Download or read book Essays on Competition and Consumer Choice written by Osmis Areda Habte and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Consumer Choice Driven Assortment Planning written by Denis R. Saure and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In particular, we study competition among retailers when they have access to common products, i.e., products that are available to the competition, and where consumers have full information about the retailers' offerings. Our results shed light on equilibrium properties in such settings and the effect common products have on this behavior.

Download or read book Essays on Consumer Choice and Public Policy written by Jukwan Lee and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three chapters on consumer choice and public policy. The first chapter re-evaluates the realized efficacy of increasing block pricing (IBP). IBP is expected to give a positive social benefit, this assumes that consumers are attentive to the marginal price, which is questioned by recent literature. This paper measures the welfare loss from inattentiveness to the marginal price, which is defined as the misperception effect. By comparing IBP's efficacy and the misperception effect, the net benefit of using an IBP schedule is revealed. This study starts by identifying consumers' perceived marginal price. Using this perceived price, the demand curve can be estimated. After that, each consumer's and firm's surplus change are calculated. The second chapter studies the impact of snowfall on airport operation and suggests a comprehensive benefit and cost analysis on airport investment. Using two advanced econometric method, the Triple Difference model and the Nearest Neighbor Matching, this study first develops a Delay Analysis model to evaluate the exact effect of snowfall delay and secondly conducts the Net Present Value analysis on the Heated Pavement System (HPS). Delays by snows estimated up to about 9 minutes for airports in the Boston area, and HPS is feasible for airports with a great number of flights and passengers, such as Boston Logan airport.The third chapter explores the expected result of investment in runway, which could, in turn, reduce snow-related delays and cancellations. Three airports in the Boston area are selected since the geographical proximity would lead to intense competition once they are privatized. Each airport's arrival and departure itinerary data is used for assessment and identification of cost and benefit conditions to achieve this investment. For the analysis, this study constructs a two-stage game model of airports and airlines and follows the subgame perfect equilibrium. Backward induction and simulation for the different scenario are used for analysis. The equilibrium conditions show that private competition between profit maximization airports can stimulate large investment in a heated runway.

Download or read book Essays on Consumer Search Dynamic Competition and Regulation written by Alexei Parakhonyak and published by Rozenberg Publishers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Consumer Choice written by Pavitra Jindahra and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Two Essays on Consumer Choice written by Rishin Roy and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays in Competition Consumer Policy written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thesis is made up of three chapters: The first chapter estimates the effects of antitrust investigations on the market value of the investigated firms. This analysis offers insights on the performance of competition policy and its enforcement. The interest is on investigations carried out by the Italian Competition Authority between 1991 and 2007. We find that the start of the investigation is associated with an average drop of 0.6% in the market value of investigated firms and a later infringement decision implies an average drop of 1%. The event associated with the highest impact is the decision of the last Court of Appeal. When the last Court upholds the Authority's infringement decision the market value of firms drops between 3% and 6%. Interestingly, there is no effect when the last Court annuls the Authority's decision. The second and third chapters study the effects, on retail fuel prices, of a price comparison policy (a typical consumer policy intervention) introduced in the Italian pay-toll highways refueling market. In particular, the second chapter performs an empirical analysis while the third chapter presents an agent based computational economic (ACE) model, which aims to rationalize the empirical evidence and to inform the policy design. Differently from what was expected (by policy makers and consumers associations), the empirical analysis finds that the price comparison policy is associated with a small, but statistically significant, increase in the average price of fuel (0.55 euro cents per liter). Nevertheless, despite this average increase in fuel prices, the policy might help (active) consumers make informed choices and save around 1 euro cent per liter. The ACE model predicts that the introduction of price comparison has a limited effect on market prices as price competition among retailers is only marginally fostered. In addition, the model suggests that consumers that make use of price comparison might save around 0.5 euro cents per liter. These results are consistent with the empirical findings in suggesting that the price comparison policy had a limited impact on fuel retail prices and the overall effect on consumers is mixed.

