Bundling, Competition and Quality Investment: a Welfare Analysis

Alessandro Avenali (), Anna D'Annunzio and Pierfrancesco Reverberi ()
Additional contact information
Alessandro Avenali: Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica "Antonio Ruberti" Sapienza, Universita' di Roma
Pierfrancesco Reverberi: Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica "Antonio Ruberti" Sapienza, Universita' di Roma

No 2011-02, DIS Technical Reports from Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Abstract: We show how a monopolist in a primary market uses mixed bundling to extract surplus from quality-enhancing investment by a single-product rival in a complementary market, or even force the rival to provide low quality. In our model, bundling does not hinge on commitment ability. Although we assume that bundling creates efficiency gains, we find that bundling reduces consumer surplus and may reduce social welfare, even if the rival is not foreclosed, and investment is not blockaded. Nonetheless, bundling improves welfare when prevents inefficient investment. We propose to check bundled offers via a price test that controls the monopoly component stand-alone price to preserve efficiencies from both bundling and investment. When the rival invests, the test improves consumer surplus and welfare compared with the 'do-nothing' scenario, or a ban on bundling. The test is not consistent with the predatory pricing framework. Qualitative results hold when we endogenize the bundling strategy.

Keywords: Bundling; Vertical differentiation; Price discrimination; Price test (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-ind
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~bibdis/RePEc/aeg/wpaper/2011-02.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Bundling, Competition and Quality Investment: A Welfare Analysis (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aeg:wpaper:2011-2

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DIS Technical Reports from Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Antonietta Angelica Zucconi ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).