Multi-product Firms and Product Variety
Ramon Caminal and
Lluís M. Granero ()
UFAE and IAE Working Papers from Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC)
Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to study the role of multi-product firms in the market provision of product variety. The analysis is conducted using the spokes model of non-localized competition proposed by Chen and Riordan (2007). Firstly, we show that multi-product firms are at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis single-product firms and can only emerge if economies of scope are sufficiently strong. Secondly, under duopoly product variety may be higher or lower with respect to both the first best and the monopolistically competitive equilibrium. However, within a relevant range of parameter values duopolists drastically restrict their product range in order to relax price competition, and as a result product variety is far below the efficient level.
Keywords: product variety; multiproduct firms; monopolistic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 L12 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39
Date: 2008-03-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)
Downloads: (external link)
http://pareto.uab.es/wp/2008/73408.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Multi‐product Firms and Product Variety (2012)
Working Paper: Multi-product firms and product variety (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aub:autbar:734.08
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in UFAE and IAE Working Papers from Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Xavier Vila ().