hand market, selling more units today will result in a lower equilibrium price of the product. Therefore, the monopolist may find it optimal to create a shortage and ration consumers to the second period. We characterize conditions under which the monopolist would like to restrict sales and generate buying frenzies.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: European Economic Review - Volume 70, August 2014, Pages 1-16
نویسندگان
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