Input price discrimination in the presence of downstream vertical differentiation

Duarte Brito, Markos Tselekounis and Helder Vasconcelos

Economics Letters, 2019, vol. 184, issue C

Abstract: This paper investigates the competitive effects of input price discrimination (IPD) in a setting in which an upstream monopolist produces an essential input supplied to the downstream market where there is competition between two vertically differentiated retailers. Two different input pricing regimes are investigated: (i) the uniform pricing regime, in which third-degree input price discrimination is prohibited; and (ii) a discriminatory pricing regime, under which the upstream monopolist may charge different prices to the two downstream firms. We find that despite favoring the low-quality firm, IPD is welfare enhancing if and only if the quality gap is sufficiently high.

Keywords: Input price discrimination; Vertical differentiation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:184:y:2019:i:c:s0165176519303064

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108622

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