The Role of Cost in Determining When Firms Offer Bundles
53 Pages Posted: 9 Jun 2004 Last revised: 29 Jul 2022
Date Written: December 1, 2005
Abstract
We incorporate marginal cost savings from bundling, fixed costs of product
offerings, and variation in customer preferences into a model of bundling and tying. To focus on cost effects, we assume perfectly contestable markets and analyze sustainable product offerings. Pure bundling can arise either because few people demand only one component or because, with high fixed costs, a single product is the efficient way to satisfy customers with diverse tastes. Two cases - sinus headache tablets and a package of four foreign plug adapters - illustrate the distinctions identified by the model.
Keywords: economics of tying, tying in competitive markets, contestability, costs and tying, antitrust economics of tying
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