Product Differentiation and Endogenous Mode of Competition
IGIER Working Paper No. 134
18 Pages Posted: 12 Jan 1999
Date Written: September 1998
Abstract
There exists a continuum of prices between Bertrand and joint-profit maximization prices which can be interpreted as the outcome of a two-stage game where firms first invest to increase product differentiation and then compete in prices. The lower the costs of differentiating their products from each other the more relaxed competition is in the product market and the closer firms will be to the collusive outcome of the one-shot game for a given degree of differentiation. The higher the costs the harsher the competition in the market and the closer to the Bertrand solution of the one-shot game with a given degree of differentiation.
JEL Classification: L10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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