Download or read book Three Essays on Competition and Interactions written by Jaesoo Kim and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Quality and Competition written by Lawrence Abbott and published by Westport, Conn : Greenwood Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Consumer Choice written by Salar Jahedi and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Consumer Behavior Under Uncertainty written by Koichi Yonezawa and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is well understood that decisions made under uncertainty differ from those made without risk in important and significant ways. Yet, there is very little research into how uncertainty manifests itself in the most ubiquitous of decision-making environments: Consumers' day-to-day decisions over where to shop, and what to buy for their daily grocery needs. Facing a choice between stores that either offer relatively stable "everyday low prices" (EDLP) or variable prices that reflect aggressive promotion strategies (HILO), consumers have to choose stores under price-uncertainty. I find that consumers' attitudes toward risk are critically important in determining store-choice, and that heterogeneity in risk attitudes explains the co-existence of EDLP and HILO stores - an equilibrium that was previously explained in somewhat unsatisfying ways. After choosing a store, consumers face another source of risk. While knowing the quality or taste of established brands, consumers have very little information about new products. Consequently, consumers tend to choose smaller package sizes for new products, which limits their exposure to the risk that the product does not meet their prior expectations. While the observation that consumers purchase small amounts of new products is not new, I show how this practice is fully consistent with optimal purchase decision-making by utility-maximizing consumers. I then use this insight to explain how manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPGs) respond to higher production costs. Because consumers base their purchase decisions in part on package size, manufacturers can use package size as a competitive tool in order to raise margins in the face of higher production costs. While others have argued that manufacturers reduce package sizes as a means of raising unit-prices (prices per unit of volume) in a hidden way, I show that the more important effect is a competitive one: Changes in package size can soften price competition, so manufacturers need not rely on fooling consumers in order to pass-through cost increases through changes in package size. The broader implications of consumer behavior under risk are dramatic. First, risk perceptions affect consumers' store choice and product choice patterns in ways that can be exploited by both retailers and manufacturers. Second, strategic considerations prevent manufacturers from manipulating package size in ways that seem designed to trick consumers. Third, many services are also offered as packages, and also involve uncertainty, so the effects identified here are likely to be pervasive throughout the consumer economy.

Download or read book Essays on Consumer Purchase Behavior and Competitive Firm Strategies written by Andy Wei-Rong Chen and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two essays explore two topics in marketing - consumer purchase behavior and competitive firm strategies. The first essay examines consumer stockpiling behavior in the retail gasoline market and aims to shed light on what factors affect consumer stockpiling. Past research on consumer stockpiling behavior such as Hendel and Nevo (2006) finds evidence of inter-temporal substitution by consumers that implies stockpiling behavior. However, they do not observe actual inventory or consumption and have to rely on simplifying assumptions about these quantities. I collect a novel data set of gasoline purchase history of consumers with actual inventory and consumption to test several hypotheses that relate consumer stockpiling to price, duration between purchases, and consumption. First, I find that consumers holding more inventory are more price sensitive. Higher inventory increases the impact of price on purchase decisions and those with higher inventory can afford to do more price search before making a purchase. I also find that all else equal, consumers will reduce consumption following a purchase made during high prices; that consumers with lower inventory have a higher probability of purchasing; and that duration from previous purchase is shorter for purchases made during low prices and longer during high prices. The second essay examines competition in a dynamic setting between Wal-Mart and Target in the context of location choices and expansion strategies. Studying this topic sheds light on how an industry evolves and how the market structure is shaped by decisions such as when to enter and exit and where to locate new stores as well as the driving force behind different expansion strategies. One of the early papers by Bresnahan and Reiss (1991) study entry of retail and professional services into isolated markets in a one-shot game. In their model, firms are allowed to enter once and open one store. Collard-Wexler (2014) estimates a model of investment and entry in the ready-mix concrete industry. Again, each firm is assumed to own a single plant in the model. In my paper, I build a structural model in which firms can open multiple stores over a period of time. This setting is closer to reality as competition between firms lasts over many periods with firms making regular entry decisions and often opening multiple stores in the same market. I estimate how entry decisions are affected by competitor's presence and market characteristics and learn about the evolution of market structure and expansion strategies of the firms. The firms are forward-looking and engage in Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE) strategies. The results show that firm profits are affected asymmetrically by the competitor's presence. First, Wal-Mart is the dominant firm with higher profits regardless of Target's presence. On the other hand, Target's profits depend a lot on Wal-Mart's presence. It must have more stores than Wal-Mart (called store advantage) to profit. I also find asymmetry in the expansion strategies of the two firms. Wal-Mart tends to explore new and smaller markets by being the first and often the only firm to enter, while Target tends to focus on major markets with high population and GDP and strives to maintain store advantage over Wal-Mart by matching or outdoing Wal-Mart's decision to open new stores.

