Oct 10 2008 ) Essays in Industrial Economics

This dissertation consists of three chapters in Industrial Economics. Chapter 1 is the product of joint work with Filippo Balestrieri. In chapter 1 we examine the use of lotteries among horizontal differentiated goods as a mechanism to price discriminate consumers. We use the linear city model to represent a market with two differentiated goods. We show that the optimal selling strategy for a multiproduct monopolist implies offering at least one lottery with probability 1⁄2. This result is in stark contrast with the the optimal selling strategy of a single product monopolist that attempts to price discriminate consumers based on the probability of delivering the good. Riley and Zeckhauser (1983) show that the single good monopolist does not offer lotteries. We then examine the use of lotteries among the differentiated goods in the case of a market with two competing firms, each one producing one good. We define two different cases depending on whether the market is fully covered. We call fully covered market the case in which the equilibrium prices of the two firms are such that all consumers buy one good. We show that if the market is fully covered, no lotteries are offered in equilibrium. However, when the market is not fully covered the optimal selling strategy may include offering lotteries. With more than two firms selling differentiated goods, even in a fully covered market, lotteries can be used in equilibrium. In this case, firms might be worse off than in the case where no lotteries are provided. Chapter 2 examines firms optimal pricing policy when they sell a storable good of repeated consumption to time-inconsistent consumers. Consumers with time-inconsistent preferences might struggle to make optimal consumption decisions over time. Sophisticate consumers, aware of their time-inconsistent preferences, often try to limit their consumption of certain goods by strategically rationing the quantities they purchase. On the other hand, naive consumers, unaware of their time-inconsistent preferences, may stockpile tempting goods at "home" not realizing that the higher availability of the good might lead them to overconsume the good. It is shown that if consumers are time-consistent, quantity discounts don't increase the firms' profit. In contrast, if firms face naive time-inconsistent consumers, the optimal pricing policy is to use small quantity discounts as a device to increase sales. These consumers take advantage of quantity discount with the intention of saving on future purchases. However, after buying the good they can not resist and overconsume it. We also show that even if consumers are sophisticated, firms still use quantity discounts. Sophisticated time-inconsistent consumers realize that increasing the quantity purchased often leads them to overconsume the good. Hence, they require a significant quantity discount to increase the quantity purchased. Offering a quantity discount leads them to stockpile the good "at home" and hence promotes overconsumption. Chapter 3 analyzes the use of exclusive dealing agreements to prevent the entry of rival firms. An exclusive dealing agreement is a contract between a buyer and a seller where the buyer commits to buy a good exclusively from the seller. Exclusive dealing agreements are one of the most common vertical restraints used by firms. Aghion and Bolton (1987) were the first to show that an incumbent seller may want to use exclusive dealing agreement that prevents the entry of a rival seller. They argue that an incumbent seller and a buyer sign an exclusive dealing contract in order to extract surplus from a more efficient entrant seller. We propose an alternative explanation for the use of exclusive dealing agreements to prevent entry when the buyer is a downstream distributor that also faces the threat of entry. The idea is that the entry of more efficient upstream seller, by decreasing the market power of the upstream firms, makes entry in the downstream market more attractive. This can lead to further entry in the downstream market and to an increase in the competition faced by the downstream firms. Since part of the bigger surplus created by the entry of a more efficient seller is captured by the downstream entrant firms, entry in the upstream market does not necessarily benefits the incumbent downstream firms. Thesis Supervisor: Glenn Ellison Title: Gregory K. Palm (1970) Professor of Economics Thesis Supervisor: Abhijit Banerjee Title: Ford International Professor of Economics