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Based on a simple model of compatibility choice under differentiated Cournot duopoly with network externalities, we consider how the levels of a network externality and product substitutability affect the choice of compatibility. In particular, if the level of network externality is larger than that of product substitutability, there are multiple equilibria involving imperfect and perfect compatibility. Furthermore, we demonstrate the conditions for constructing such a network alliance so that firms provide perfectly compatible products. The network alliance is stable and socially optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the competition between vertically differentiated platforms in two-sided markets. We assume the presence of two competing platforms producing either higher- or lower-quality devices for consumers. Each platform decides the price of its hardware device for consumers and the royalty rate for software developers. We find that, despite the existence of quality differences, the decisions by the platforms about royalty rates are symmetric and only hardware pricing is asymmetric. We also demonstrate that an equilibrium may exist in which a lower-quality platform can enjoy greater profit than a higher-quality rival when there are higher development costs associated with creating software to meet the needs of higher-quality devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geographical identity of agricultural products may be regarded as a means to differentiate the product in the consumers' taste and eye, thereby ensuring higher prices. Building on the analysis of Agostino and Trivieri (Food Policy46:22-36, 2014), this paper provides empirical evidence on the performance of geographically designated and indicated wines in emerging economies. According to our findings-based on bilateral exports of wine originating from France, Italy and Spain in the period 2010-2013-the geographical designation seems reaching the ultimate goal of a price premium in the BRICS countries. Italian and Spanish quality wines, yet, appear lagging behind their French counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers price competition in a duopoly with quality uncertainty. The established firm (the 'incumbent') offers a quality that is publicly known; the other firm (the 'entrant') offers a new good whose quality is not known by some consumers. The incumbent is fully informed about the entrant's quality. This leads to price signalling rivalry because the incumbent gains and the entrant loses if observed prices make the uninformed consumers more pessimistic about the entrant's quality. When the uninformed consumers' beliefs satisfy the 'intuitive criterion' and the 'unprejudiced belief refinement', prices signal the entrant's quality only in a two-sided separating equilibrium and are identical to the full information outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how recent trends in the smartphone industry may be expanding previous conceptions of the industry and its boundaries. The increasing importance of Internet and cloud-based services-which in many ways lie outside the control of the physical device, operating system, and even the cellular network-seems to be changing the roles and strategies of key firms in the ecosystem. Using industry architecture and platform theory, we examine how the key firms seem to be reacting to these new changes. Our analysis indicates that the platform 'bottleneck,' or key control point, is moving away from the device and into the cloud, where a new meta-platform based on the Internet may be emerging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a market for ideas, an intermediary often masks buyers' information that is not to be exposed to the public. This article shows that such obscuration plays an important role in removing excess inertia because it prevents the emergence of a bandwagon effect among buyers. This model applies to outsourcing-type R&D competition. Although innovation is spurred, welfare implications are ambiguous because the competition among buyers becomes harsher than it is in the absence of the intermediary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define commercial public goods as goods that are broadcast via television, radio, newsprint, or websites for which consumption is non-rival and non-exclusive, and revenue is generated mainly through advertising alongside a product in a two-sided market. With new information technology the fixed cost of entry in these markets has substantially declined. We demonstrate that as fixed costs of entry decline in a competitive media market, lower industry concentration results in lower resources to each firm for the production of commercial public goods. The counterintuitive result of new information technology is that it may result in lower quality news reporting and a less-informed population. The result may hold even when consumers exhibit preferences for diversity in media outlets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the local stability properties of a nonlinear Bertrand duopoly with vertical differentiation and heterogeneous players under the hypotheses of both covered and uncovered markets. In the former case, the unique pure strategy Nash equilibrium can undergo a flip bifurcation when the extent of consumer's heterogeneity increases. In the latter, the quality differential determines the stability of prices over time. Numerical evidence is provided to show the occurrence of endogenous fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing network externalities into a model of vertically differentiated products, Lambertini and Orsini (2001, 2003) analyze the implications of a monopolist’s quality choice for social optimum. Moreover, they examine how the network externality affects quality, quantity, price, and social surplus. In this note, by looking at the nature of cost functions and the degree of network externalities, we reconsider their results, at least some of which depend upon the specificity of the cost functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that the high-quality provider in a vertically differentiated duopoly earns the higher profit (the so-called “high-quality advantage”) appears to be an established fact among economists. This note shows that the high-quality advantage is not a robust feature of vertical differentiation models. A low-quality advantage can be predicted under perfectly plausible assumptions, such as a concave utility–quality and/or a convex unit cost–quality relation. The existence of a high- or a low-quality advantage depends on the nature of the firms’ strategic interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]