Revisit the Coase Conjecture: Monopoly, Durability, and Bundling in Urban Land Use

Outside Options and the Failure of the Coase Conjecture

A buyer wishes to purchase a good from a seller who chooses a sequence of prices over time. In each period, the buyer can also exercise an outside option such as moving onto another seller. We show there is a unique equilibrium in which the seller charges a constant price in every period equal to the monopoly price against their residual demand. This result contravenes the Coase conjecture.

Capacity Choice Counters the Coase Conjecture

The Coase conjecture (1972) is the proposition that a durable goods monopolist, who sells over time and can quickly reduce prices as sales are made, will price at marginal cost. Subsequent work has shown that in some plausible cases that conjecture does not hold. We show that the Coase conjecture does not hold in any plausible case. In particular, we examine that conjecture in a model where the...

The Coase Conjecture in Continuous Time: Imperfect Durability, Endogenous Durability, and Aftermarkets

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A buyer wishes to purchase a good from a seller who chooses a sequence of prices over time. Each period the buyer can also exercise an outside option, abandoning their search or moving on to another seller. We show there is a unique equilibrium in which the seller charges a constant price in every period equal to the monopoly price, contravening the Coase conjecture. We then embed the singlesel...

Capacity Choice Counters the

The Coase conjecture (1972) is the proposition that a durable goods monopolist, who sells over time and can quickly reduce prices as sales are made, will price at marginal cost. Subsequent work has shown that in some plausible cases that conjecture does not hold. We show that the Coase conjecture does not hold in any plausible case. In particular, we examine that conjecture in a model where the...