Download or read book Essays on Multi Market Contact and Mutual Forbearance written by James R. Boohaker and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic theory states that as the number of firms in the market grows, firms behave more competitively and consumer choice therefore improves. However, when the same set of firms compete in multiple markets, there could exist some inter-market dynamics where a firm can react to a decision taken by a competitor in one market in a completely different market where that competitor is also present. One scenario is that firms competing across multiple markets will try to "play nice" with one another to avoid possible cross market retaliation. Corwin Edwards first posited this theory in 1955 and called it "mutual forbearance" (MF). When one set of firms competes in more than one market, then these firms have multi-market contact (MMC). Past empirical and theoretical research on multi-market competition further affirms a significant relationship between MMC and firm behavior related to competition and market entry. While literature on the effects of MMC is vast, most works focus on firm behavior in domestic markets. Chapters 3 and 4 of this dissertation aim to add to the sparse literature on the effect of MMC on firms operating in international markets. Motivated by litigation finding evidence of collusive behavior between battery manufacturers, I use confidential trade transaction data maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau to provide empirical evidence that MMC has a positive and significant effect on export prices and market entry among likely competitors in international battery markets. In addition, this dissertation also explores the mechanism driving the relationship between MMC and cooperation among competitors. The established theoretical reasoning concludes that firms with MMC are likely to cooperate to avoid punishment in other markets. Using an agent-based simulation approach where simulated learning firms compete in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma , I uncover a potential alternative mechanism where increased familiarity of competitors makes cooperation more likely.

Download or read book THREE ESSAYS ON THE IMPACT OF FIRMS DIGITAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES ON ONLINE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR written by Siddharth Bhattacharya and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In my dissertation, I study the strategic interplay among firm's online communication, firm's digital strategies and its impact on consumer decision making. I identify important strategies that firms can adopt while targeting consumers on search engine platforms, such as Google and Bing. For technology-firms interested in providing information cues to consumers, online advertising serves as an important tool to nudge consumers decision making. Through the use of diverse methodologies, including empirical, analytical, and behavioral, I attempt to answer important questions in this research space. Moreover, I investigate how firm strategies are affected by factors such as heterogeneity of consumer preferences, product quality, and competition. The research spans across disciplines, and makes contributions to Information Systems, Operations Management and Marketing. In essay 1 I investigate the novel context of "competitive poaching", a phenomenon where firms can generate traffic from search advertising by bidding on competitors' keywords. In this research I examine the factors that influence the effectiveness of competitive poaching, specifically the role of different ad copies and the type of competitor (poached brand) from which a brand is "poaching. "I also examine how the presence of sponsored ads from the poached brand and its physical location affect competitive poaching. In Essay 2, I investigate a similar context but here instead of only competing against each other, firms are simultaneously competing and cooperating with each other while advertising on the search engine. Thus, we have a novel context where a firm and its third-party referral partner (often referred to as "Infomediaries") compete and cooperate while advertising simultaneously on the search engine. In this context, how equilibrium payment and advertising strategies are affected by factors such as traffic quality, advertising effectiveness, leakage, and the nature of contract between the two firms, remains an open question. Using a game-theoretic model, I show that the novel balance between the competitive and the collaborative nature of the interaction, which itself gets affected by the choice of contract and changes in the environmental factors, alters equilibrium strategies commonly expected in existing literature. In my third essay, I study the novel yet increasingly common phenomenon of "multiscreen viewing", a phenomenon where consumers are increasingly using additional devices (like smartphones or tablets) while watching TV. This provides an additional advertising channel for marketers, specifically the second screen. However, this is not without its complexities; as marketers must optimally time advertisements on the second screen conditional on multiple factors including consumers' engagement level on the primary screen, consumers' engagement level on the second screen, and the psychological involvement with the content on the primary screen. Administering multiple behavioral experiments, I investigate how factors such as users' engagement with the primary screen (e.g., TV), users' engagement with a second screen (e.g., Mobile), timing of the advertisement, and message congruence, affect second screen usage and ad recall. Theoretical and managerial contributions of each of these essays are discussed.

