Switching costs may facilitate monopoly pricing in a market with price competition between two suppliers of a homogenous good, provided the switching cost is above some critical level. It is also well known that asymmetric size of customer bases makes monopoly pricing more difficult. Adding consumer heterogeneity to the model we demonstrate that also composition of each firm’s customer base aff...

It is well known that switching costs may facilitate monopoly pricing in a market with price competition between two suppliers of a homogenous good, provided the switching cost is above some critical level. With heterogeneous consumers and incomplete information about individual consumers’ types, monopoly pricing entails second-degree price discrimination with inefficient contracts for low dema...

The monopoly power in the duck egg and meat market structure in Tamil Nadu, the fourth largest duck raising zone of India was analysed by means of Concentration Ratio (CR) and Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (H index) and in the absence of monopoly, Bain’s classification was used to identify the prevailing structure of market. Five channels were identified to market eggs, while three for duck meat. ...

W present a model of fixing or patching a software problem after the product has been released in the market. Specifically, we model a software firm’s trade-off in releasing a buggy product early and investments in fixing it later. Just as the marginal cost of producing software can be effectively zero, so can the marginal cost of repairing multiple copies of defective software by issuing patch...

We present a model of fixing or patching a software problem after the product has been released in the market. Specifically, we model a software firm’s trade-off in releasing a buggy product early and investments in fixing it later. We first show that patching investments and time to enter the market are strategic complements such that higher investments in patching capability allow the firm to...

Slotting fees are fixed charges paid by food manufacturers to retailers for access to the retail market. This note considers this practice in the context of multi-product markets with imperfectly competitive retailers, a monopoly supplier of one good, and competitive suppliers of other goods. We show how the monopolist and the retailers can use bnakedQ slotting fees–charges imposed on the suppl...

This paper addresses the claim that monopolies arise naturally out of the free market. I show by comparing and contrasting two theories of monopoly—economic and political monopoly—that this is not true. This paper also demonstrates that the two theories of monopoly have their separate roots in two opposite theories of competition: perfect competition and competition as rivalry. I show that only...

During the late 1990s, Jamaica’s telecommunications industry was poised for growth with an increased demand for new telecommunication services. At this time however, there was only one player, Cable and Wireless Ja. Ltd, which had a monopoly licence until the year 2013. However, this licence was revoked in 1999, bringing new players to the market, such as Digicel and Claro which revolutionised ...

We analyzed the market for indivisible, pure status goods. Firms produce and sell di¤erent brands of pure status goods to a population that is willing to signal individual abilities to potential matches in another population. Individual status is determined by the most expensive status good one has. There is a strati…ed equilibrium with a …nite number of brands. Under constant tax rates, a mono...