Spaced Out Monopolies: Theory and Empirics of Alternating Product Releases

Arthur Louis Zillante ()

Industrial Organization from EconWPA

Abstract: An oft-neglected pattern of behavior occurs when firms time the release of their products so that they are not released on the same date. The practice is potentially collusive, so there may be legitimate antitrust concerns. This paper presents a model of this behavior, the alternating periods monopoly (APM). A comparison of the APM with other sustainable methods of collusion shows the conditions under which the APM is preferred. I develop an empirical test to detect the APM, and use data from the baseball card industry to investigate the possible use of an APM.

Keywords: Noncooperative strategies; alternating periods monopoly; duration analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-mic
Date: 2005-05-24
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 14
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0505008

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