Download or read book Three Essays on Differentiated Products and Heterogeneous Consumer Preferences written by Yan Heng and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumers' food demand has been found to be affected not only by prices and income, but also by their increasing concern about factors like health benefits, animal welfare, and environmental impacts. Thus, many food producers have differentiated and advertised their products using relevant attributes. The increasing demand and supply of differentiated food products have raised questions regarding consumer preferences and producer strategies. This dissertation consists of three essays and empirically examines the egg market to shed light on related issues. The first question that this study aims to answer is whether consumers are willing to pay a premium for livestock and dairy products associated with improved animal welfare. Consumers' attitude towards such products not only affect manufacturers' production decisions, but also influence policy makers and current legislations. Using a national online survey with choice experiments, the first essay found that consumers in the study sample valued eggs produced under animal-friendly environment, suggesting incentives for producers to adopt animal welfare friendly practices. In an actual shopping trip, consumers usually need to choose from products with multiple attributes and labels. Studying how consumers with heterogeneous preferences process these information simultaneously and make decisions is important for producers to target interested consumer segments and implement more effective labeling strategies. In the second essay, a different national online survey was administered. The analysis using a latent class model categorized the sample respondents into four classes, and their preferences toward attributes and various label combinations differed across classes. Scanner data, which record actually purchased choices, are an important source of information to study consumer preferences. Diverging from the traditional demand approaches that are limited in studying differentiated product markets using scanner data, this study used a random coefficient logit model to overcome potential limitations and examine the demand relationship as well as price competition in the differentiated egg market. The third essay found that conventional and private labeled eggs yielded higher margins due to less elastic demand and cautioned producers of specialty eggs, which are usually sold at high prices despite their much more elastic demand.

Download or read book Differentiated Products written by Jakob Arne Robert Jeanrond and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis focuses on how specific aspects of product differentiation affect economic outcomes through their impact on competition between firms. The first paper presents an analysis of firms' incentives to share information about the perceived profitability of different technologies prior to making an investment decision. The model is one of vertical product differentiation in which firms face uncertainty over consumers' preferred product. The main result is that firms reveal information only when they are sufficiently uncertain about which investment strategy to pursue. Information can be revealed in order to facilitate either coordination on a particular technology or anti-coordination on different technologies. In the second paper a seller can choose to sell one or several horizontally differentiated products from competing developers. Developers can charge the seller different wholesale prices for their products where prices are dependent on whether the seller will also carry a competing product. A higher consumer valuation of products raises the potential market share from a single product and thereby increases competition between developers. This implies developer profits can decrease in product quality. The model is compared to a situation in which developers compete for consumers without an intermediary seller. This comparison illustrates how developers sometimes can make higher profits by using a downstream seller since the seller's pricing response acts as a competition softener between developers. In paper three the focus is on product allocation through a single developer of several products who can decide how to allocate them among sellers. This model also features horizontally differentiated products but introduces multidimensional consumer preferences over products and sellers. The developer's product allocation decision is shown to be a key profit determinant for the supply chain. By distributing different products to each seller, the developer can focus inter-seller competition on the product dimension of consumer preferences. Distributing the same products to both sellers allows the developer to force sellers to compete in the dimension of consumers' seller preferences. The relative intensity of consumer preferences over products and sellers thereby determines a profit maximizing allocation for the developer.

Download or read book More Common Ground for International Competition Law written by Josef Drexl and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This volume contains many excellent chapters on some of the most cutting edge topics in competition law today. Among the contributions are assessments of new approaches to competition law analysis, analyses of central and controversial topics in the relationship between competition law and intellectual property, and explorations of new transnational developments in China and elsewhere. The chapters range from studies of specific cases to broad interpretations of major trends. I found many of them to be highly insightful and very useful.' – David J. Gerber, Chicago-Kent College of Law, US 'This fresh collection of essays by scholars from around the world lives up to its title: it stakes out more common ground for the competition law systems of nations. The chapters result from the fourth annual conference of the Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA). The essays cover major issues that reverberate around the world today, including: How should we think about the economic foundations of competition law in view of new research on behavioral economics and consumer choice? What is the future of the treatment of resale price maintenance? What is the proper fit of intellectual property with competition law? And how do we promote competition law and policy across borders? The collection offers insight from law, economics, political science, business strategy, and history.' – Eleanor Fox, New York University, US In recent years, an impressive proliferation of competition laws has been seen around the world. Whilst this development may lead to greater diversity of approaches, economic arguments may promote convergence. The contributions to this book look at a number of most topical issues by asking whether the competition world is turning more towards convergence or diversity. These issues include, among others, the changing role of economics in times of economic crises and political change, the introduction of criminal sanctions, resale-price maintenance, unilateral conduct and the application of competition law to intellectual property and state-owned enterprises. More Common Ground for International Competition Law will appeal to academics, PhD students, and postgraduate students law and economics, members of competition agencies, legal practice and international business.